A balanced meal is basically...it always depends on what you want to eat. Look at containers/boxes of what you're going to cook and check the serving sizes. Also, balanced is like vitamins, whole grains, fiber...that sort of thing. That also means you should have your daily serving of fruit and vegetables, meats, dairy, carbohydrates...so on and so forth.
Hahaha, that's why you look at serving sizes. And it's a throughout the day thing. You can get A LOT of your whole grains by just having breakfast XD
Eating a balanced diet means choosing a wide variety of foods and drinks from all the food groups. It also means eating certain things in moderation, namely saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, refined sugar, salt and alcohol. The goal is to take in nutrients you need for health at the recommended levels. But also watch calories!
You have to make sure you're providing the right nutrients, too.
A high nutrient-dense lunch would look something like this:
2 slices whole wheat bread
Deli turkey
1 slice roasted red pepper
romaine lettuce
1 tsp mayonnaise
baby carrots
hummus
8 oz non-fat milk
o3o bread makes u fat. turkey is delicious. red peppers are delicious. lettuce ie delicious. mayonnaise makes u fat. baby carrots are delicious. hummus is disgusting. and i like water T^T
How am I still talking... without a fucking thorax?!
Depends on what bread. White bread is the worst for you. Whole wheat is fine. Mayo is disgusting...I don't eat the stuff. That was just a list of stuff that we did for an example at school XD
Also, fish is recommended at least two times per week, beans, nuts and seeds are encouraged, and unsaturated fats are always the fats of choice - like olive oil. ALWAYS look at saturated fats. It's best to consume less than 5 grams of that stuff in a day. Or better yet, try to consume no saturated fat at all.