Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating

by Walter C. Willett

Celebrate vegetables and fruits: Cover half of your plate with them. Aim for color and variety. Keep in mind that potatoes don’t count (see “The Spud Is a Dud” on page 167).

Eating less saturated fat and more unsaturated fat improves cholesterol levels across the board.

The dangers of eggs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Adding an extra 200 milligrams of cholesterol a day to the diet barely increases blood cholesterol levels in most people and boosts, in theory, the risk of heart disease by only a small amount. But eggs aren’t just packets of cholesterol. They are very low in saturated fat and contain many other nutrients that are good for you: protein, some polyunsaturated fats, folic acid and other B vitamins, vitamin D, lutein, and more. So the effect of eggs on heart disease risk can’t be predicted by considering only their cholesterol content.

The best cholesterol profile is one with a low level of harmful LDL and a high level of protective HDL. This relationship is neatly captured as a ratio of total cholesterol to HDL. Ideally, the ratio should be less than 3.5.

Choose foods rich in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, like nuts, salmon, and avocado, over those rich in saturated fats, like red meat. And don’t eat those that contain artificial trans fats.

Fat cells don’t handle glucose as efficiently as muscle cells, especially regularly exercised muscle cells. The less muscle you have, the harder it is to clear glucose from the bloodstream. Working your muscles with daily physical activity improves their ability to remove glucose from the blood, even when you are resting or sleeping.

eating more protein from plant sources like beans and nuts, or from fish and chicken, and getting less from red meat and dairy foods is a key healthy eating strategy.

Here are the eight vitamins and minerals that many people don’t get enough of from their diets, so it make sense to get them via a standard multivitamin-multimineral pill: • beta-carotene • folic acid • vitamin B6 • vitamin B12 • vitamin D • vitamin E • iron • zinc.