Good food good health, A healthy varied diet

 Bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods

What counts?

This food group, sometimes referred to as ‘starchy carbohydrates’, includes:

• bread
• breakfast cereals
• pasta
• rice
• oats
• noodles
• maize, millet and cornmeal
• potatoes (including low fat oven chips), yams, plantains and sweet potato – these foods fall into this group, rather than fruit and vegetables, because they contain starchy carbohydrates.

How much should you eat?

Most of us should EAT MORE!

Base a third of your food intake on foods from this group, aiming to include at least one food from this group at each meal (e.g. potatoes with fish and vegetables; a chicken salad sandwich; stir-fried vegetables with rice; porridge oats or wholegrain cereal for breakfast).

Although it is often suggested that starchy foods are fattening in fact, gram for gram, carbohydrate contains less than half the calories of fat. It is often the fatty things that are added to starchy foods, such as butter or

creamy sauces, that bump up their calorie content, so watch out for these added fats when choosing starchy foods.

Why eat these foods?

These foods provide:

• Carbohydrate: a source of energy
• Fibre: keeps the gut healthy and helps prevent constipation
• Some calcium: required for the development and maintenance of healthy bones
• Some iron: needed for healthy red blood cells
• B vitamins: e.g. thiamin and niacin – which help the body use energy efficiently
• Folate: needed for red blood cells

Healthy eating tips

Most people don’t eat enough starchy foods or fibre. Here are some helpful tips to boost your intake:

• Base your meals around foods from this group.
• Try to eat more wholegrain or wholemeal breads, bagels, pastas, chapattis, tortillas and breakfast cereals.
• Choose low fat oven chips rather than fried chips (oven chips fall into this food group but fried chips don’t).
• Bake potatoes and chips rather than frying
• Avoid adding too much (if any) fat to these foods. Use lower fat spreads on bread and lower fat milk with cereals.
• Serve naan bread or chapatti and rice with curries.
• Try porridge for a healthy and filling breakfast. Oats are a good source of fibre.