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Healthy Food Guide (HFG) magazine is your complete guide to healthy eating. Our recipes use easy-to-find, affordable ingredients. Cook with HFG and you’ll always enjoy a nutritious meal. We give unbiased opinions and are not affiliated with any food manufacturers. All branded food in HFG has been approved by our dietitians. Advertisers cannot influence editorial content. You can trust our advice. All our health information is supported by solid scientific evidence, not media fanfare. We smooth out any confusion caused by ‘pseudoscientists’. Dietitians review all our articles so they’re always accurate with up-to-date information. A full list of references is also available on request. Every recipe in Healthy Food Guide is healthy Our recipe writers work with qualified dietitians to develop all our meals. A nutritional analysis is provided for…

My son (17) is very fussy and we’ve just found out he has coeliac disease, so gluten is off the menu. How can I get enough fibre into him, when he has mostly only ever gone for beige and white foods? Q & A Finding out your son has coeliac disease can feel a bit overwhelming at first, especially when you’ve already got a fussy eater on your hands. The good news is that even with gluten off the menu, it‘s still possible to get plenty of fibre. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, rye and triticale. In coeliac disease it triggers the immune system to attack the small intestine, so avoiding gluten completely is essential. When we take gluten-containing foods out, fibre can drop a little, but that doesn’t…

SLEEP MOVEMENT Tai chi, a form of mind-body exercise widely practised in Chinese communities, has similar benefits to talking therapy for middle-aged and older people with chronic insomnia, a trial shows. Tai chi may be useful in long-term management of chronic insomnia in these age groups, the researchers say. Chronic insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders in these groups and has been linked to increased risks of cardiovascular diseases, mental disorders and cognitive impairment. BMJ Good news for coffee lovers New research suggests that drinking coffee may actually help protect against atrial fibrillation (AFib), a common heart rhythm disorder that causes the heart to beat too quickly and irregularly, sometimes leading to stroke or heart failure. For years, doctors have advised people with AFib and other heart…

Excessive social media use may be driven by habit rather than genuine addiction, a new study shows. Researchers found that Instagram users tend to overestimate the extent to which they are addicted to the platform, and this may be driven by frequent social media use being commonly labelled as an addiction. Although 18 per cent of people who participated in the study thought they were addicted to Instagram, only 2 per cent displayed symptoms indicating risk of addiction. A subsequent study of Instagram users investigated the negative impacts of labelling frequent Instagram use as an addiction, and found that prompting participants to frame their social media use as an addiction was associated with lower feelings of control over their Instagram use and assigning higher levels of blame to both themselves…

Whether it’s ditching sugar, gluten or lactose, diets encouraging the general population to avoid specific foods, nutrients or ingredients in the hope of improving health aren’t new. But if you’ve been on social media lately, you might have noticed that, right now, it’s all about anti-inflammatory diets – and the specific inflammation-triggering foods you need to ban from your fridge if you want to stay well. It’s trending so hard that more than 20 million people have watched anti-inflammatory-diet videos on TikTok alone. The promise? With inflammation being blamed for everything from weight gain to bloating, all you have to do is avoid the food groups that are ‘bad’ and you can transform your health. So what’s the reality? Can what you eat cause or prevent inflammation? And even if…

Growing up, kids are told to sit down while eating. Rather than just being about good manners, science is now discovering how standing up while eating can change taste perception, temperature sensation and even how much is eaten. Welcome to the weird world of altered taste perceptions! POSTURE AND TASTE Taste is one of the five key senses. It happens when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor cells found on taste buds. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami are the five well-characterised tastes. But there is growing evidence that we may even have a sixth taste, and that’s for fat. Taste, though, is more than just the sum of these defined tastes. You also have to factor in smell, texture and temperature. Because all of that…

We’ve all heard that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but how true is that? Apples are not high in vitamin A, nor are they beneficial for vision like carrots. They are not a great source of vitamin C and therefore don’t fight off colds as oranges do. However, apples contain various bioactive substances – natural chemicals that occur in small amounts in foods and that have biological effects in the body. These chemicals are not classified as nutrients like vitamins. Because apples contain many health-promoting bioactive substances, the fruit is considered a ‘functional’ food. For years, I have taught university classes on nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, carbs, proteins and fats. But recently I developed a course specifically on functional foods. The class explores the various bioactive substances…

It goes without saying that we need to maintain a nutritious diet throughout pregnancy. This means eating enough of the four main food groups (fruit and vegetables, breads and cereals, milk and milk products, and meat/fish/chicken/vegetarian protein) and less of the high-sat fat, high-sugar, low-nutrient extras. Remember, although you may be eating for two, your energy requirements don’t double. In reality, you only need about 1400 extra kilojoules a day in the first trimester. This is the amount of energy found in a cup of high-calcium milk plus a small tuna and salad roll. In the third trimester you need about another 500kJ on top of that – the energy in 2 tablespoons of raw mixed nuts. ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS PREGNANT PEOPLE NEED MORE OF ● Folate (folic acid) Folate has…

It‘s a time of warm days and busy weeks. Our light, nourishing and practical recipes are perfect for this time of year – fresh chicken salads, nut-packed flavours, smart work lunches and plant-based protein. To make life easier, we‘ve done the healthy eating hard yards for you! Every main meal contains at least two serves of vegies. Each dish meets our dietitians‘ criteria to ensure it doesnt contain too much energy, saturated fat, sugar or sodium. Recipes all come with a nutritional analysis, with the table on page 95 showing how they fit daily nutritional needs. Our food writers work with qualified dietitians to develop these recipes for maximum health benefits. For more about our recipe badges, see p99. ✓ gluten free ✓ dairy free ✓ diabetes friendly ✓ vegetarian…