Nutrition Information

Nutrition

When you talk about proper nutrition, your talking about the food you eat and how your body uses that food for health and survival. It is surprising what we can survive on, but it is important to learn about foods and eating habits that are good for your health. This is what nutrition is all about.

We have learned that eating fresh whole foods are much better for your health than eating processed foods. We have also learned that having a balanced intake of the different types of food is very important. It is known that nutrient deficiencies cause diseases and have very negative effects on your health. For instance, there are many people in the world that are blind due to a vitamin A deficiency, It has also become evident that eating too much, especially of sugars can cause health problems and disease like diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

Exactly what is considered to be a good balanced diet is subject to prefrences by different cultures and religions but everyone must certain amount fats, carbohydrates, and protiens to keep them going and vitamins and minerals to keep them healthy. Your lifestyle and how active you are also effects what balance of fats, carbohydrates, and protiens you need. For some tips and advice on what a balanced diet is for you visit mypyramid.gov

Digestive microbes are a natural part of the mammalian nutrition system. The way plant and animal products become food involves the development of digestive microbes to work in a synergistic way with human nutrition. Humans are complicated organisms that require nutrients we are not able to make ourselves. Our nutrients come from other living organisms. In order for something to be nutritious food for humans or other animals, it has to have been a living organism at one time. This could be plants or other animals or products from plants or other animals.

Microbes are simple organisms that make all the nutrients they need from what they live on. Microbes were here long before humans were. The way humans came into existence involved using microbes as part of our nutrition. Since we can't produce all the nutrients we need like microbes do, we eat food which contains microbes so the microbes play a part in obtaining the nutrients from the food.

All foods are made up of 7 things:

Fiber and Water have obvious roles in our bodies. Being made up 60% water we need to consume water to make up for water lost in things such as urinating, sweating, and even breathing. Fiber cannot be digested by our bodies but it can be digested by our beneficial bacteria and fiber is important for regular bowel movements.

Carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals can all be classified as nutrients.

Nutrients

Nutrients are the parts of our foods that our bodies use for energy, growth, and the rebuilding and regrowing of the damaged or worn out structures of our bodies.

Energy, Growth ,and Repair

Our bodies need energy for everything we do including maintaining all the functions of our bodies such as breathing or pumping blood .This is especially true for bodies that are growing and busy bodies. Growing bodies and hard working bodies that do a lot need more energy and therefore more nutrients.

Calories

Energy in food is measured in calories. A food calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1,000 grams of water 1 degrees Celsius. A gram of fat has 9 calories, a gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, and a gram of protein has 9 calories.

Anytime food is eaten the calories from the fats, carbohydrates, and proteins in food are burned. Enzymes break down the fats into glycerol and fatty acids, the carbohydrates into glucose and other sugars, and the proteins into amino acids. These molecules go through the bloodstream to the cells, where they are either absorbed for immediate use or reacted with oxygen to release their stored energy.

Calories that are not used are stored as fat. The average size diet is about 2,000 calories. Extra calories are stored as fat to be used later. If you eat 35,000 extra calories they will be stored as one pound of fat. If you burn 35,000 more calories than you eat, you lose one pound of stored fat.

Any calories that you eat, whether they are from fats, carbohydrates, or proteins they are all used for energy. As far as energy or weight control is concerned theses calories are the same. But for proper health and nutrition you must have a balance of these three groups with less than 30% of your calories coming from fats.

Nutrients are classified into five groups. These groups are Fats, Carbohydrates, Proteins, Vitamins, and Minerals.

Fats

It was mentioned earlier that fats are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids. Some fatty acids are called saturated which means they contain as many hydrogen atoms as possible. Too many of these saturated fatty acids can raise cholesterol. Other fatty acids include unsaturated, which don't hold the most hydrogen atoms possible and poly-unsaturated which have less than 4 hydrogen atoms.

Although our bodies need a certain amount of fats as an important source of energy and to help digest vitamins, most doctors and professionals recommend that fats make up now more than 30% of your total diet. This means a person with a 2,000 calories per day diet should eat no more than 56 grams of fat per day. Remember that 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories so 56 grams of fat is equal to 504 calories.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the sugars such as glucose (blood sugar) that our bodies use as our main source of energy. Other carbohydrates include sucrose, which is the main sugar in food, and lactose, which is an important sugar found in milk. Recent diets may have you thinking that carbohydrates are all bad but they are a very important part of a balanced diet.

Proteins

Proteins are another source of energy and are very important for growth and maintenance of structures. Proteins are chains of amino acids. Amino acids make up a large part of our structures which makes them the biggest part of bones, muscles and skin.

Amino-acids are classified as either essential or non-essential amino-acids. Non essential amino are ones that our bodies can make. Essential amino-acids are ones that we must get from our food.

Proteins are known either as animal Proteins, found in meat, milk, and eggs or vegetable proteins, found in vegetables, nuts, grains, and beans. Most animal proteins are complete proteins meaning that they contain all the essential amino-acids. Vegetable proteins are usually not complete proteins but when eating a lot of different vegetables all the essential amino-acids can be found.

Vitamins

Vitamins actually work to get the nutrients out of food and are known to be essential to our health. There are many diseases and health problems associated with vitamin deficiencies.

Vitamins your body needs include Vitamins A, B, B1,B2, B3, B6, B12, folic acid, C, D, E, K, pantothenic acid, and biotin

Minerals

Minerals are important for growth and maintenance of structures as they make up large parts of our body.