Q: What do you mean when you talk about a “healthy dietary pattern?”
A: Sai Das, PhD, a senior scientist in the Diet & Chronic Diseases of Healthy Aging directive at the HNRCA answers: “Your dietary pattern is the combination of everything you eat and drink. A healthy dietary pattern is one that provides all the essential nutrients our bodies need within our calorie requirements. Health diet patterns avoid excessive amounts of things we don’t need, like added sugar, salt, and calories. They also support a lower body weight and help keep blood pressure, blood sugar, LDL (bad) cholesterol, and triglyceride levels within normal ranges. This lowers risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, dementia, osteoporosis, and some types of cancers, even if these conditions run in one’s family.
“Overall diet patterns have been found to be more important to health than individual foods or nutrients. In other words, don’t just count on so-called ‘superfoods’ or supplements to keep you healthy—instead, work on improving the healthfulness of the types of foods you eat and beverages you drink all day, every day.
“There is no single perfect diet pattern. Instead, there are endless ways to get the variety and quantity of nutrients you need to support a long and healthy life. Your dietary pattern should be filled with healthy foods you enjoy and that satisfy you.
“Research is clear that a healthy diet pattern has certain key components. In general, you should eat more:
➧ whole and minimally processed plant foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes (beans, lentils, and peanuts), whole grains, and nuts/seeds,
➧ fish/seafood,
➧ fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and
➧ plant oils rich in unsaturated fatty acids
and less:
➧ highly processed foods,
➧ processed meats (like hot dogs, sausage, and deli meats) and red meat (beef, pork, lamb),
➧ sugar-sweetened beverages, and
➧ high saturated-fat foods (fatty meats, full-fat dairy products, and tropical oils).
“Within these basic guidelines, you can customize your dietary pattern to include the foods you enjoy.”
Sai Das, PhD, is a senior scientist in the Diet & Chronic Diseases of Healthy Aging directive at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center
on Aging (HNRCA).
