SELECTION AND FORMULATION OF BALANCE DIET

INTRODUCTION.

A balanced diet is a diet that contains differing kinds of foods in certain quantities and proportions so
that the requirement for calories, proteins, minerals, vitamins and alternative nutrients is adequate and
a small provision is reserved for additional nutrients to endure the short length of leanness. In addition,
a balanced diet ought to offer bioactive phytochemicals like dietary fiber, antioxidants and
nutraceuticals that have positive health advantages. A balanced diet should offer around 60-70% of total
calories from carbohydrates, 10-12% from proteins and 20-25% of total calories from fat.

HEALTH BENEFITS OF A BALANCED DIET

Healthy eating increases energy, improves the way your body functions, strengthens your immune
system and prevents weight gain. The other major benefits are:

Meets your nutritional need. A varied, balanced diet provides the nutrients you need to avoid nutritional
deficiencies.

Prevent and treat certain diseases. Healthful eating can prevent the risk of developing certain diseases
such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease. It is also helpful in treating diabetes and high blood pressure.

Following a special diet can reduce symptoms, and may help you better manage an illness or condition.

Feel energetic and manage your weight. A healthy diet will assist you to feel higher, provide you with
more energy, and help you fight stress.

Food is the mainstay of many social and cultural events. Apart from nutrition properties, it helps
facilitate connections between individual

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR HEALTHY EATING

1.The most important rule of healthy eating is not skipping any meal. Skipping meals lowers your
metabolic rate. Normal eating includes 3 major meals and 2 snacks between meals. Also, Never skip
breakfast. It is the foremost vital meal of the day.

2.Learn simple ways to prepare food. Healthy eating doesn’t have to mean complicated eating. Keep
meal preparation easy, eat more raw foods such as salads, fruits and vegetable juices, and focus on the
pleasure of eating healthy food rather than the calories.

It is important to stop when you feel full. This will help you maintain your weight to an extent. This also
will help you remain alert and feeling your best.
3.Drink lots of water. Keep a bottle of water near you while working, watching TV, etc.

Variety of foods should be used in the menu. No single food has all the nutrients.

4.To improve the cereal and pulse protein quality, a minimum ratio of cereal protein to pulse protein
should be 4:1. In terms of the grains, it will be eight parts of cereals and one part of pulses.

5.Eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day.

6.Keep a supply of healthy snacks to hand. This will stop you from eating an unhealthy snack when
hungry.

7.Remove all visible fat from food before you cook it – take the skin off chicken and trim the white fat off
any meat.

8.Limit stimulants such as caffeine, alcohol and refined sugar.

9.Limit the number of times you eat out to once a week. Take your own packed lunch to work.

10.Only eat things you like the taste of – find what works for you and don’t force yourself to eat things
just because they’re good for you.

A well-balanced diet provides important vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to keep the body and mind
strong and healthy. Eating well can also help ward off numerous diseases and health complications, as
well as help maintain a healthy body weight, provide energy, allow better sleep, and improve brain
function. A diet with balance provides the body with the proper proportions of carbohydrates, fats,
proteins, vitamins, minerals, and liquids. It is important to not eliminate any essential macronutrient,
such as fats or carbohydrates, but be conscious of portion control.

1. Control Body Weight

Eating a healthy variety of nutrient-dense foods leaves less room for those calorie-dense foods that
typically lead to weight gain. These would be such foods as, processed foods and fatty or sugary snacks
that provide little nutritional value. The body has little use for these foods and will tend to store rather
than use them for energy. Eating carbohydrates like whole grains, oats, vegetables, fruits, legumes, and
quinoa that have a low glycemic index (ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 based on how
much they raise blood sugar levels after consuming) will allow the body to stay fuller over a longer
period of time. These complex carbohydrates break down and release into the blood stream over an
extended period of time preventing triggers in the brain to crave simple sugary snacks. Along with lean
proteins (chicken, most seafood, eggs, lean cuts of pork, etc.), the metabolism can stay elevated longer
limiting the feeling of hunger after a short time frame.
2. Fight Off Disease

When eating a balanced diet, essential nutrients will produce and help maintain key germ-fighting cells
in the immune system, and greatly improve vascular function. The immune system relies heavily on
blood flow, so better vascular function will help provide disease fighting cells to areas of need quickly.
Deficiencies in certain nutrients can impair immune system function, such as vitamin A, B-vitamins,
vitamin C, vitamin E, Zinc, and Iron. A diet filled with fruits and vegetables also increases the production
of infection-fighting white blood cells and materials that help prevent bacteria and infections from
attaching themselves to cells in the body.

Some of the most important aspects of a balanced diet is the reduction in risk of cardiovascular disease.
Vitamin C raises levels of good cholesterol (HDL) and lowers blood pressure, two very important
potential stresses to the cardiovascular system that need to be monitored. Vitamin C also helps interfere
with fat being converted to plaque in the arteries. Essential fatty acids also protect the body against
damage from over-reactions to infection. A balanced diet will limit the amount of excess body fat that
can develop, which puts extra stress on the cardiovascular system eventually causing serious problems.

3. Have More Energy

The food we eat has a tremendous impact on the energy we have throughout the day. Nutrient-dense
foods will digest and therefore be released into the system over a longer period of time. On the other
hand, easily digestible food (sugary/simple carbohydrates) will digest much quicker, causing the body to
feel hungry again in a much shorter time frame. This can cause spikes in the release of energy into the
bloodstream, immediately followed by lows. Ideally, the goal is to maintain energy levels through the
day without these extreme highs and lows. Eating well keeps our energy on a relatively level base from
morning until night. Proteins can help provide satiety much more effectively then processed foods or
simple carbohydrates. Every 3-4 hours consuming a source of protein can be a very important rule to
live by to prevent unnecessary snacking. Also, make sure to increase healthy fats, which the body will
use for energy more compared to unhealthy saturated and trans-saturated fats. These unhealthy fats
can make you feel sluggish as the body fights to break it down and absorb harmful byproducts. Food
that is also iron-rich, like dark leafy greens, can also help provide a boost in energy because iron helps
deliver oxygen to working muscles and the brain, which is what they run on.

4. Sleep Better

There are few things our bodies need more than sleep. It allows our muscles to recover and replenish
from the day’s activities and workouts. Sleep will rejuvenate the brain and its ability to function at a high
level for the next day. Without it we feel sluggish, energy levels remain low, focus and concentration
levels are affected, and cravings for less beneficial food are triggered. Poor eating habits often cause
stomach and digestive issues due to the toxins that may be released into the blood system. Raised
acidity can also put a strain on the digestive system, making it very difficult to get a good night’s sleep. It
is important to not overeat at nighttime, which many people are guilty of due to poor eating habits
during the day. Making sure meals are spaced out effectively becomes an important rule once again.
We do not want our bodies starving by the end of the day and have to make up for a lack of nutrients
with a large dinner. It makes it extremely difficult for the body to prepare for sleep when it is working
hard to digest a large number of calories. Plan the next day out, so you don’t run into a situation that
leads to a sleepless night.

5. More Brain Power

What could possibly be more important than our brains? We have an opportunity to keep it healthy and
functioning at a high level based on our eating habits. Omega 3 fatty acids provide a number of
important benefits, such as improved memory and the ability to learn. They also help fight against
debilitating mental disorders, for example, depression, dementia, and schizophrenia. Foods such as
salmon, walnuts, avocado, and kiwi contain these important fatty acids. Omega3s can provide long term
benefits to support synaptic plasticity which is how our memory and learning are developed and
possibly improved. So make sure they become an essential part of your diet for a clear and highly
functioning brain.

SELECTION AND FORMULATION OF BALANCE DIET

BALANCE DIET SELECTION:

Diet formulation is the process of selecting the kinds and amounts of ingredients (including vitamin and
mineral supplements) to be used in the production of a diet containing planned concentrations of
nutrients. Choice of ingredients will be influenced by the species to be fed and the experimental or
production objectives. Target nutrient concentrations must take into account estimated nutrient
requirements, possible nutrient losses during manufacturing and storage (National Research Council,
1973; Harris and Karmas, 1975), bioavailability of nutrients in the ingredients, and potential nutrient
interactions.

Various types of diets are available for use with laboratory animals. Selection of the most appropriate
type will depend on the amount of control required over nutrient composition, the need to add test
substances, potential effects of feed microbes, diet acceptance by the animals, and cost. Wastage is also
a problem with some types of diets, which may be a disadvantage if quantitative intake is to be
measured.

The ideal diet for a particular animal colony will depend on production or experimental objectives. The
diet must be sufficiently palatable to ensure adequate food consumption and must be nutritionally
balanced so that the nutrients essential for the objectives are provided. It should also be free of
substances or microorganisms that may be toxic or cause infection. Diets used in research also must be
readily reproducible to ensure that the results can be verified by additional studies.

It is common to classify diets for laboratory animals according to the degree of refinement of the
ingredients.

BALANCE DIET FORMULATION:

The goals of diet formulation are to integrate natural dietary habits, digestive morphology and
physiology, nutrient requirements, and the physical characteristics and nutrient composition of potential
feedstuffs to make diets that will be eaten in amounts sufficient to meet nutrient needs.

Although the calculations required in formulating diets can be made with a calculator, diet formulation
is easier and faster with a computer that uses software designed specifically for the purpose. Diet-
formulation software is available (Anonymous, 1999), and commercial programs are commonly designed
to select and incorporate feedstuffs on a least-cost basis. If a consistent, unvarying formula is desired,
that option is also available.

Commercial feed manufacturers offer a variety of closed-formula diets for nonhuman primates.
Although the specific amounts of each ingredient in the formula are not usually revealed, most
manufacturers will furnish estimates of typical nutrient content in printed form or on a Web site. The
information from the manufacturer can then be compared with the estimated nutrient requirements
listed in Table 11-1. However, commercial feed manufacturers routinely alter feed formulations based
on the quality and availability of feed ingredients, and customers are typically not notified when these
formulation changes occur (Knapka, 1997). Although changes might only involve alterations in the ratios
of the ingredients listed, in order to control the variation in the dietary nutrients of interest and perhaps
permit use of low cost ingredients, changes might also occur in dietary constituents that are not being
measured. For example, dietary ingredient changes can result in alterations of phytoestrogen
concentrations, which are not typically reported, but can have a significant effect on reproductive
efficiency and tumor rates in laboratory animals. These changes in feed composition can have potential
impacts on the health of the animals being fed and the quality of research conducted with experimental
animal colonies. Because of the potential variation in nutrient composition and other nonnutrient
factors that may have physiologic effects, closed formula diets are not recommended for many research
situations. If closed formula diets are used in research, they should be used with extreme caution and
the researcher should conduct independent analyses of the diets throughout the experimental period.
Researchers and caretakers should maintain detailed knowledge of the composition of diets, and those
dietary constituents—nutrients and nonnutritive components—that may be of special interest.

Persons conducting research with primates often use an open-formula diet, publishing the amount and
identity of each ingredient. Information on diet composition has utility in the interpretation of research
findings, but one should be wary of uncritically adopting diets based on formulas published in the past.
The definitions of feed ingredients (and their nutrient compositions) tend to change, and it might be
difficult or even impossible to formulate diets as originally specified. For example, an open formula
might specify the use of a fishmeal containing 70% protein. Fish-meal containing 70% protein has
traditionally been derived from processing of sardines and is no longer widely available. The fishmeal
used in most feed mills today is derived either from menhaden (60% protein) or from anchovies (65%
protein), and few commercial feed mills have more than one type of fishmeal on hand. Another example
is related to the use of wheat in an open-formula diet. The many types of wheat (such as soft white
winter, hard red winter, and durum) vary in protein concentration from 10% to 15%. Most feed
manufacturing plants will have only one type of wheat, and that makes it difficult to meet specifications
that require a particular type of wheat or wheat with a particular protein level. An example of an
ingredient specification that is not consistent with current technology is related to the form of vitamin C.
Most older published diet formulations specify ascorbic acid, whereas modern formulas use L-ascorbyl-
2-polyphosphate, a biologically active vitamin C form that is much more stable.

Because of concern that natural-ingredient diet formulas published in this document would be used
without critical consideration of the issues raised above, we have chosen instead to refer the reader to
relevant literature. A National Institutes of Health open-formula high-fiber diet that was developed to
study the effect of fiber on rhesus monkeys during quarantine has been used as a maintenance ration in
a number of colonies (Morin et al., 1978; Knapka et al., 1995). Diets used for longevity studies with
rhesus and squirrel monkeys, in which food was restricted, have been published by Ingram et al. (1990).
Diets for marmosets (Flurer et al., 1983; Barnard et al., 1988) and diets for lemurs, howlers, colobus,
langurs, mangabeys, and drills (Edwards, 1995) also have been described.

A number of investigators have used purified diets in their research, and these diets are referred to in
many of the studies cited in this report. Purified-diet formulas for macaques (Macaca spp.) (Kark et al.,
1974; Kemnitz et al., 1993; Thornberg et al., 1995), African green monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops)
(Scobey et al., 1992), and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) (Rasmussen et al., 1979; Martin et al.,
1972) and a liquid diet used for alcohol investigations with baboons (Papio spp.) (Leiber and DeCarli,
1974) have been published. They can be used as a starting point by those wishing to formulate a diet for
a specific purpose. The original publications should be studied carefully and formulas modified as
appropriate. Adjustment of nutrient levels is particularly important for diets that were used to produce
nutrient deficiencies.

FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERE IN SELECTION AND FORMULATION OF BALANCE DIET

1. Composition and Quality

For most raw materials the standard nutrient values are listed in ingredient composition tables or within
the scientific literature. However, in many instances, the ingredients will be produced in small quantities
at a local level and it is recommended to investigate individual suppliers and confirm the nutrient
profiles and quality through laboratory analysis. A typical proximate analysis should include information
regarding the moisture, protein, fat, fiber, and ash content of the material in question. An analysis of
macro minerals and amino acid content can provide a further indication of product quality.

2. Variability

A considerable barrier to utilizing more alternative ingredients within feed formulations can be the
nutrient variability. It is important to know the source and supplier in this instance along with having
accurate nutrient profiles collected over a substantial period of time. With higher variability, lower
inclusion levels should be considered as a safety measure.

3. Nutrient Digestibility/Availability

Nutrient digestibility and availability refer to the extent to which the animal can digest and absorb the
nutrients within the feedstuff. Many ingredients may have a considerable amount of nutrients, but they
may not be available to the animal for growth or productive purposes. An example of this can be feather
meal which has high level of protein but a low amount or imbalance of available amino acids.

Ingredients derived as by-products of processing industries that undergo a drying step need to be
scrutinized. The use of digestibility studies, laboratory analysis, review of the scientific literature, and
ingredient databases (such as those coordinated by amino acid suppliers) are useful sources of
information. The use of feed additives such as enzymes and phytogenic compounds may also be
considered as a means to improve digestibility of certain nutrients in alternative raw materials.

4. Relative Value

The relative value of a feed ingredient may be used to compare the nutrient value of a feedstuff in
comparison to the standard energy, protein, lysine, or phosphorus value in a market. In many instances,
corn and soybean meal are the gold standard—or benchmark against which all other ingredients are
compared. The relative value does not consider the inclusion levels. Rather, it is simply the cost per unit
of nutrient at a particular point in time.

5. Suitability or Form of Material

In some cases ingredients or feedstuffs may be available in the market, but the form of the material may
limit the ability to transport, store, or process the material. This may include by-products that are in
liquid state or ingredients that are not thoroughly dried.

6. Anti-Nutritional Factors
Certain naturally inherent components that develop within certain raw materials may interfere with the
digestion, metabolism, or health of animals. Examples may include: mycotoxins, trypsin inhibitors,
tannins, lectins, and glucosinolates.

If possible, these anti-nutritional factors should be determined through analysis and decisions to use or
the amounts to include adjusted accordingly. In some instances, certain feed additives such as
mycotoxin deactivators, can be considered for use to protect animals against the deleterious effects of
such components.

7. Palatability

This relates to the ability of the animal to readily consume the material of consideration. Certain
ingredients may have bitter components (for example, rapeseed meal) or have off-flavours or aromas
thereby limiting the intake when included in diets. Phytogenic feed additives (PFAs) improve the
palatability of feeds and may mask unappetizing aromas.

8. Free of Hazards

Depending upon the source of the feedstuff or type of processing some alternative ingredients can
contain foreign materials that may be considered dangerous to animal consumption. For example, in
some cases, bakery waste may contain plastic or other packaging material that can be present in the
product. Other hazards to consider may be heavy metals or chemical contamination that may occur in
ingredients such as minerals.

9. Handling and Storage

The raw material of consideration needs to flow or move within the feed milling process to be a cost
effective and practical ingredient for utilization within formulations. Bin space, warehousing, and how
product can be stored needs to be considered prior to the purchase of a new ingredient.

10. Availabiltiy and Consistency of Supply

An adequate supply of the material under consideration must exist prior to evaluating the cost and
nutritional value. It should be determined as to the type of animals to be fed, diets, inclusion levels, and
feed tonnage produced in order to calculate the potential volumes required over a period of time.

11. Stability
The ability of ingredients to be stored and maintain their quality is of considerable importance. For
example, products that are high in moisture (15-25%) are prone to spoilage, fermentation, mold
development, and reduced nutrient quality over time.

12. Inclusion Rates

The amount of ingredient to include within a feed formula is highly open to interpretation and the
conditions involved. Experience is the greatest asset in setting limits of alternative ingredients and every
nutritionist or company may have a unique set of methods or philosophies in how to incorporate
unusual raw materials.

Industry guidelines, publications, or scientific literature may assist to develop base levels of inclusions
but these should be challenged to gain greatest cost saving potential. Research on alternative ingredient
inclusion levels should be an important focus of any integrator or feed company’s research and
development program.

13. Impact on Pellet Quality and Final Feed

Factors such as the moisture level and particle size of various ingredients can affect the feed
manufacturing process. The feedstuffs under consideration should have limited impact on pellet quality
and not affect the overall performance of the feed to be an effective alternative ingredient

14. Effect on Meat, Egg, or Milk Quality

As in above scenario, the feedstuff should not impart any negative effects to the final food products
being produced. For example, high amounts of fishmeal are known to cause off flavours to milk, egg,
and meat products and thereby need to be limited in feed formulas.

15. Cost

The amount of potential feed cost savings tends to be the biggest factor in determining use of
alternative based ingredients. Through proper attention to the above details, accurate nutrient
characterization and use of feed formulation software the most cost efficient feed price and
formulations can be developed.

If animal performance is not compromised and a more economical formula is produced, this should lead
to reduced costs of production. As outlined, other cost factors to consider outside of ingredient price
may be the need for special storage, processing, or transport.
Conclusion

Alternative feed ingredients should always be considered in feed formulations. Overall, when such
materials can be characterized correctly and incorporated to animal diets with no performance
impairment, they can be an important method or way to reduce feed and production costs. There are
multiple factors to evaluate in using alternative ingredients. When used properly, the financial benefits
of alternative feed ingredients can be considerable to animal feeding operations.

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