To reduce your risk of an early death by nearly 20%, simply choosing healthier foods and sticking to a specific healthy eating pattern could make all the difference.
A study, reported by CNN, found that people who carefully followed one of four healthy eating patterns were less likely to die from chronic conditions such as:
- Cancer
- Cardiovascular illness
- Respiratory and neurodegenerative disease.
With four different eating options, all including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, these findings could, quite literally, change your life.
Good news if you quickly get bored of diets
If you’re someone who gets bored of sticking to one way of eating, the results of this study might be just the thing to help you stick to a healthy eating plan.
The research proved that it’s possible to create your own pattern of healthy eating, tailor your diet to include foods you prefer, and match them with any health conditions, too.
The study followed the eating habits of 75,000 women and more than 44,000 men over 36 years. None of the participants had cardiovascular disease at the start of the study, and few were smokers. Every four years, all the men and women taking part completed eating questionnaires.
Researchers scored participants on how closely they followed four healthy eating styles:
- The Mediterranean diet
- The healthful plant-based diet
- The Healthy Eating Index
- The Alternate Healthy Eating Index.
5 key takeaways (no, not that kind!)
Whether you want to go all-out to change your diet and increase your potential lifespan, or simply want to make healthier choices and improve your energy levels, here are five key takeaways from the research.
1. Eat a predominantly plant-based diet
All four eating styles that were found to have healthy life-extending benefits consist of primarily plant-based foods.
The Mediterranean diet, for instance, is high in vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, beans, cereals, grains, fish, and unsaturated fats such as olive oil. It’s also one of the most recognised and popular healthy ways to eat.
The key benefit of sticking to a mostly plant-based diet is that it emphasises healthy fats – namely olive oil, which is often linked to good heart health.
2. Switch away from saturated fats
If you only make one change, switch away from saturated fats (think butter, cheese, cakes, biscuits, fatty meat, sausages, and bacon) and turn your attention to unsaturated fat (think olive oil, sunflower oil, nuts, seeds, and oily fish).
To give you a measure, the NHS website recommends that:
- Men should eat no more than 30g of saturated fat a day
- Women should eat no more than 20g of saturated fat a day.
When you feel peckish, instead of reaching for the biscuit tin, try a handful of nuts instead. You’d be surprised how filling they can be. Plus, with so many different nuts available, you’ll be spoilt for choice – which should go some way to help you avoid getting bored of making the healthy choice.
3. Avoid starchy potato products
Like the Mediterranean diet, the healthful plant-based diet, also focuses on eating more plant products.
Though this taking things a step further, giving negative points for animal products and alcohol. It also discourages fish and some dairy products, that would usually be considered heathy.
On top of this, the diet frowns upon potatoes and potato products – despite them being plant-based.
There are various swaps you could try when replacing potato, but one you might not automatically think of is cauliflower – it works great in soup, you can roast or mash it, and even use it for cauliflower rice.
4. Reduce the amount of processed meat and red meat you consume
While red meat is a good source of protein, iron, zinc, and B12, it’s generally recommended to limit how much you include in your weekly diet.
Try swapping meat for pulses, such as beans, lentils, peas, or chickpeas. And if you can’t bring yourself to cut red meat out entirely, opt for high quality beef or lamb.
If nothing else, avoid eating processed meats – bacon, sausages, ham, and so on. In fact, when doing your regular grocery shop, do your utmost to steer clear of anything ultra-processed. These are best avoided because they often contain high levels of saturated fat, salt, and sugar.
Foods on the ultra-processed hit list includes ice cream, ham, sausages, crisps, mass-produced bread, breakfast cereals, biscuits, fizzy drinks, flavoured yogurts, instant soups, and even some alcoholic drinks such as whisky, gin, and rum.
5. Lower your intake of sugar and sodium
While sugary drinks are the worst culprits for added sugar, they aren’t the only thing you should cut back on. Many packaged food have added sugar, even savoury goods like ham or tinned soups may have sugar listed in the ingredients.
If you don’t already make a habit of it, next time you do your weekly shop, pause to read the ingredient lists before tossing your usual favourites in your trolley. It may give you pause.
Finally, as well as cutting back on processed foods with added salt, swap your regular salt or the course sea salt in your grinder for pink Himalayan salt.
Not only is it pretty, but Himalayan salt is also less processed than regular salt. It tastes the same, if not better than what you might be used to and it’s estimated that it may contain more than 80 different minerals and trace elements – particularly iron, which is what makes it pink.
