Healthy eating

Variety makes our diet interesting and enjoyable. Not only the wide choice of foods but also the ways to prepare them allow for numerous variations. When grilling your food, using an open flame, frying or smoking your food it is important that you pay attention to a few simple food handling and cooking tips. Doing so will make your meal both enjoyable and safe to eat.

Many different factors affect the type of food chosen and consumed, but the skill to prepare appropriate food plays an important role. A lack of skills in preparing and cooking food could impact on health as it can limit choices. Can building people’s confidence in cooking food make Europeans healthier?

Establishing Food-Based Dietary Guidelines is one thing. Making sure people read, understand and follow them is another. Researchers within the EURRECA Network of Excellence have looked at how consumers perceive Food-Based Dietary Guidelines.

Breakfast provides the energy and nutrients for a proper start to the day. Eating breakfast regularly is linked to improved nutrient intakes and may help maintain a healthy body weight. It is particularly important for children and adolescents, as breakfast appears to support learning and school performance, especially among children with poor nutritional status. As this is the meal most likely to be skipped, Europeans need to wake up to the benefits of breakfast.

In these economically tough times a substantial number of Europeans are struggling to afford food, and Europeans everywhere are trying to make savings on their food bills. There is a common misconception that all healthy food is expensive. Although it might require some extra planning and reflection it is possible to eat healthily on a limited budget.

Despite major health gains over recent decades, there continues to be wide variations in health status, risk factors for health, and health care provision across European countries. To help explain the underlying causes of these variations, and to guide future policy development, a groundbreaking report ‘Health at a Glance: Europe 2010’ has been published.