The principles and Practices of healthy meals

Irrespective of the age of person, maintenance of good health depends on following of the Principles & Practices of healthy meals. A model family consists of Grand Parents, Parents and the Children and each generation has an age difference of 20 to 30 years. Each group of family members has different nutritional needs and assimilating powers.

A food, which is good for the parents, may not be good for the child and grand parents, but in a family there is practice of making one meal for all, so some members are not getting food to ensure growth and good health. Thus it is necessary that the food for the child and the grand parents is adjusted so that the food meets the nutrition needs of all the members and is good for digestion.

One should ensure that at least once a day there is Practice of preparing nutritious and delicious Family meal. At this meal time care should be taken that there is at least five varieties of seasonal fresh vegetables and fruits so as to complement each other to provide a truly nutritious meal suitable for all the age groups so that as per the required one can take additional helping to meet the age related requirements at least one time in a day.

In between the three principal meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner the children and young members of the family may require additional quick food snacks. To meet such a need one should prepare and keep stocked health home made snacks made from whole cereals grains flour, gram flour sweet as well salt based ensuring that sugar, fats and salt are used in minimum quantity because of their tendency of causing obesity and hypertension etc. One can also stock parched grams and other grains in case the fat, salt and sugar are not desired to be consumed by a person.