Table Of ContentThe Building Blocks of a Healthy Diet ■ 1
2 SECTION ONE: FOOD FOR A BALANCED DIET
The Building Blocks of a Healthy Diet ■ 3
This new, fully revised and updated edition
published in 2019 by White Owl Books
An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire – Philadelphia
Text copyright © 1998, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2019
Judith Wills
Hardback ISBN: 9781526725059
Paperback ISBN: 9781526761224
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Contents
INTRODUCTION 6
SECTION ONE SECTION TWO SECTION FOUR SECTION SIX
Food For A Food as Food for Weight Food at a
Balanced Diet Medicine Control Glance
9 113 199 259
The Building Blocks of Conditions and Your Top Ten Questions The Food Charts
a Healthy Diet Solutions Answered 262
10 115 201
Putting It All Together Healing Herbs and Retrain Yourself Index
52 Spices 206 332
164
Choosing a Diet to
SECTION FIVE
Suit Your Lifestyle Vitamin Herbal and
76 Food supplements Food for Health
169 and Pleasure
Food From Farm to
Table 215
92 SECTION THREE
Healthy Cooking
Food for the
Guidelines
Time of Your Life 216
175
Starters, Snacks,
Sharing
Childhood and
218
Teenage Years
176 Salads, Soups, Light
Meals
Pregnancy
224
187
Suppers
The Middle Years and
234
Menapause
191 Side dishes, Sauces
and Accompaniments
The Later Years
246
194
Desserts and Bakes
253
Introduction
When the first edition of this book was published twenty years ago, I
started my introduction ‘What you eat and what you drink really are
vital parts of what you are – and what you will become. From before
you are born all the way into old age, sustenance isn’t just survival, it
is your strength, your size, your short-term health, your long-term health, and — all
other factors being equal— the length and quality of your life.’
As I write today, twenty years later, those words are still true. But so much
else has changed in the world of food and health that when I sat down to begin
the revision of The Food Bible for its timely new publication, I realised that
the world of nutrition is perhaps more baffling for the average person who
just wants to go and buy some decent – and hopefully healthy – food each
week than it has ever been.
If you want to enjoy food but also feel secure in the knowledge that at least
most of it is a good choice, health-wise, which do you believe? The media
headlines you read last week that declared that butter’s good for you after all – or
the study reported this week, suggesting saturated fat is still the ‘baddie’…??
And as for how to tell the difference between a poor food fad and a concept worth
building on, that’s little easier. The twenty-first century saw the birth of the idea
of ‘superfoods’ but who talks about them now? If you never eat a goji berry or make
yourself a wheatgrass juice does it matter? Good news – the answer is NO.
Twenty years ago, veganism was more or less dismissed as a ridiculous niche notion
– now it’s become mainstream, whilst meat-eating is beginning to be the no-go area
for many more of us, along with a lot of the carbohydrates that formed the backbone of
the typical ‘healthy’ low-fat diet of the day when my first edition was published.
‘Clean’ eating was all the thing when I started this new edition – but even before I’ve
finished, it’s been castigated by many experts. Alternate day fasting and the Amazonian
Rainforest Diet are some of the ideas still popular as I write – but I can more or less
assure you that next week, or next year, they’ll probably be forgotten, or in disgrace.
But there is a solution to the great nutrition confusion that may be forcing many of
6 THE FOOD BIBLE
us into an ‘I don’t care’ stance with our glass of wine (ok yesterday but not today…) our
hunk of artisan cheese (bad last week, good this)… and a slice of home-made bread
(dark rye fine, white wheat maybe not so fine, last week and this week too…).
Part of the problem is too much information coming at you from too many
directions. But you need to know that many headline-grabbing food ‘facts’ are studies
based on just a handful of humans, or, often, mice, and conducted over a very short time.
We need only pay attention to those studies that have been carried out on thousands of
people over a reasonable time scale. Or better still, go for what are called ‘overviews’ –
studies analysing all the work done on a particular topic over a number of years.
We also need to take with a pinch of salt (very bad 20 years ago, now, maybe not so
bad) any study or advice funded by an interested party. The ‘meat cures diabetes’ one
funded by a country’s meat producers council, for example.
I expect you know that every country has its version of a department of health
within which there will be officials deciding on the nation’s food and health policy and
such things as recommended daily amounts of nutrients. And I expect you are also
aware that there is eating advice on the website of every organisation representing
the major and less major diseases of today. The advice from governments and these
organisations is more reliable than most. But it can be out of date, as the wheels of
consensus-reaching within both types of organisation tend to move very, very slowly.
But you’re thinking now, ‘I can’t cope with all this – I have to work/raise kids/enjoy
myself.’
Quite – and that’s where this book comes in handy. Because I’ve spent a year, as I
did when I first wrote it, revising every single page, every line and word, to bring you
an unbiased reference to food and health for all the family.
I’ve ignored too-small and biased research, I’ve used my common sense, remained
as impartial as possible (having nothing but this book to sell) and set out to tell you
what really matters, and nothing more nor less.
I hope this new Food Bible will become a go-to, not only for every person wanting to
protect and improve their health and lifespan but also, like the first edition, that it will
be on the shelves of teachers, students and professionals.
I also hope that eating well for you does not just mean eating healthily but that you
will enjoy choosing food, preparing your food, and eating your food. Good healthy
meals can always be delicious, appealing meals – and perhaps that is the most
important message of all.
Introduction ■ 7
8 SECTION ONE: FOOD FOR A BALANCED DIET
SECTION ONE
Food for a
balanced diet
The health experts are always telling us that we ought to eat a
balanced diet. But what exactly does that mean, and how do you
know you’re achieving the correct balance? Most of us, for example,
still fall well short of eating enough of the healthier carbohydrates;
and many of us who try to follow a diet very low in fat may be doing just as
much harm to our health as those who eat a high-fat diet.
Then there’s the advice to eat ‘five a day’ of fruit and vegetables. What is
a portion? And which fruits and veg can be included? Many people haven’t
got a clue. Do you know that some fats vital to our well-being aren’t all that
easy to find in a typical diet? And did you know that many of us in the UK
fall short of at least some of the vitamins and minerals our bodies need?
And what about the other nutrients you hardly ever hear about? The
microscopic elements in food that aren’t vitamins or minerals but have
similar potential for boosting our health…. ‘good’ bacteria, for instance, or
phytochemicals. What exactly are they, where do you get them, and how
much do you need?
Here is where you will find out all you need to know about ‘a balanced
diet’, in a way that you can understand. Pictured overleaf is a perfect day’s
eating for an average woman, containing all the carbohydrates, fat, protein,
vitamins, minerals, fibre and micronutrients that are needed, in all the right
quantities. Using this as our blueprint, we go on to see how you can achieve
your own perfect diet.
That’s the beauty of food today – there is so much available in so much
variety you can eat ‘a balanced diet’ without compromising your own needs.
Section One sets out the foundation of your own diet for health and well-
being and shows how to give your body the fuel it needs for life.
Food for a balanced diet ■ 9
The Building Blocks
of a Healthy Diet
A DAY’S PERFECT EATING nine portions of fruit and vegetables.
What you see on these pages is a Taken together, the breakfast, lunch,
perfect day’s healthy eating according supper, snack and milk allowance give
to the guidelines that appear on the a total of:
next 00 pages. The meals and snacks k 2,104 calories
contain the ideal amounts of calories, k 79.1g total fat (33.8% of day’s
carbohydrates and fat (for a female energy intake)
aged from 35-54) and the ideal balance k 19.1g of saturated fat (8.2% of
of the different types of carbs and fats, day’s energy intake)
too. The day’s eating also has more k 30.2g monounsaturated fat (13% of
than adequate levels of protein, fibre, day’s energy intake)
vitamins, minerals, plant chemicals and k 22.8g polyunsaturated fats (9.6%
other micronutrients as well as around of day’s energy intake)
k 2.3g EPA + DHA and 90.8g protein
(17% of day’s energy intake)
k while salt content is 3.4g, just
over half the amount the UK says is a
healthy daily maximum
k Add in several glasses of water
and use the milk as a drink on
its own or with a couple of cups of
tea/coffee – both now known to
be healthy drinks.
BREAKFAST
100g raspberries, 30g rolled oats, 10g
chopped walnuts, 2 tsp sunflower
seeds, 1 tbsp milled flaxseed, 1 tbsp
pumpkin seeds, 2 chopped dried
apricots, 150g fat free natural bio
yogurt, 1 large banana.
10 SECTION ONE: FOOD FOR A BALANCED DIET
