Food Safety | How to eat to improve immunity? Remember these few numbers

Since ancient times, China has always said that "food is the first necessity of the people", which shows the importance of diet in people's minds. From the perspective of body functions, scientific and nutritious meals provide the daily energy required. Nowadays, "eating for immunity and improving resistance" is not just a slogan. We can meet the various nutrients needed by the human body and improve immunity through reasonable nutrition matching and scientific food combinations.

For a long time, people have always intentionally or unintentionally separated food from nutrition and health. For example, some people think that nutritious meals are not tasty because they lack oil and salt. In fact, in nutrition, it is called nutritious food. Only when the food tastes good can it be more nutritious. What we call nutritious meals does not lie in how nutritious the cooking methods of these foods are, but in how nutritious the combination of these foods is. There is no most unhealthy food, only the most unhealthy way of eating. So if people want to achieve nutritional balance through food, it is recommended that everyone understand these "little numbers".

First, you need to eat more than 13 kinds of food every day. Food diversity is the most important factor in achieving balanced nutrition. That is to say, no matter whether you eat rice, noodles, vegetables, meat, or oil, as long as you eat 13 kinds of food every day, it will be enough. Studies have shown that the Japanese insist on eating more than 30 kinds of food every day, and they have become one of the countries with the longest life expectancy in the world. So we can see that balanced nutrition is very important for the health level of a country.

Second, eat four major categories of food, that is, these 13 foods should include at least four major categories of food, namely, cereals and potatoes, vegetables and fruits, meat, eggs, milk, beans, and fats. If these four major categories of food are evenly distributed among the 13 foods every day, the nutritional intake will be balanced.

Third, this set of numbers is specific to the physical quantity, that is, to ensure 3-6 liang or 3-7 liang of staple food every day, eat 1 jin of vegetables, 1-2 fruits, 1 egg, 1 bag of milk or 1 cup of yogurt, and about 2 liang of lean meat, 2 spoons of oil, which constitutes what we call a balanced diet. If you can carefully design these balanced diet foods every day, I believe that health will be in your hands and immunity will also be in you.

Expert interviewed: Chen Wei, chief physician of the Department of Nutrition, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences