It has long been known that nutrition is one of the main pillars of health prevention and longevity. Over the years, eating well contributes to reducing the risk of many chronic diseases and helps maintain good health. However, these long-term benefits, valuable as they are, remain often little tangible in daily life. Yet, eating better can also have much more concrete effects. Physical well-being, mental balance, digestive comfort, weight loss: certain changes can be felt long before the health benefits are measured over the long term. But first, what does "eating well" mean concretely? What tangible effects can be expected in the short, medium and long term? Let's take a look! A healthy balanced diet is not as complicated as it may seem. It does not require fine knowledge of nutrition or depriving oneself of food. Varying one's meals, giving preference to plant-based foods, and limiting junk food and ultra-processed foods generally allows one to cover all one's needs in nutrients and micronutrients. Prioritize healthy foods and superfoods, rich in nutrients, fibers and micronutrients. Eating does not have the sole objective of providing our body with calories, fuel that it needs to function. Our diet must also cover our needs in micronutrients - vitamins, minerals, trace elements and other bioactive compounds - essential to a multitude of functions: energy production, nervous system and immune system function, cell renewal, bone and muscle health or protection against oxidative stress. It is also necessary to ensure sufficient fiber intake, which the body does not digest but which plays an essential role, particularly in intestinal transit, satiety and the functioning of the microbiota. And last essential point: eating balanced involves limiting ultra-processed foods and junk food, rich in calories and poor in essential nutrients. To achieve this, it is necessary to give a prominent place to foods that have a high nutritional density, that is to say that provide a lot of nutrients for relatively few calories. Fruits and vegetables, of course, but also legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, fish are the basis of a balanced diet. It is actually in the main lines, the principle of the Mediterranean diet, considered as the healthiest diet, points out Raphaël Gruman. By varying the colors, families and preparation methods, one multiplies the chances of covering the entire range of one's needs. Limit ultra-processed foods, refined sugars and saturated fats. Junk food is a bit the illness of the century: cookies, industrial pastries, sodas, candies, chips, prepared meals, processed meats, fast food ... Although not all these foods are exactly in the same bag, they have in common to be rich in calories, sugars, salt and / or saturated fats, while being very poor in vitamins, minerals, fibers and other protective nutrients. It is not therefore to ban these foods completely, which can occasionally find their place in a diet and provide pleasure! It is mainly their frequency and their place in the overall diet that count. In other words, it is not about eating perfectly, but to make sure that the foods that really nourish the body are much more present than those that mainly provide energy. Vary your foods. Eating balanced is not only choosing "good" foods: it is also to avoid eating the same thing all the time! For fruits and vegetables, a simple way to diversify your plate is to follow the seasons and play with colors: red fruits, green, orange, yellow, purple ... Each pigment corresponds to different families of plant compounds. You can thus alternate over the weeks apples, pears, citrus, kiwis or red fruits, and do the same with vegetables. Diversity also applies to the rest of the plate. Alternate oils - olive, rapeseed, walnut ... - to diversify the fatty acids. Regularly change cereals (rice, pasta, bulgur, semolina, corn) by preferring the whole grain versions. Vary between meat, lean and fatty fish, eggs. And for the snacks, make yourself a large jar of mixed nuts: almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews ... each has their own nutritional advantages! In the end, rather than trying absolutely to have the healthiest foods in your plate, it is even more important to vary them as much as possible! It is this diversity that gives the best chances of covering the entire range of the body's needs in a sustainable way.