Why Maintaining a Healthy Diet is Important for Preventing Disease

We all know the saying “you are what you eat.” And while it’s a well-worn cliché, it’s absolutely true — especially when it comes to staying healthy and keeping all those nasty illnesses at bay, from the common cold to more serious conditions. It is essential to ensure that your body is getting not just enough nutrition, but the right kind of nutrition, in order to maintain a healthy and effective immune system. Read on to learn more about the relationship between your diet and preventing disease, and find out what things you should be changing about your diet to keep healthy!

It’s all about the Vitamin C

Another cliché for you — “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Making sure that your diet consists of a healthy amount of fruit and vegetable is essential because they contain important nutrients for keeping your disease-free. Vitamin C is important when it comes to warding off colds and protecting your immune system from more severe conditions like deficiencies, cardiovascular disease, eye disease and even skin wrinkling.

Everyone knows that oranges are a fantastic source of Vitamin C, but some other lesser known sources of Vitamin C include kale, red peppers, Brussel sprouts, broccoli and strawberries. Work these into your diet to give your immune system the strength it needs!

Maintaining good cardiovascular health

Cardiovascular disease is a serious condition that afflicts many Australians, and what foods we consume are among the causes behind diseases such as coronary heart disease and strokes. These conditions are caused by factors like high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure, which comes as a result of eating too many foods that have a high density of low density lipoprotein — perhaps more commonly known as bad cholesterol. Such foods include eggs, red meat, liver and margarine. This isn’t to say that you should cut these out of your diet completely — as they say, the key to everything is moderation. Make sure you balance out consumption of bad cholesterol foods by eating foods that rich with good cholesterol as well (high density lipoprotein), which include beans, geumes, high fibre fruits (think apples, pears and prunes), fatty fish and — you’ll be pleased to hear this one — red wine!