Better Health, through Food?
Welcome! Meet Tru Valu’s Wellness Wednesday newsletter. Over the next few weeks, we will be raising awareness on the role nutrition plays in improving health and preventing diseases. We have chosen to share with you via the Medium platform so that everyone can benefit and therefore we can engage in a national conversation that benefits both our employees and customers. Joining Medium is very easy, follow us and read a couple free articles a month. Or if you like, become a member of Medium and get unlimited reads.
So firstly, what is Nutrition?
Food is made up of many different nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, protein, and fats. Nutrition is a science which looks at these nutrients in foods and how the body uses these nutrients to promote good health. For example, we need Vitamin C in our diets to ensure our immune system stays healthy, and that will prevent us from getting the cold. An easy way to make sure we have enough vitamin C in our system is to eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
Nutrition also allows us to prevent and even treat some diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
What is Diabetes (or ‘sugar’ as it’s known here)
Diabetes is a metabolic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to process blood sugars. It can occur when your body’s blood sugar is too high. Blood sugar is the body’s leading source of energy. So when our body is unable to process blood sugar, it stays in our blood and doesn’t go to our cells. Over time, this build-up of sugar in the blood can lead to health problems. Although diabetes cannot be cured, it can be managed through medicine and diet. For example, Type 2 diabetes can be managed solely through diet in the early stages and potentially prevent it from becoming worse. Trinidad and Tobago (TTO) ranks among the countries with the most prevalent and fastest-growing cases of diabetes. The reason lies in our lifestyle choices.
What is Cardiovascular disease?
Cardiovascular disease is a general term for conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels. The most prevalent cardiovascular diseases in TTO are hypertension and cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease and also stroke. Heart disease is the number one cause of mortality in TTO, followed by diabetes. The most common risk factors of heart disease and stroke are an unhealthy diet, tobacco use, physical inactivity, and harmful use of alcohol. For individuals with high blood pressure and high cholesterol, it is recommended to reduce your intake of fats (saturated and trans), sugar, and salt while increasing your intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, chicken and nuts.
The main goal of nutrition is ensuring we can achieve a balanced diet, and that may look different for everyone depending on your lifestyle, your health status, your likes and dislikes of certain foods, and your income. Throughout these weekly Nutrition bites, we will be covering different nutrition topics and how we can apply them to our lives.
The topics we will be covering are:
- Understand the nutrition basics
- Introducing macronutrients and micronutrients
- Balancing meals in your day
- Reducing the amount of fat, sugar, and fried foods in the diet
- Increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables
- Meal planning and creating shopping lists
- Mindful eating
- Creating/ maintaining an active lifestyle
- Understanding nutrition labels
- Eating to improve productivity
Information this week by: Kirstyn Church, an Associate Nutritionist with Nutrition Consulting Services
