Dietary Proportions of Macronutrients- Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein
There are different recommendations by different nutrition experts for the healthy distributions of carbs, fats, and proteins in one’s diet. As you may be well aware you have good fats or carbs and bad fats and carbs and better or worse or higher or lower quality proteins. So the quality is definitely more important than quantity or what percentages of which macronutrients to have on a daily basis. The most important thing is picking the right sources of food, no matter which macronutrient group they belong to.
Many carbohydrates (fruits, bread, honey, pasta, potatoes, rice, sweet foods) include a good percentage of sugar and they tend to cover at least or about half of your daily energy needs. And if you exercise or live an active life you’ll use them as an energy source and burn them during the day. But if you do not exercise or have a sedentary lifestyle, they will easily turn into fat and extra kgs you probably do not want to put on.
You shall be consuming or storing a lot of the high glycemic index or glycemic load foods. And the high GI or GL foods are known to cause weight gain, and health complications like diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. So you may want to reduce your carb intake down to 35 to 40% of your total calorie intake while maintaining your metabolic balance. But if you are someone that is very active or that exercises regularly then you can have 50- 55% of your total calories from carbohydrates.
And you will always be better off choosing the right kind of carbs, those with low glycemic index and load value with the most nutritional value and the lowest amount of calories. You should eat more of veggies, fruits, tubers (especially sweet potatoes) and wholegrain products and as little as processed carbs as possible. You need to avoid those ultra-processed biscuits, cookies, pastries or anything with added sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup.
Fats are basically the fatty foods or any kind of added fats and they should constitute up to 40% of your total daily calorie intake. There are different types of fats, like saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Only 5-10 years ago nutritionists were telling us to consume as little as saturated fats as possible. But the latest studies find no clear connection between the consumption of saturated fats of animal origin and the increase in cases of heart diseases.
Moderation is the key here and most things natural or animal origin are good for you, including butter, dairy products and different types of meat. Out of the vegetable origin saturated fats, coconut oil is good for you, but not so much the palm oil. But if you eat too much of saturated fats, there is a risk of clotting. This means your cell membranes will become too hard and it will be hard for your red blood cells to move into the small blood cells. And the nerve cells will not be receiving the important messages and this may lead to depression.
You can dedicate 10-15% of your total calories to saturated fats, which is roughly one-third of your total fat consumption. You should definitely include them in moderation in your daily diet. For an average male or female adult, this is equal to roughly 25 grams of saturated fat, somewhere between 20 and 30 grams. You can still have your butter on wholemeal bread, use coconut oil or coconut milk in cooking. You don’t have to completely deprive yourselves of these little fatty pleasures.
And if you eat less of them, please make sure you have more mono or polyunsaturated fats, rather than high GI carbohydrates. Then you have the healthy monounsaturated fats like the 60% of the content of rapeseed oil and 70% of olive oil. Then you have the pecans, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts and avocado that are rich on monounsaturated fats. Overall they are good for your heart health and you can use olive oil in your salads and cooking and have some nuts as snacks without worrying about putting on weight.
Polyunsaturated fats can be approximately 5-6% of your total calorie intake, which is about one-sixth of your total fat. And this is equal to about 10 to 15 grams of total fat intake. You should also pay attention to how much Omega 3 (EPAs and DHAs from fish oil) and Omega 6 you consume. Find a good balance between the two, such as 2 units of Omega 6 to 3 units of Omega 3.
Having too much of Omega 6 fatty acids may cause inflammation and thicker blood, which can, in turn, cause infarction or certain cancers. This is not the case for Omega 3 fatty acids as the blood will flow freely. Omega 6 is often hidden in foods and therefore they are a little hard to avoid. If you suffer from heart or inflammatory diseases like the joint pain you probably want to decrease this Omega 3 / Omega 6 ratio to 2 to 1.
Protein is also good for you and should be an important part of your diet, between less than 15% to 30% of the total depending on whether you work out or not. They are an important part of your muscles and offer a variety of health benefits. You also want to have half of that from vegetable sources like legumes like chickpeas, lentils and string beans as well as veggies like broccoli, peas, asparagus, pumpkin seeds and mung bean sprouts. Even the traditional cereals like oats, barley, rye, and wheat have good amounts of protein in them.
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