Feature: Eating More Veggies Mean Better Health

By Lorenzo O. Lambatin

For many years now, Rex Galang (not his real name), 55 years-old, follows a

carnivorous diet until his hemoglobin dropped to a serious level a few months ago.

He took medicines given by the doctor and started to eat vegetables especially malunggay called horse radish tree in English. Surprisingly, his hemoglobin shot up to a normal level not very long after.

Vegetables have now become a staple viand on is family’s table after proving its nutritional values.

Galang is just one among the millions of Filipinos who consume less vegetable, preferring meals considered unhealthy that have negative effect on the body over long years of consumption. Bacolod Adventist Medical Center Clinical Nutritionist Lourdes Gayatgay observes some Filipinos have diets that could be way beyond the "western food." This could somehow explain why they are prone to diseases also common among westerners, she added.

Eating foods that are too salty, too sweet and too fatty may render a person vulnerable to certain illnesses, she told PIA.

Gayatgay said people who are fond of eating salty food end up having hypertension, those who are fond of eating too sweet and high carbohydrate foods may get diabetes and those who eat fatty foods tend to develop hypertension and disease of the kidney.

No less than the World health Organization has warned on too much intake of salty, fatty, sweet foods, she added.

She believes this year’s nutrition month "Pagkain ng gulay ugaliin, araw-araw itong ihain," should apply not only to kids but also to adults and must be imposed in the home.

Eating nutritious food, she said, cannot stand alone because it should go with healthy lifestyle like having regular exercise, avoiding smoking and taking alcoholic drinks.

Gayatgay and other BAMC nutrition educators were recently guests in Premier TV 14 cable program "Pamilya kag Banwa" hosted by State College Professor Joy Vingno and Lorenzo Lambatin of the PIA-Negros Occ.* (PIA6/JCM/LOL)