The dash diet really allows you to eat a great blend, balance and variety of foods. It does not restrict certain areas such as meat like other diets do.
The goal of the diet is to help you to eat the correct amount of servings for each food group so that your body can get to a great state. It stresses eating more fruits and vegetables as well as low-fat and non-fat dairy products.
It recommends eating less red meat, not zero red meat, just less. It gives healthy proportions of all that you eat so that your body will maintain healthy levels of blood pressure, cholesterol and weight.
The serving amounts for each day run like this: six to twelve servings of grains each day with at least three whole grain foods. You are supposed to have four to six servings of fruits as well as four to six servings of vegetables.
You are supposed to have two to four servings of low fat or no fat dairy foods and one and a half to two and a half servings of lean meats, fish and poultry. Eat nuts, seeds and legumes three to six times per week and finally, have two to four servings of fats and sweets each day.
This is a very well balanced diet. From your grains you will receive your major sources of energy and fiber. These will help you a lot.
Form you fruit and vegetables you will receive rich and important sources of potassium, magnesium and fiber. From the low fat or fat free dairy foods and will receive your major sources of calcium and protein.
From your meats, poultry and fish you will receive great sources of magnesium and protein. In nuts, seeds and dry beans you will find lots of energy, magnesium, potassium, protein and fiber.
In all of these you are receiving excellent and important sources of each nutrient. Besides this, within the boundaries of each one, you have a lot of options.
For example, in the grain section you could choose your servings from an English muffin, pita bread, bagel, cereals, grits, oatmeal, crackers, unsalted pretzels and popcorn.
From the vegetable section you could have tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, green peas, squash, broccoli, turnip greens, collards, kale, spinach, artichokes, green beans, lima beans and sweet potatoes etc. There are so many options!
Now look at fruit. You could have apricots, bananas, dates, grapes, oranges, orange juice, grapefruit, grapefruit juice, mangoes, melons, peaches, pineapples, prunes, raisins strawberries, and tangerines.
The nice thing about this diet is that within the servings nothing is restricted. Some people will tell you that you should eat certain fruits and certain vegetables. But this diet tells you how many fruits and vegetables to eat and then you can choose whichever to eat that you want.
This is also nice because it allows you to come up with your own creative and fun meals. You know that if you include the necessary areas, then you can really do what you want.
Or if you do not want to come up with your own meals, then you can use their recipes out of their book or off their website.
Some diet plans will tell you to eat three meals a day and others will tell you to eat five meals a day. Another nice thing about this diet is that it doesn’t control the amount of meals you eat.
You can do what you think as best. You are just supposed to work on getting in all the necessary servings of each area whenever you choose to eat.