'Eggs are an important source of essential fatty acids'; 'Eggs are a major source of cholesterol'.
'Red wine scavenges free radicals'; 'Red wine causes cancer'. You've probably seen headlines like these in popular media publications and on social media. It can be hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to healthy eating and to know where to go to find genuine advice. To get you started, the UK government publishes the Eatwell guide, which is regularly reviewed to keep it up-to-date with new research. The guidelines are pretty simple, and will need some refinement if you're looking to manage specific medical conditions, but they're a good starting point. Note that the Eatwell guidelines are intended for adults, and do not apply fully to children.

The current Eatwell guidelines are summarised in the plate diagram shown below. This shows the proportions of each food type that you should aim for over the course of a day. It doesn't mean that every meal has to follow these proportions, but you should try to ensure that your overall daily intake of the different food groups is similar to that shown on the diagram. You can see that the majority of your daily calories should come from fruits and vegetables and from starchy carbohydrates. You should also ensure you get adequate amounts of protein, and some dairy products or alternatives such as plant milks. Finally, you need a very small amount of a healthy oil as an excellent source of essential fatty acids (more on that in a later blog post).

In addition to the visual guidelines shown in the Eatwell plate diagram, the accompanying guide gives a few general tips for healthy eating. These include cutting down on sugar, salt and saturated fat, getting active to maintain a healthy weight, and not skipping breakfast.

You can read more about the recommendations here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-eatwell-guide