The rules on healthy eating seem to change all the time. When I was a child what was then regarded as healthy food is different to what ‘healthy food ‘is today. I find it rather disturbing now to remember how much beef dripping (like lard !) on toast with loads of salt we use to eat with my Mother fondly believing it would do us the world of good! It seems to me that what our parents regarded as wholesome really was unhealthy. But in those days the onus was more on filling you up than any nutritional value.

With Salmonella, cholesterol and battery chickens, eggs also seem to have been knocked off their pedestal .Modern research is constantly discovering new facts about the food we eat.

Recent dietary research has thankfully uncovered 14 different nutrient-dense foods that time and again promote good overall health. These foods they tend to have fewer calories, higher levels of vitamins and minerals, and many disease-fighting antioxidants.

Allegedly beans, berries (especially blueberries), broccoli, green tea, nuts (especially walnuts), oranges, pumpkin, salmon. soy, spinach, tomatoes, turkey, whole grains and oats, and yogurt can all help stop and even reverse diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and some forms of cancer. And where one might have an effect on a certain part of the body, it can also affect the health of other body functions and performance, since the whole body is connected. With these 14 foods as the base of a balanced, solid diet, weight loss gimmicks and other fly-by-night programs can become a thing of the past in your life.

Conversely, the ill-effects of an unbalanced diet are several and varied. Low energy levels, mood swings, tired all the time, weight change, uncomfortable with your body are just a few signs that your diet is unbalanced. An unbalanced diet can cause problems with maintenance of body tissues, growth and development, brain and nervous system function, as well as problems with bone and muscle systems.

Symptoms of malnutrition include lack of energy, irritability, a weakened immune system leading to frequent colds or allergies, and mineral depletion that can trigger a variety of health concerns including anemia.

And since the body is connected, realizing that an unhealthy body will result in an unhealthy spirit only makes sense. When we nourish our body with these healing foods and complement them with other nutrient-dense and healthy fresh foods, our spirit will be vitalized and healthy as a direct result.

Many modern diets based on prepackaged convenience foods are sorely lacking in many vitamins and minerals, which can affect our mental capacities as well, and cause irritability, confusion, and the feeling of ‘being in a fog’ all the time.

Healthy eating can be the basis of a sound, healthy, nutritious solution to curing many of these ailments and more.

It never hurts to be well-informed with the latest on Healthy Eating. Compare what you’ve learned here to future articles so that you can stay alert to changes in the area of Healthy Eating.

Jayne Waldorf served 5 years in the Womens Royal Air Force followed by 15 years as an Administrative Officer in the Civil Service.Today she enjoys spending time on her websites and with her family. She lives in Cheshire England with her husband and has two grown up sons. http://www.waldorflinks.com

• Fewer than 1 in 100 Britons eating 'healthy' diet - the rest of us eat food laden with fat, sugar and salt (Daily Mail)
  
  Fewer than one in 100 Britons have a healthy diet, preferring instead food high in sugar, salt and fat. A study shows that only eight in 1,000 adults met all five targets for healthy eating.
  


• Less than 1 in 100 Britons eating 'healthy' diet - the rest of us eat food laden with fat, sugar and salt (Daily Mail: World News)
  
  Fewer than one in 100 Britons have a healthy diet, preferring instead food high in sugar, salt and fat. A study has found that only eight in 1,000 adults - or 0.8 per cent - met all five targets for healthy eating.
  


• Adopting healthy lifestyle challenges four participants (Jefferson City News Tribune)
  
  “I needed a huge change in my life, a chance to get started on learning how to be healthy and learning how to exercise correctly and make healthy eating choices,” said Stephanie Wehmeir, one of four Mid-Missourians taking part in the Capital Region Healthplex and the American Heart Association's Mid-Missouri Healthy Start!
  


• Kids blast off to healthy habits (Western Advocate)
  
  Students at South Bathurst Public School have thrown themselves into a competition designed to encourage them to eat more fruit and vegetables. The Blast Off and Win promotion by Sydney Markets encourages healthy eating habits in children.
  


• Survey Finds Women Interested in Healthy Eating Miss the Mark on Calcium and Fiber (Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance)
  
  CARLSBAD, Calif.----Snacktrition, a new line of calcium and fiber enhanced nut snacks from Mellace Family Brands, today released the results of a national consumer survey that sheds some light on common snacking habits and nutrition knowledge.
  


• What's eating us? (The New Zealand Herald)
  
  Who doesn't know someone who's on a diet? Whether it's rigorously adhering to the guidelines of the latest fad diet, eating only healthy food and "being good" before falling wholly off the wagon, or just restricting your calorie intake, obsessing about food has become the ultimate modern anxiety.
  


• How many calories are you really eating? (Asheville Citizen-Times)
  
  Beware the “who knew?” effect — that scary moment when you learn the whopping calorie count of a favorite food. Take this quiz from Fitness to find out whether you’re making healthy choices or sabotaging your diet.
  


• The online diet disasters: How personalised plans offer advice that is often wrong and sometimes dangerous (Daily Mail)
  
  Avoid oily fish, cut out all dairy foods, : it's the kind of advice that flies in the face of conventional thinking on healthy eating. Yet, amazingly, this is what I was told to do.
  


• Fit dads mean healthy kids - study (Daily Telegraph)
  
  CHILDREN mimic their fathers over their mothers when it comes to healthy eating and exercise, Australian research has found.
  


• Preparing To Send Your Children Off To School? Healthy Breakfast, Lunch and Snack Ideas From Cabot(R) Can Contribute ... (PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance)
  
  Who out there hasn't been told you need to start your day off with a healthy breakfast?