Tips for healthy eating
Eat a Balanced, Rotating Diet. The first thing that should come to mind when thinking of healthy eating is consuming every food group on a rotating basis.
Stay away from a one-sided diet. Make sure your main meal each day is built around a core food group, and make it a habit to eat in a balanced, rotating way by planning to consume the same food groups again only after at least 3-5 days.
If You Don't Like It, Don't Eat It. If you genuinely don't like a certain food, don't eat it. Because if you know how to listen to your body, it will tell you what is beneficial and what is harmful for it.
Stay Away from Refined Foods. Your digestive system cannot easily digest refined foods. Refined food means processed food (for example, sugar beet being processed into white granulated sugar or sugar cubes; wheat ears being turned into snow-white flour). Your digestive system struggles to break down and eliminate refined foods all the way to the final absorption product. It falls short with its existing system, causing buildup both in the intestines and, after absorption, in the connective tissue.
Avoid Fatty Foods and Choose the Right Fats. You should consume fat only to the extent you can digest. Unfortunately, many foods contain a high amount of fat. For example, one portion of french fries covers half of our daily fat requirement.
Along with limiting fat consumption, choosing the right fats is also important. Fat should be fresh, easily digestible and beneficial. Olive oil is recommended for salads. Stay away from solid fats and margarine. Be sure to consume butter in moderation.
Get to Know Healthy Foods. Fresh vegetables, salads, easily digestible fibrous foods, unsweetened fruit oatmeal, rice, millet, buckwheat, whole grain products, potatoes, eggs, fish, beef, watermelon, banana, honey, fruit compote and purée, olive oil, butter... These are healthy foods. This list is of course very long; what I want to emphasize is that we need to get to know our foods. We should learn about foods that are high in nutritional value and low in calories, and teach them to our children, so that over time we have a chance of becoming a society that eats healthily.
Use Fibrous Foods in a Controlled Way. Fiber-rich, high-roughage foods are substances that cannot be digested but are beneficial for health. They keep you full for a long time and increase intestinal movement. Fibrous foods should be an indispensable part of our diet.
Choose Fewer but Higher-Quality Proteins. Our digestive system cannot function without protein, because enzymes are made of proteins. However, our bodies are already quite rich in protein. Many people consume twice as much protein as they need. Excessive protein consumption strains the pancreas and should be consumed in a balanced way. Foods high in protein value: potatoes, eggs, wheat, beef, corn and rye.
Eat Slowly. Eating quickly makes the digestive process considerably harder. Chewing all foods thoroughly is very important for aiding digestion.
Drink Enough Fluids. Our bodies lose 2-2.5 liters of fluid per day. This fluid loss must be replenished. Fluid deficiency in our bodies is recognized by fatigue and reduced concentration. For this reason, sufficient fluids should be consumed throughout the day, even before feeling thirsty.
Favorite Beverages. Since coffee and black tea are both stimulating and acidic, consume them in moderation. If you can manage it, don't drink them at all. Take care to avoid alcohol. Alcohol not only depletes fluid in the body but also harms the liver and pancreas.
Watch Out for Milk and Dairy Products. If gas or diarrhea occurs after consuming milk and dairy products, you should consider that you may be sensitive to milk sugar (lactose). For this, you should seek help from a specialist through a food sensitivity test.
How Food Is Prepared Also Matters! When cooking food, the goal should be easy digestibility and preserving nutritional value. Vitamins are often sensitive to light and heat. When foods are boiled and washed, water-soluble vitamins, minerals and trace elements are destroyed. Cook meat or fish without fat, don't fry it. Add a small amount of water to vegetables in a covered pot and boil briefly so they don't lose their freshness.
Meal Times Also Matter! Eating after eight in the evening is one of the leading causes of weight gain and, over time, disruption of the gut flora. This is because our digestive system also begins to rest at night, so food eaten late at night sits in the stomach like sludge until morning. It enters the body as more concentrated calories, and also comes into contact with the flora as an unhealthy food. Sleeping with an empty stomach at night is the first step of the simplest detox you can do for your health. In short, take care to eat your evening meals as early and as light as possible.
Do Health Cures! Doing a fruit cure one day a week, or eating nothing from after dinner until dinner the next day, is one of the secrets of staying young. We should let our organs rest at least one day a week.
Watch Out for Diet Products! Over the last 20 years in our country, the number of diet or light—also known as diabetic—products has steadily increased on store shelves, and continues to do so. It's commonly assumed that "diet product" means it has no calories, or a significantly reduced amount. But that's not actually the case. Because in this group of foods, only the fat, the sugar, or both have been reduced. Artificial sweeteners are used more heavily in the diabetic product group. So don't assume that foods like diet biscuits, diet chocolate, diet jam, diet cookies, or diet baklava won't cause you to gain weight.
You can find more information on this and similar topics in my book "Güzel, Mutlu ve Sağlıklı" (Beautiful, Happy and Healthy).