More About Nutrition

More about nutrition: There are seven major categories of nutrients (or foods) essential for a healthy diet.
These nutrients are:
Carbohydrate, Fat, Fibre, Minerals, Protein, Vitamins, and Water.

The nutrients you need in relatively large amounts are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, fibres, and water.
Minerals and vitamins are nutrients you need in small amounts only.

Good nutrition can enhance your mental abilities and improve your memory, and reduce the risk of ill health.

Carbohydrate provides energy by converting to blood sugar (glucose).

Water is stored in carbohydrate. Diets which promote eating few carbohydrates seem to work well for weight loss, because your body cannot store the optimal amount of essential water.

Once you start eating the carbohydrate again, water is properly stored, and the 'lost' weight returns.

There are healthy carbohydrates and empty carbohydrates. Eat mainly healthy cabohydrates for a healthy diet.

Look at the Mediterranean diet for a list of healthy carbohydrates you need to eat.

Fat provides warmth and energy. There are 'bad' (saturated) fats and 'good' (unsaturated) fats. Most processed snacks and convenience foods have saturated fat ingredients, for example cheap cuts of meat have lots of saturated fat.  Too much fat, when not used, increases cholesterol in your blood which can eventually cause heart disease.

The macronutrient protein is in meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, seeds, nuts, soy products, legumes and other plants.

Protein is broken down into amino acids during digestion to be used by the body.

Too much protein in your diet is unhealthy because often it replaces essential carbohydrate. Healthy carbohydrates are necessary for energy, and for water storage. 

Many proteins contain high levels of unhealthy saturated fat.

Fibre is another macronutrient, found in most vegetables in your diet. Fibre combines waste food and stops constipation. Fibre also lowers the risk of colon cancer.

Water is essential to nutrition because it is 60 to 75% of your body mass.

Water transports the essential nutrients around the body, is essential for digestion of protein and carbohydrate.

Water lubricates the body... joints, skin, brain, eyes, spinal cord, saliva being some.

Fibre, waste food and water combined effectively rid your body of waste.

Water is a cushion against shock or jolts, reducing the chance of injury.

Water stores heat to regulate body temperature. When you are overheated you sweat out excess heat.

Minerals and Vitamins: Most foods contain a mixture of many of these essential micronutrients.

You need only small amounts in your daily diet.

When your diet does not contain the right balance of nutrients, you feel unwell. Your body is malnourished. You need to learn and understand more about nutrition to stop this happening. It is a huge hidden problem.

Summary

 You need all seven nutrients daily.

By nourishing your body with healthy nutrients, you reduce the risks of ill health.

You will understand lots more about nutrition as you browse this website.