Our grannies used to talk about good food but today it’s all about nutrition - a word which most people are probably sick of hearing. We don’t eat fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, when we go shopping we buy food and the certain way to a healthy diet is to make sure that your choices are as varied as possible.

It’s all too easy to forget that food can be curative as well as nourishing, and the following steps will tell you all you need to know about some of the best things you can eat. There are five simple steps to guarantee the ultimate healthy way of eating:-

1. Fruit and Veg

One third of your diet should be fresh produce - fruit, vegetables, salads - around a pound in weight and five portions a day. And that’s a lot easier than it sounds. A portion is a glass of fruit or vegetable juice, an apple pear or orange, a small bunch of grapes, an average serving of cooked vegetables, a modest bowl of salad.

2. Starchy foods

Bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, unsweetened cereals, beans and lentils should make up another third of your daily consumption, and around 50 percent of daily calories.

3. Protein

Lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, tofu, Quorn (and other vegetarian protein foods) should make up around 15 percent of your daily consumption, and ideally eat them steamed, baked, grilled or roasted on a rack to minimise fat content. Most people in the UK consume far more protein than they need.

4. Dairy products

Milk, yoghurt, fromage frais, cheese are also valuable sources of protein and in addition extremely rich in calcium. These are highly nutritious foods, but because of their fat content should not make up more than 15 percent of your daily intake. You can choose low fat varieties but it’s worth remembering that even full fat milk is only 4 percent fat - a pork sausage can be as high as 32 percent.

5. Treats

By far the smallest group of your daily foods, these shouldn’t come to more than 3 to 5 percent of your day’s total. But don’t cut them out completely and be miserable, just be very mean with them. Butter, oil, mayonnaise, sticky puddings, sweets and chocolates, ice cream, cream, cakes and biscuits are things we all enjoy but keep them as an occasional indulgence.

Adopt this simple method of eating, avoid faddy diets, don’t cut out any food groups unless you have serious allergies to them, try to eat as seasonally as possible and choose organic whenever you can - you won’t ever need to buy another nutrition or diet book.