Get advice about nutrition essentials and making healthier choices for a balanced diet. You should eat:
- lots of fruit and vegetables - at least 5 a day
- more starchy foods such as wholegrain bread, pasta, rice and potatoes
- less fat (especially saturated fat), salt and sugar
A Balanced Diet - The Eatwell Plate
It is important to eat a variety of foods to make sure you get all the nutrients your body needs. You can use the Eatwell Plate to make healthy eating easier to understand.
Find out more in this section about the types and proportions of foods we need to have a healthy and well balanced diet. You can also find advice on eating 5 a day, reducing salt and cutting down on saturated fat.
In our Food Shopping section you can find information about front-of-pack Traffic Light nutrition labels to help you make healthier choices.
Eight Tips for Eating Well
The NHS has eight practical tips to help you make healthier choices and eat well:
-
Base your meals on starchy foods, to increase the fibre in your diet
-
Eat lots of fruit and vegetables - you should have at least five different portions every day
-
Eat more fish, including a portion of oily fish each week
-
Cut down on saturated fat and sugar
-
Try to eat less salt – no more than 6g a day
-
Get active and try to be a healthy weight - being overweight can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes
-
Drink plenty of water - about six to eight glasses (1.2 litres) of water or other fluids every day, but cut down on alcohol
-
Do not skip breakfast - try a bowl of wholegrain cereal with some sliced banana and a glass of fruit juice
More on the NHS Live Well Website
To find out more about healthy eating, go to the NHS Live Well website using the links from this page.
The NHS site has a range of interactive tools to help you with healthy eating - Supermarket Health Checker, Healthy Eating Self Assessment, Eating Disorders Video Wall, 5 A DAY Meal Planner, Guide to Barbecue Safety, and Food Allergies Self Assessment.
