Sandwich with spread or margarine and salad Margarine and Spreads Association

Nutrition and Health

Tips for Healthy Eating

  • Eat a wide variety of foods.
  • Starchy foods, such as rice, potatoes, cereals and bread should make up about a third of the food we eat each day. They are a good source of energy and are rich sources of fibre, calcium, iron and B vitamins. Choose wholegrain varieties where possible. Try to eat at least one starchy food with every main meal.
  • Aim to eat at least five portions of fruit and veg every day. Most of us do not eat enough but remember that fresh, frozen, tinned and dried fruit and vegetables all count. Even a glass of juice will count as one portion.
  • Unless you are a vegetarian, aim to eat more fish. Oily fish, such as mackerel, fresh salmon and sardines, is an excellent source of protein, omega-3 and many vitamins and minerals. We should each be eating two portions of fish a week and one of these should be a portion of oily fish. If you do not like fish, vegetable oils and spreads can be an alternative source of omega-3.
  • To stay healthy we all need fat in our diets (up to 35% of the calories we eat each day can be fat) - but we need to try and cut "bad" fat out of our diets and replace it with "good" fats. Click here to find out more about fat.
  • Most people in the UK are eating too much sugar, but it's fairly easy to cut down. Remember that there may be sugar in sweets, cakes, biscuits, fruit and some soft drinks. On a food label, 10g of sugar or more per 100g means it is high in sugar.
  • Physical activity is a good way of using up extra calories and helps control our weight. Try and get active every day and build up the amount you do.
  • Lots of people think they don't eat much salt, especially if they don't add it to their food. But don't be so sure! Every day in the UK, 85% men and 69% women eat too much salt (Henderson 2002). Adults - and children over 11 - should have no more than 6g salt a day. Younger children should have even less. Eating too much salt can raise your blood pressure (He 2007). And people with high blood pressure are three times more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke than people with normal blood pressure (Lewinton S 2002). Check the labels on the food you eat.
  • Don't skip breakfast. Breakfast can help give us the energy we need to face the day, as well as some of the vitamins and minerals we need for good health. Some people skip breakfast because they think it will help them lose weight. But missing meals doesn't help us lose weight and it isn't good for us, because we can miss out on essential nutrients. Research shows that eating breakfast can actually help people control their weight (van der Heigden 2007). This is probably because when we don't have breakfast we're more likely to get hungry before lunch and snack on foods that are high in fat and sugar, such as biscuits, doughnuts or pastries. So why not go for a couple of slices of wholegrain toast with spread and an apple or a banana.