Let Food Be Your Medicine

Forget the latest fad diet – go back to basics and follow these principles to improve your health

- Kim Arendse

We all know someone, or we’ve been that someone, who jumps onto the latest diet bandwagon only to fall off it a few weeks later – or maybe even a few days later.

But people are steering clear of fad diets more and more these days because they’re just too difficult to sustain. Instead, there’s been a move towards going back to basics.

This thinking is rooted in the idea that the best way to maintain optimal health is to eat food that’s truly nutritious.

Think fresh whole foods full of the nutrients your body needs. They’re reliable, sustainable, balanced, can be affordable with proper planning – and there’s no weighing in daily, drastic weight loss or cutting out food groups.

“It’s easy to be led astray by trending health claims and fad diets, but a healthy diet is as simple as eating mostly whole foods which provide nutrients in their most natural form,” says Irene Labuschagne, a dietician at the Nutrition Information Centre of the University of Stellenbosch.

She adds that leading experts and professional health organisations recommend a diet of mainly vegetables and fruit, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains – ideally locally produced and homemade.

“Consumption of meat, processed meat and ultra-processed food that’s high in fat, sugar and salt should be limited, and sugary drinks should be avoided,” Labuschagne says.