Main Foods and Helper Foods

In most parts of the world, people eat one main low-cost food with almost every meal. Depending on where you live, the main food may be rice, maize, millet, wheat, cassava, potato, sorghum, breadfruit, or banana. This main food usually provides most of the body’s daily food needs.
But the main food alone is not enough to keep a person healthy. Certain helper foods are needed.

These foods add nutrition to a meal and provide protein, energy, and vitamins. Growing children, people who are sick, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and older people especially need these helper foods to stay healthy. There are many kinds of helper foods. The different types are presented below, with examples for each group.

HIGH-ENERGY HELPER FOODS

High-energy helper foods can be added to main foods to supply extra energy. This group includes:

• Fats such as vegetable oils, butter, ghee, and lard.

• Foods rich in fats, such as coconut, olives, and fatty meat.

• Nuts such as groundnuts (peanuts), almonds, walnuts, and cashews.

• Oil seeds such as pumpkin, melon, sesame, or sunfl ower seeds.

• Sugars such as sugar, honey, molasses, sugar cane, and jaggery.

BODY-BUILDER FOODS

Body-builder foods are also known as proteins and can help give strength. This group includes:

• Legumes, including beans, peas, and lentils.

• Nuts, including groundnuts (peanuts), almonds, walnuts, and cashews.

• Oil seeds, including sesame and sunfl ower seeds.

• Animal products, including milk, eggs, cheese, yogurt, fi sh, chicken, meat, small animals such as mice, and insects.

PROTECTIVE FOODS

Protective foods supply important vitamins and minerals that help to protect the body. This group includes:

• Vegetables such as dark green leafy plants, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato, and peppers.

• Fruits such as mangoes, oranges, papayas, and bananas.

Good Nutrition

Good nutrition is an important part of everyone’s health. Eating nutritious food can help people stay healthy and prevent some common problems that arise from poor nutrition such as weakness, diarrhea, and headaches. Good nutrition can help a person with a terminal illness keep her strength and have a longer, more comfortable life.

In families with little money, land, or food, decisions are sometimes made to limit the amount of nutritious food given to someone who is very ill so that more is available for others who are healthy. It is important to explain to families that sick people need to continue to eat as much nutritious food as possible to keep up their strength. There is hardly ever a good reason to limit or reduce the amount of healthy food eaten by a person with a terminal illness. These decisions can be very diffi cult for a family, and you will need to approach the situation with your own knowledge of these issues and each family’s circumstances.

Helping a sick person eat:

People who are very sick should eat small meals many times a day to help them get the nutrition they need. For people who are very sick, grinding or mashing their food may make it easier for them to swallow and digest.
Eating right helps the body fi ght sickness. Good nutrition can help sick people feel better and healthy people stay healthy.


credits to EngenderHelath and PATH