Exam Review

  ||

A balanced diet

J = John

D = Diane Greenbaum

J:    Good morning, good morning, everyone. and welcome to our regular lecture on health issues. This series of lectures is organised by the Students’ Union and is part of the union’s attempt to help you, the students of this university, to stay healthy while coping with study and social life at the same time. So it’s a great pleasure for me to welcome back Ms Diane Greenbaum who is a professional dietician and who has been kind enough to give up her time, in  what I know is a very hectic schedule, to come along and talk to us today.

D:    Thank you. Thank you very much, John. May I say it’s a pleasure to be back. Now, stresses at university, being away from home and having to look after yourselves, learning your way around the campus all contribute to making it quite hard sometimes to ensure that your diet is adequate. So today I’m going to talk about ways of making sure that you eat well while at the same time staving within your budget.  

If you have a well balanced diet, then you should be getting all the vitamins that you need for normal daily living. However sometimes we think we’re eating the right foods but the vitamins are escaping, perhaps as a result of cooking and anyway we’re not getting the full benefit of them. Now, if you  lack vitamins in any way the solution isn’t to rush off and take vitamin pills. though they can sometimes help. No it’s far better to look at your diet and how you prepare your food.

So what are vitamins? Well, the dictionary tells us they are “food factors essential in small quantities to maintain life”. Now, there are fat soluble vitamins which can be stored for quite some time by the body and there are water soluble vitamins which are removed more rapidly from the body and so a regular daily intake of these ones is needed.  

OK, so how can you ensure that your diet contains enough of the vitamins you need? Well, first of all, you may have to establish some new eating habits! No more chips at the uni canteen, I’m afraid! Now firstly, you must eat a variety of foods. Then you need to ensure that you eat at least four  servings of fruit and vegetables daily. Now you’ll need to shop two or three times a week to make sure that they’re fresh, and store your vegetables in the fridge or in a cool dark place. 

Now let's just refresh our memories by looking at the Healthy Diet Pyramid. OK, can you all see that? Good. Well ,now, as you see we’ve got three levels to our pyramid. At the top in the smallest area are the things which we should really be trying to avoid as much as possible. Things like ... yes, sugar, salt, butter ... all that sort of thing. Next, on the middle of our pyramid we find the things that we can eat in moderation. Not too much though! And that’s where we find milk, lean meat,  fish, nuts, eggs. And then at the bottom of the pyramid are the things that you can eat lots of! Because they’re the things that are really good for you And here we have bread, vegetables and fruit. So don’t lose sight of your healthy diet pyramid when you do your shopping.