Welcome to Healthy Simple Recipes. We have a large collection of healthy recipes for soups, appetizers, fish, pasta, salads, eggs and cheese, vegetables, meat, poultry, desserts, baking and sauce.

Healthy eating is all about eating the right kind of food - wholesome, natural food which is delicious and good for you.

Our diet should provide us with all the vital nutrients that we need to grow and to stay healthy: proteins, fats, carbohydrates and a number of different vitamins and minerals. Carbohydrates and fats are the body's main sources of energy, while the role of proteins, minerals and vitamins is in body build nig and maintenance.

We are fortunate in that we have a wide range of nutritious foods available and serious deficiencies are rare. But our plentiful diet can bring its own problems. Recent research has shown that most of us would benefit from making certain alterations to our present diet, by eating LESS FAT - LESS SALT - LESS SUGAR and MORE FIBRE.

The number of calories (a unit for measuring the potential energy content of any food, as well as the energy consumed in a particular activity) taken in should be appropriate for maintaining optimal body weight for height and sex, with adequate exercise.

Being obese (more than 20 per cent above ideal body weight) is associated with middle-age diabetes, heart disease, painful arthritis, hiatus hernia and high blood pressure.

• Fat intake should be, on average, 30 per cent of total calories. The average person should aim to cut his or her total fat intake by nearly a quarter. Saturated fat intake should be on average 10 per cent of total calories.

Strokes, heart attacks, breast cancer, diabetes, gallstones and acne are some of the diseases associated with a high saturated fat intake.

• Average sucrose intake should be reduced to 20 kg per head per year (the average person should halve his or her consumption).

Sugar is bad for teeth: it sticks between them, encouraging the formation of plaque which results in dental decay. Eating a lot of sugary food usually leads to weight problems.

• Average salt intake should fall by 3 g per head per day - representing a 25 per cent cut.

A high salt intake is thought by sonic scientists to increase blood pressure and high blood pressure is known to cause strokes and heart attacks.

• Fibre intake should increase on average to 30 g per head per day.

Fibre, or roughage, as it used to be called, is a form of carbohydrate found only in plants. Lack of fibre causes constipation and intestinal disorders of later life; piles, diverticular disease, even colon cancer are probably all related to the deficiency of dietary fibre in our meals.

• Protein - no change. On average we are getting about twice as much as we need, which is either used by the body or stored as fat.