Nutrition Corner
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Nutrition Corner
Heart is one of the most vital and important organ in the human body, with the function of pumping and distributing blood throughout the body.
Blood distribution is a very essential process, for it transports the nutrition and oxygen needed by every cell in our body. Without sufficient amount of nutrition and oxygen, these cells will die, thus causing disturbance to the health.
How ill we become will depend on which organ is affected by this condition. Ranging from mild to severe, this disturbance could eventually cause death. Heart is a small organ about the size of human fist and weighing approximately 10 ounces. Although small, this structure of muscle tissues located on the left chest cavity bears a heavy burden, contracting constantly in a regular beat for an endless period of time (as long as the human lives).
Thus the need for very sturdy heart muscles, for it has to contract one hundred times a day to pump roughly one thousand gallons of blood through approximately sixty thousand miles of blood vessels.
To keep one’s heart pumping regularly in a long time, things that you need to pay attention to are maintaining the heart’s workload and working stability so it functions well, normal and optimal.
To maintain the workload of the heart, the length and period of physical activity and rest should correspond with age. Enough rest (about 8 hours per day) and adequate physical activities are needed. Aside from that, physical stress (too hot or too cold environment) and psychical stress (live problems, worries, etc.) should be avoided or managed well.
To maintain the working stability of the heart, aside from nutrition factor, the heart disease risk factor should also be considered. These factors include over-smoking (>1 pack per day), obesity, and illness such as rheumatic fever, or degenerative diseases such as hypertension (high blood pressure), hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol), diabetes mellitus (high blood sugar), etc.
As to the nutrition factor, the important thing is to keep the heart muscles unhindered by any blocking or narrowing of the coronary artery (the blood vessel supplying nutrition & oxygen into the heart cells), which will decrease the blood supply to the heart. The persistence of this condition is the cause of heart attack, usually started with a chest pain termed as angina pectoris. In choosing food, the principal of varied, nourishing, balanced and safe should be administered on every day meal.
Varied food means that the variety of substance in our every day food should be put into consideration. So we need to have the staple food (such as rice, etc.), meat-based or vegetable-based dish, vegetables and fruits. Nourishing food means that we should consider the nutrition contained in our food, whether it has sufficient amount of carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamin and mineral. Balanced food means our food intake should have nutrient content suitable with our gender and age. Safe means there should be no germ, fungus, metal, chemical (including added material), etc or other hazardous material contained in our food.
To get varied, nourishing, balanced and safe diet, we need a well-managed diet. Some rules for this are:
1. Don’t overeat, in order to maintain your ideal body weight without being obese. To do this, you can always remember to stop eating before you are full.
2. Don’t over-consummate staple food such as rice and it’s kind. Daily quantity of 400-500 grams of rice is enough to fulfill 75-80% of total calories needed.
3. Eat meat-based dishes moderately. For beef, poultry and fish, 150-225 grams per day is enough. For eggs, you can consume approximately 3 eggs in 1 week.
4. Consume only the basic necessity of oil. Choose oil with mono-unsaturated fatty acid, such as olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil. OR oil with poly-unsaturated fatty acid, such as corn oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, or fish oil.
5. Limit your intake of high fat food (milk and its products, seafood such as calamari, prawn, lobster, crab, mussels) or high cholesterol food (egg yolk, jerohan, brain, bone-marrow, etc.), and ready meal (corned beef, canned fish, etc.).
6. Consume food with high vitamin, mineral and fibers contents, such as vegetables and fruits,
7. Try to consume daily meal and drinks containing anti-oxidants, such as orange, apple, rosella tea, apple cider, carrot, tomato, etc. to fight the free radical from the chemicals in our food. Free radicals are highly dangerous and damaging to our body, including the heart muscles.
8. Consume the basic necessity of sugar and salt.
9. Avoid alcoholic drinks.
10. Limit your intake of ready meal / packaged food, and opt for natural and healthy food instead.
To select safe food, the correct choice currently are using organic ingredients, since by using organic materials, the effect of chemicals in food ingredients is eliminated.
by: Prof. Dr. Bambang Wirjatmadi, Ph. D., SpGK (White Lotus Nutritionist)
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