Balanced meals (or balanced eating throughout the day) can be a simple yet very rewarding tool to add to your daily routine! Not only can they help you to feel fuller longer but also give you more energy. Balanced meals can also help to manage weight, improve mood and cognition, support healing, and prevent illness and chronic health conditions.
But what are balanced meals and what is balanced eating?
Let’s start with balanced eating. In the simplest of terms, balanced eating refers to selecting foods that offer nutrition in quantities that have been shown to be optimal and supportive to our health and wellbeing. They are balanced in nutrients but also in energy (calories), and fiber. Balanced meals are what can help us to achieve balanced eating.
Balanced meals offer a wide variety of nutrients, which are obtained through balanced portions of various food groups. A tool called the healthy plate model can help to explain this concept.
Here’s an example of what a healthy plate looks like:
The healthy plate model above represents what we should aim for when creating our daily meals. It generally consists of:
- 1/2 plate filled with vegetables (at least 2 types of veggies are generally recommended)
- 1/4 plate filled with protein sources, which can include fish, chicken, beans, legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds, nut butters, eggs, etc.
- 1/4 of the plate filled with whole grains like whole wheat pasta or bread, brown rice, quinoa, etc.
- a side of fruit can also accompany the plate along with the vegetables
One of the key points to note with the healthy plate model is that we do not need to make each of our meals look just like this physical plate. We can get creative with it! Say you’re having a wrap for lunch. Your whole wheat tortilla can represent your 1/4 plate of whole grains, while the quantity of chickpeas or chicken represent the 1/4 plate of protein, and your lettuce, tomato, and onion in the wrap make up your 1/2 a plate of vegetables.
Another key point to note is that we can also use this as a tool for snacking throughout the day. We can make snack choices or create snack pairings that fit within this model. They may not contain all three food groups, but throughout the day, they can add up to create the different food groups as a whole. For example, one snack may be hummus and carrots or celery while another snack may be whole wheat toast with avocado or an egg. The options are endless!
One of the best ways to get used to more balanced eating is to record what you’re eating daily to see how it fits in the healthy plate model. You can visit our worksheets page to download a free weekly meal plan to record your meals on!
To learn more about balanced meals and the healthy plate model, take a look at the MyPlate model created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a general starting point and download the weekly meal plan above to help guide you!
Note: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice or individualized nutrition advice.
