Nutrition and Nutritious Food Types
Information on human nutrition and eating nutritious food types including fruits and vegetables, nuts, and berries to prevent diseases including cancer.
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with good nutrition.
Eating a healthy nutritious diet has been shown over and over to prevent a variety of diseases, including cancer. Good nutrition is vital to good health, disease prevention, and essential for healthy growth and development of children and adolescents.
There are seven major classes of nutrients: carbohydrates, fats, fiber, minerals, protein, vitamins, and water.
Carbohydrates - our main source of energy.
Fats - one source of energy and important in relation to fat soluble vitamins.
Roughage (Fiber) - the fibrous indigestible portion of our diet essential to health of the digestive system.
Minerals - those inorganic elements occurring in the body and which are critical to its normal functions.
Proteins - essential to growth and repair of muscle and other body tissues.
Vitamins - water and fat soluble vitamins play important roles in many chemical processes in the body.
Water - essential to normal body function - as a vehicle for carrying other nutrients and because 60% of the human body is water.
These nutrient classes can be categorized as either macronutrients (needed in relatively large amounts) or micronutrients (needed in smaller quantities). The macronutrients are carbohydrates, fats, fiber, proteins, and water. The micronutrients are minerals and vitamins.
The macronutrients (excluding fiber and water) provide energy, which is measured in Joules or kilocalories (often just called Calories). Carbohydrates and proteins provide 17 kJ (4 kcal) of energy per gram, while fats provide 37 kJ (9 kcal) per gram. Vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water do not provide energy, but are necessary for other reasons.
The human body contains chemical compounds, such as water, carbohydrates (sugar, starch, and fiber), amino acids (in proteins), fatty acids (in lipids), and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). These compounds in turn consist of elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and so on. All of these chemical compounds and elements occur in various forms and combinations (e.g. hormones, vitamins, phospholipids, hydroxyapatite), both in the human body and in the plant and animal organisms that humans eat.
Water is one of the most important nutrients in your diet. It helps eliminate food waste products in your body, regulates body temperature during activity, and helps digest food.
Most fatty acids are non-essential, meaning the body can produce them as needed. However, in humans at least two fatty acids are essential and must be included in the diet. An appropriate balance of essential fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, is important for health. Both of these "omega" long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are substrates for a class of eicosanoids known as prostaglandins, which have roles throughout the human body.
A growing area of interest is the effect upon human health of trace chemicals, collectively called phytochemicals. These nutrients are typically found in edible plants, especially colorful fruits and vegetables, but also other organisms including seafood, algae, and fungi. The effects of phytochemicals increasingly survive rigorous testing by prominent health organizations. One of the principal classes of phytochemicals are polyphenol antioxidants, chemicals which are known to provide certain health benefits to the cardiovascular system and immune system. These chemicals are known to down-regulate the formation of reactive oxygen species, key chemicals in cardiovascular disease.
Learning to eat nutritiously is not hard. The key is to:
* Drink lots of water.
* Go easy on the salt, sugar, alcohol, saturated fat and trans fat.
* Eat a variety of foods, including fruits and vegetables, and whole-grain products.
* Eat lean meats, poultry, fish, beans and low-fat dairy products.
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