Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods that give you the nutrients you need to maintain your health, feel good, and have energy. These nutrients include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, vitamins, and minerals. Nutrition is important for everyone.
What Does Healthy Eating Mean?
Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods that give you the nutrients you need to maintain your health, feel good, and have energy. These nutrients include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, vitamins, and minerals.
Nutrition is important for everyone. When combined with being physically active and maintaining a healthy weight, eating well is an excellent way to help your body stay strong and healthy. If you have a history of breast cancer or are currently undergoing treatment, eating well is especially important for you. What you eat can affect your immune system, your mood, and your energy level.
No food or diet can prevent you from getting breast cancer. While researchers are still studying the effects of eating unhealthy food on breast cancer and recurrence risk, we do know that being overweight is a risk factor for both first-time and recurrent breast cancer. In this section, you can learn how to eat in a way that keeps your body as healthy as it can be.
Read on for information about food groups, nutrients, how to create a healthy eating plan, how to figure out portions, and how enjoy your food without overeating.
Understanding Food Groups
Fruits and vegetables
A diet rich in fruits and vegetables is recommended by cancer experts as well as registered dietitians. The American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommend eating 5 or more servings of a variety of vegetables and fruits each day to ensure that your cancer risk is as low as it can be. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend 9 servings of fruit and vegetables each day. This sounds like a lot, but it's really only about 2 cups of fruit and 2 1/2 cups of vegetables.
Nutrition experts say that variety is key, because different fruits and vegetables have different nutrients. Plus, if you eat too much of one thing, you might get bored. One way to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables is to eat foods with all the colors of the rainbow. Green is broccoli. Red is peppers. Yellow is a banana. Purple is eggplant. Orange is an orange. Or try to eat dark green vegetables (think spinach, collard greens, or kale) at one meal, and orange (carrots, sweet potatoes, or squash) the next. Cut up an apple into your morning cereal and have a peach with your lunch. Frozen raspberries or blackberries are a yummy dessert. Be creative!
Whole grains
USDA guidelines recommend 3 ounces or more of whole grains per day. Whole grains still have the bran and the germ (the core of the grain kernel) attached and have more fiber, minerals, and vitamins than refined grains. The refining process removes the bran and germ from the grain.
You can't tell if a food is made from whole grain by looking at its color — you have to read the label. The ingredients should say "whole" or "whole grain" before the grain's name, "whole grain wheat," for example. Brown rice, bulgur, oatmeal, and barley are examples of whole grains that are eaten on their own. Both the American Institute for Cancer Research and the American Cancer Society recommend choosing whole grains over refined grains. To be considered high in whole grains, bread must have 2 to 3 grams of fiber per slice, and cereals must have at least 6 or more grams of fiber per serving. Some examples are Multi-Bran Chex cereal by General Mills (7 grams of fiber per serving) and Flax and Fiber Crunch cereal by Back to Nature (9 grams of fiber per serving).
Meat and beans
Meat is a good source of the protein and fatty acids you need for energy and health. Red meat also contains iron, which is especially important for women. But meat also has high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol, and a study done in 2006 found that eating more than 1 1/2 servings of red meat per day may increase breast cancer risk. The USDA guidelines recommend 5 1/2 ounces of meat (defined to include chicken and fish) per day, or meat substitutes (vegetable protein products) or beans if you prefer not to eat meat. If you do eat meat, poultry, or fish, try to choose lean cuts and opt for chicken or fish most of the time. If you don't eat meat, you may need to add nuts, seeds, or beans to your diet to ensure that you're getting enough protein and iron.
Eggs are also included in this category. One egg equals a 1-ounce serving of meat.
Milk and dairy
The USDA recommends that you eat one of these options every day:
- 3 cups of low-fat/fat-free milk or yogurt (that's a little more than 3 6-ounce containers of yogurt)
- 4.5 ounces of low-fat/fat-free natural cheese, such as cheddar (about 4 slices)
- 6 ounces of low-fat or fat-free processed cheese, such as American (about 6 slices)
Alternatively, you can mix portions of the above choices as long as they add up to the equivalent of the recommended amount. For example:
- 1 1/2 cups of low-fat/fat-free milk and 3 ounces of processed cheese
- 1 cup of low-fat/fat-free milk, a 6-ounce container of yogurt, and 1 1/2 ounces of natural cheese
Processed cheese has less calcium than natural cheese. That's why you need to eat more of it per day. Processed cheese is made from natural cheese and other ingredients. It is pasteurized and has more moisture so it can be stored longer and melt easier.
If you don't like or can't drink milk or milk products, make sure you get enough phosphorus, vitamin A, calcium, and vitamin D from other food sources. Examples include carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, broccoli, dark green leafy vegetables, salmon, sardines, and fortified cereals.
If you are lactose intolerant, you might want to try lactase supplements.
Fats and oils
You need some fat in your diet, but not very much. The USDA guidelines recommend that you get no more than 35% of your daily calories from fat.
There are three main types of fats:
- Saturated fats are the "bad" fats that raise your cholesterol levels. Saturated fats are found in animal products such as whole milk, cheese, ice cream, fatty meats, and some vegetable oils, such as palm and coconut oils. Saturated fat also includes trans fat, found in shortening, stick (or hard) margarine, cookies, crackers, snack foods, fried foods, doughnuts, pastries, baked goods, and other processed foods made with or fried in partially hydrogenated oils.
- Monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fats are the "good" fats that help lower your LDL cholesterol. These types of fats are found in fish and foods from plants such as vegetables, nuts, and grains, as well as oils made from these nuts and grains (canola, corn, soybean).
These five food groups can supply you with all the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy and strong. You may be wondering where chocolate and some of your other favorite treats fit. Don't worry, they do. You just have to be mindful of when you eat them and how much of them you eat.
How Your Body Gets Nutrients From Foods
Eating a wide range of foods that include a variety of nutrients is the easiest way to have a healthy diet.
Proteins
Proteins give your body amino acids — the building blocks that help your body's cells do all of their everyday activities. Proteins help your body build new cells, repair old cells, create hormones and enzymes, and keep your immune system healthy. If you don't have enough protein, your body takes longer to recover from illness and you're more likely to get sick in the first place.
During treatment for breast cancer, some people may need more protein than usual. Good sources of protein are lean meat, fish, poultry, and low-fat dairy products, as well as nuts, dried beans, peas, and lentils.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates give you quick energy — they quickly go into your blood as glucose (blood sugar), which your body uses for fuel first, before turning the leftovers into fat.
Fruits, vegetables, bread, pasta, grains, cereal products, crackers, dried beans, peas, and lentils are all good sources of carbohydrates. Many of them are also good sources of fiber, which your digestive system needs to stay healthy.
Sugar (white and brown), honey, and molasses are also carbohydrates. But these types of carbohydrates are high in calories and don't offer any other benefits (like vitamins and minerals). Whole grains and fruits and vegetables are healthier sources of carbohydrates than refined grains and sugars.
Fats
Fats give your body the fatty acids it needs to grow and to produce new cells and hormones. Fat also helps some vitamins move through your body. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble vitamins, which means they need some fat to be absorbed. They are also stored in the fatty tissues in your body and the liver. Fat also helps protect your organs against trauma. Your body stores excess calories as fat, which is saved up as reserve energy.
Fats give you more concentrated calories than carbohydrates or proteins. In other words, a teaspoon of fat will have more calories than a teaspoon of carbohydrate or a teaspoon of protein.
There are three basic types of fats:
- Saturated fats, found mainly in meat and whole-milk products, are only found in foods that come from animals, not those that come from plants. Saturated fat is the type that raises your blood cholesterol level. Trans fats (also called trans-saturated fats or trans fatty acids) are formed when liquid vegetable oils go through a process called hydrogenation, in which hydrogen is added to make the oils more solid. Hydrogenated vegetable fats are used in food processing because they give foods a longer shelf-life and a desirable taste, shape, and texture. The majority of trans fat is found in shortening, stick (or hard) margarine, cookies, crackers, snack foods, fried foods (including fried fast food), doughnuts, pastries, baked goods, and other processed foods made with or fried in partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fat also raises your blood's level of "bad" cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL), and lowers your level of "good" cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL).
- Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are found in plant foods such as vegetables, nuts, and grains, as well as oils made from these nuts and grains (canola, corn, soybean). Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are polyunsaturated. Besides vegetables, nuts, and grains, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are found in coldwater fish such as tuna, salmon, and mackerel. Some studies have shown that eating foods that have mono or polyunsaturated fats can help reduce your levels of "bad" (LDL) cholesterol. Mono and polyunsaturated fats also may keep your triglyceride levels low. Triglycerides are a form of fat in your bloodstream. People with high triglyceride levels often have high total cholesterol, high LDL cholesterol, and low HDL ("good") cholesterol. Studies have linked high triglyceride levels to increased risk of stroke and heart disease.
Vitamins and minerals
Vitamins keep your bones strong, your vision clear and sharp, and your skin, nails, and hair healthy and glowing. Vitamins also help your body use energy from the food you eat.
Minerals are chemical elements that help regulate your body's processes. Potassium, for example, helps your nerves and muscles function. Calcium helps your teeth and bones stay strong. Iron carries oxygen to your cells.
If you eat a balanced diet with enough calories and protein, you're probably getting enough vitamins and minerals. But if you're receiving treatment for breast cancer, this may be a challenge. And certain treatments may sap your body's supplies of some vitamins or minerals.
It's also important to remember that there is a big difference between getting your nutrients through food and taking supplements (vitamins, minerals, and herbals/botanicals). Vitamins and minerals work together in your body in very complex ways, affecting each other's absorption and processing and influencing how your body functions. When you get your vitamins and minerals through eating foods, it is often easier for your body to maintain a balance of these nutrients. When you take a supplement, such as a vitamin C or E tablet, you're getting a highly concentrated dose that you would probably never get from food. While some supplements may be beneficial, others may reduce the effectiveness of certain breast cancer treatments.
Water
Water is necessary for life, which makes it vital for good health. Water makes up about 50% to 66% of your total body weight. It regulates your temperature, moves nutrients through your body, and gets rid of waste. Breast cancer treatment can sometimes cause diarrhea or vomiting. Losing a lot of fluids plus the chemicals and minerals they contain can lead to dehydration.
In general, it's a good idea to drink 6 to 8 glasses of water a day. If you've lost fluids because of diarrhea or vomiting, you need to replace both the fluids and the essential ingredients in them. Chicken or vegetable broth, tomato juice, fruit juices, and sports drinks such as Gatorade are examples of fluids that can help you replace the vitamins and minerals your body has lost.
What Happens to Food in Your Body?
Just thinking about eating causes your body to start secreting insulin, a hormone that helps keep blood sugar (glucose) under control. Insulin is made by the pancreas. As you eat, more insulin is released, in response to the carbohydrates in the meal. Insulin is released when you eat protein-rich foods, but at a slower rate. If your pancreas is functioning properly, the amount of carbohydrates in what you’re eating usually determines how much insulin is released.
As you digest carbohydrates, they go into the blood stream as glucose. To keep blood sugar levels under control, insulin signals the cells in your body to take in glucose from the blood stream. The cells use some of glucose for energy and store some for later use. The way glucose is stored depends on the type of cell doing the storing. Muscle cells store glucose as glycogen. Liver cells store some glucose as glycogen and convert some to fat. Fat cells store glucose as fat.
A special note about high-fructose corn syrup: High-fructose corn syrup was introduced in 1978 and replaced the sugar in most soft drinks by about 1985. Total yearly sugar consumption (which excludes artificial sweeteners) immediately increased from 120 pounds per person to 150 pounds per person. High-fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose, 42% glucose, and 3% other carbohydrates. One important fact about fructose: it’s the carbohydrate your body converts to fat most easily. When you digest high-fructose corn syrup, much of the glucose in it ends up in the blood stream, raising your blood sugar levels. But the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup is processed almost totally in the liver, which has the proper enzymes to do the job. So fructose has no immediate effect on blood sugar and insulin levels, but there are lots of long-term effects.
Your liver isn’t designed to process the amount of fructose most people eat today. Fruit has fairly small amounts of fructose – a cup of blueberries has about 30 calories of fructose in it. But soft drinks or juices sweetened with high fructose corn syrup have much higher amounts – 12 ounces of Pepsi or Coke has 80 calories of fructose; 12 ounces of apple juice has 85 calories of fructose.
Your liver’s answer to this flood of fructose is to turn most of it into fat and ship it to your fat tissue. At the same time, the glucose that comes with the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup raises your blood sugar levels and makes your body secrete insulin, which tells your fat cells to store whatever comes their way, including the fructose processed into fat coming from your liver.
The more high-fructose corn syrup you eat and the more years you spend eating it, the more your body adapts by converting high-fructose corn syrup to fat. Over time, you accumulate fat in your liver (a condition called “fatty liver disease”). So while fructose has no immediate effect on your blood sugar and insulin, after a few years it will likely cause you to store calories as fat.
As glucose is removed from the blood stream, insulin levels go down and your cells start using fat for fuel instead of glucose. This is why you can go for long stretches – overnight, for example, when you’re sleeping, without eating. Your cells rely on fat for fuel.
There are two types of body fat: fatty acids and triglycerides. Fatty acids are small enough to move in and out of cells and be used as fuel for cells. Fat is stored inside fat cells as triglycerides, three fatty acids bound together. Triglycerides are too big to flow through cell membranes and so are stored for future use.
Insulin also plays a major role in telling your body when to store and use fat and protein. It does this by affecting the actions of two enzymes, lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL).
LPL sits on the surface of cells and pulls fat out of the bloodstream and into the cell. If LPL is on a muscle cell, it pulls fat into the cell where it’s used for fuel. If LPL is on a fat cell, it pulls fat into the cell and makes it fatter.
It’s important to know that the hormone estrogen suppresses LPL activity on fat cells. This could be one reason why some women gain weight after menopause or after breast cancer treatment that dramatically decreases estrogen levels. With less estrogen in the body, LPL can pull more fat into fat cells and store it there.
The HSL enzyme works to make fat cells leaner by breaking down triglycerides into fatty acids that then can leave the fat cell and be used as fuel by other cells. So the higher HSL levels, the more fat we break down and burn.
Insulin reduces HSL enzyme levels, which stops triglycerides from being broken down and means more fat is stored in fat cells. When insulin levels are up even a little bit, fat accumulates in fat cells.
Some research suggests that keeping insulin levels steady can help some people lose weight. Eating healthy sources of protein and fat (lean meat, fish, poultry and nuts and seeds), as well as complex carbohydrates that are good sources of vitamins and minerals and (vegetables, fruit, whole grains) instead of refined carbohydrates (candy, sugar, cookies, cakes, white bread, pie) can help prevent insulin spikes.
Designing a Healthy Eating Plan
To have a healthy, balanced diet, you need to eat a wide variety of foods that are rich in nutrients.
Your best bet is to choose the most nutrient-dense foods you can from each food group each day — those packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients, and also low in refined carbohydrates such as sugar and white flour. Pick foods like vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and lean meat and fish. You may want to choose organic sources of foods. (Organic means that no man-made pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics were applied to the crop while it was being grown or to feed that was given to animals that provided the food, or were given to the animals.)
You’ll probably find that fresh foods offer more nutrients and less sugar than processed foods.
Do you need to count calories?
Many people believe that if you eat fewer calories than you burn each day, you’ll lose weight, and if you eat the same number of calories that you’ll burn, you’ll maintain a healthy weight. This plan works for many people, but not all.
If you’re counting calories, it’s important to think about what you’re eating. Say Jane eats 1,200 calories a day of cake, cookies and white bread. She’s probably not going to lose any weight. Betty eats 1,200 calories a day of fresh vegetables and fruit and lean protein. She’s probably going to lose some weight and get a lot more nutrients from her food. Counting calories is only part of the weight loss equation.
And counting calories is only one way to lose weight. Because the hormone insulin plays a major role in how your body uses and stores fat, some research suggests that eating foods that keep insulin levels steady throughout the day — lean meat and fish, poultry, vegetables, and fruit — rather than foods like sugar, candy, white bread and crackers — can help you maintain a healthy weight.
Analyze your diet
You may want to do more to design a diet that meets your individual goals. If you're unable to work directly with a registered dietitian, you have some other options. Computer programs and online tools can help you further analyze what you eat. They go beyond whether or not you're getting enough of a specific nutrient. Some of them might even make recommendations about how much of specific foods you should eat per day and track your eating and nutrient patterns over time.
You can use the information to make smart choices from every food group so you get the nutrition you need.
- filling half your plate with vegetables and fruits
- filling one-quarter of your plate with grains, half of them whole grains
- filling one-quarter of your plate with lean protein, making sure you vary your protein sources and include fish twice a week cutting back on foods high in added sugar, salt, and fat.
Portion Size:
After you decide how many calories you need to eat per day and which foods you're going to eat, don't let super-sized portions ruin your good plans. Try to visualize the items below when you're planning a meal, ordering food out, or grabbing a snack.
For example, the USDA recommends you eat 3 to 4 ounces of meat, poultry, or fish as part of a healthy meal. That's about the size of a deck of cards. One study found that the typical portion size is at least twice as large, and some may be 8 times as large! Reducing your portion size is a good step toward a healthy diet, even if you don't get down to the suggested portion sizes listed here.
| This portion size | is as big as |
|---|---|
| 1 ounce of poultry or meat | a matchbox |
| 3 ounces of poultry or meat (the recommended size for a meal) | a deck of cards or a bar of soap |
| 3 ounces of fish | a checkbook |
| 1 ounce of cheese | four dice |
| A medium potato | a computer mouse |
| 2 tablespoons of peanut butter | a ping pong ball |
| 1 cup of pasta | a tennis ball |
| A bagel | a hockey puck |
Enjoying Your Food
As you're creating your plan for healthy eating to give your body what it needs, remember to include happiness in the recipe. Don't deprive yourself of your favorite foods. If you're feeling deprived, you'll probably be irritable and less likely to stick with a healthy diet plan. Macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, chocolate pudding — they've been named comfort foods for a reason. Eating these familiar foods makes you feel happy, safe, and protected. You may have happy memories connected to these foods, and eating them brings back those good feelings. The trick is to eat these foods in a mindful way so that you get maximum enjoyment from a smaller amount.
Instead of eating an entire carton of ice cream, slowly eat a tablespoon or two and notice how the flavor and texture changes. And don't eat from the carton. Put a small portion into a pretty dish. Experience the pleasure of the food on your tongue and in your mouth. Savor each sensation as you chew and swallow.
If you love chocolate, splurge on one or two pieces of expensive, individually wrapped pieces rather than a jumbo bag of chocolate candies from a discount store. Yes, the richer chocolates will have more fat, but they'll also taste better and may give you more satisfaction in the long run. Plus, if you don't have an entire bag on the shelf, you can't eat it all.
Moderation just may not work for you when it comes to certain foods — like your mother's pumpkin pie or freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. You might need to totally avoid these foods for several months until you feel comfortable enough with your healthy diet to add back a small piece of pie or one cookie. Or you may find that you don't even like the taste anymore.
Eating should be a joyful experience that gives your body what it needs to be healthy. Be creative and daring with new recipes and combinations. Smoothies, for example, are a fun, easy way to try new flavor combinations.
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