Today’s special: How to eat a balanced diet over a week

Nutritionists at the University of Glasgow have served up a menu showing what a balanced diet over a week looks like. The eatwell week menu was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency in Scotland to provide a practical example of what a balanced - and affordable - diet over a week would look like and to help individuals make healthier food choices. Wilma Leslie, researcher in Human Nutrition at the University of Glasgow, who helped develop the menu, said: "There is lots of information available to the public about the importance of a balanced diet but people still have difficulty in putting this into practice. "We tried to make this menu as realistic and achievable as possible, so the portion sizes are typical, the nutrients are close to the limits of the daily recommended values so that changes for individuals from their actual diet wouldn't be too demanding, and there are some treats such as crisps and chocolate in there too. http://itunes.gla.ac.uk/web/news/video/HealthyEating.mp4 "The other important thing we wanted to do was make sure the menu was affordable and required only basic cooking skills. We also aimed to limit food waste by using tinned and frozen food where possible." The researchers used market research data which showed what meals and snacks were most commonly eaten by people in the UK to help guide the choice of foods on the menu and address barriers to acceptability. The menu, which includes meals such as beef curry, spaghetti Bolognese and beans on toast, was designed to meet the energy requirements of a normal-weight adult woman with light physical activity patterns which are just over 2,000kcal a day.