Your diet isn’t complete without proper hygiene. Infact your food could become poisonous. therefore, to get the best of every nutrient, hygiene must be the first consideration.
A healthy diet helps to maintain or improve overall health by providing the body with essential nutrients such as fluid, amino acids,fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and proportionate calories.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Hygiene as conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases.
Apart from metabolic stress from activities, you wouldnt want to add salt to injury by ignoring hygiene and food preparation ethics. Would you?
Most infectious disease can be prevented by adopting and practicing healthy food hygiene.
Here are 10 tips to minimise transfer of disease-causing germs.
1. Wash! Wash!! Wash!!! Wash your hands as often as a 100 times a day. Yes wash your hands at every chance you get because it’s the first point of contact to germs.
2. Always keep raw foods away from cooked food to avoid cross-contamination.
3. Increase consumption of plant foods, particularly fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts.
4. Limit the intake of sugar,
Limit salt / sodium consumption from all sources and ensure that salt is iodized.
5.Wash vegetables thoroughly before eating them raw.
6.Avoid eating or inhaling spoiled food, or any food that has an unpleasant smell or taste Do not doubt, do not put yourself at risk!
7. Breathe clean air. Avoid dusty, musty environments, you can induce sneezing to get rid of dust and germs when options are lost.
8. Choose good carbohydrates: whole grains (the less processed the better), vegetables, fruits and beans.try as much to avoid pastries, sugared sodas, and other highly processed food.
9. Select good protein and fat sources. Choose unsaturated plant oils and fish oil over amimal fat, choose fish, poultry, nuts, and beans. Try to avoid red meat.
10. Ultimately, Water is the best source of liquid. I repeat! WATER IS THE BEST SOURCE OF LIQUID. Drink on..
Remember to wash your hands. Have a germ-free weekend!
Folakemi Abdussalam is an Entrepreneur. She writes from Lagos, via ([email protected]) and tweets via @ogifortified