Q: What is food diversification?
A: Food diversification refers to the diversification of food types and varieties, not partial eclipse or picky eaters. Choose the above five foods in your daily diet and pay attention to the principle of similar food exchange. For example, grains can be rice, flour, corn, buckwheat, oats, millet and so on. Animal food can be pork, beef, mutton, chicken, duck, fish, shrimp and shellfish, milk, eggs and so on. Vegetables can be leafy vegetables, roots, melons, eggplants, etc.
Q: What are the benefits of food diversification to the health of the elderly?
A: A diversified diet has a cumulative protective effect on health, which helps to promote the health of the elderly, delay aging, prevent malnutrition, and enhance the body's resistance and repair ability of tissues and cells. A diversified diet contains many protective factors, including nutrients and non-nutrients in food. Some research evidence at home and abroad shows that dietary diversification can reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications in diabetic patients and help to achieve a good blood sugar level. The National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) and epidemiological follow-up studies show that people who use diversified foods have a higher survival rate after illness. Increasing the intake of vegetables and fruits can reduce the damage of carcinogens to tissues and cells and reduce the incidence of tumors.
Q: How do the elderly diversify their food?
A:
(1) Variety: The daily diet of the elderly should include five categories of food: cereals and potatoes, animal food, beans and nuts, vegetables, fruits and fungi, edible oil and seasonings.
(2) Category: According to Japanese dietary guidelines, the goal of eating 30 kinds of food every day. It is suggested that the elderly should choose as many kinds of food as possible from each of the above five categories and try to make dishes or meals containing a variety of foods. For example, people in China like eight-treasure porridge, vegetarian food, jiaozi, spring rolls, sliced pork with green pepper and fungus, egg cakes, celery dried beans, cold radish, green bamboo shoots and kelp; Add cereal, bread, steamed bread, dried rice, etc. to milk or soybean milk. These dishes or meals composed of various foods can absorb a variety of nutrients and give full play to the complementary role of nutrients.
(3) Meat and vegetable collocation: The food with meat and vegetable collocation is fragrant and delicious, with comprehensive nutrition and complementary amino acids, which can improve the nutritional value of protein. Vegetarian foods such as bean products and gluten can be eaten together with "meat dishes" such as meat, poultry and shrimp to make dishes such as minced meat tofu, shrimp tofu or fried noodles with shredded chicken. Adding vegetables to meat not only increases the delicacy of food, but also increases the synergistic effect of nutrients, such as stir-frying meat with green peppers. Vitamin C in green peppers can promote the absorption of iron in meat.
(4) Various forms: Different cooking methods can make various forms of food. For example, flour can be made into steamed bread, flower rolls, noodles, bumps, pancakes and so on by steaming, boiling and baking. The meat can be stewed, fried, steamed and retted to make stew, sliced meat, steamed meat and meatballs. Similarly, foods made by different cooking methods can also be matched, such as lean meat, vegetables and soup, and food forms can also be varied. Mix bread, steamed buns, etc. With corn flour porridge, mung bean millet porridge and red bean millet porridge; Vegetarian food such as soup pot can be eaten with rice, pumpkin pie, corncob and vegetarian cooking. These various food forms and collocation methods are conducive to promoting appetite.
(5) Color diversity: Different colors of food contain different nutrients. Reasonable collocation of foods with multiple colors can not only improve the nutritional value, but also increase the flavor of food and stimulate appetite.
(6) Variety of tastes: The elderly should pay attention to the variety of cooking tastes. Many foods have their own unique sour, sweet, bitter and spicy tastes, which can be matched when eating to increase appetite.