Basic aspects of Food Nutrition

Topic:- Definition of the terms Health, Nutrition and Nutrients, Importance of Food – (Physiological, Psychological and Social function of food) in maintaining good health, Classification of nutrients

What is Health?:-

The word health refers to the state of complete emotional & physical well being in human. Good health is central for handling any types of mental & physical stress and helps to live longer and more active life. The concept of health is a balance between a person and the environment, unity of soul and body, and the natural origin of disease, was the backbone of the perception of health in ancient Greece. Similar concepts existed in ancient Indian and Chinese medicine too. Health is a harmonious function of all organs in our body.

As per the WHO definition which comes in the year 1948 states health as under:-

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

In the year 1986,World health organization further expanded the definition of Heath as –

“A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.” Which means that health is a only resource to support an individual functions in wider society rather than itself. A healthy lifestyle of a person lives with a meaningful life and purpose. Healthy person has the ability to adopt new threats and infermities.

Within the last few decades, the WHO definition of health has been increasingly amended and supplemented by the fourth dimension – spiritual health.

Generally speaking, spiritual health involves a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction with our own lives, system of values, self-confidence and self-esteem, self-awareness and presence, peacefulness and tranquillity with dynamic emotional balance, both internal and toward the environment, morality and truthfulness, selflessness, positive emotions, compassion and willingness to help and support others, responsibility and contribution to the common good, and successful management of everyday life problems and demands as well as social stress.

• Health is a relative state in which one is able to function well physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually to express the full range of one’s unique potentialities within the environment in which one lives.

Importance of Health:-

It is very much required to have a better health for any human being to be happiness and well being. Good health also contributes to the economic progress for any country. There are several factors which can influence health status and a country’s ability to provide quality health services for its people. It is concerned with the impact of better health on development and poverty reduction, and conversely, with the impact of development policies on the achievement of health goals.

It is saying ‘Health is Wealth’ as it explains the importance of health. On the contrary, the natural consequences of good health are reduction in the rate of absenteeism and turnover, accidents and occupational diseases. Besides, employee health also provides other benefits such as reduced spoilage, improved morale of employee, in­creased productivity of employee and also longer working period of an employee which, of course, cannot be easily measured.

Pic source-BBC Food

What is Nutrition:-

Nutrition has been defined as that condition which permits the development and maintenance of the highest state of fitness. Fitness implies to good health, maximum capacity for work, the ability to undertake mental and physical tasks and the power to withstand physical, physiological and psychological stress. Nutrition can also be defined as food at work in our body or the process by which the organism ingests, digests, absorbs, transports and utilizes nutrients and disposes of their end-products. It is the study of how food and drink affect our bodies with a special regard to the essential nutrients necessary to support human health. It is an important aspect of our individual’s life. It is imperative to ensure that each one of us gets a balanced nutritional diet with all components that are needed in our stage of life. Hence it is important to consult a nutrition expert to ensure that you are on the right nutritional track.

Aims of Nutrition:-

• To educate people about good nutrition so that they can have complete physical and mental development.
• To educate about the cheap and easily available food sources so that every body can get adequate nutrition.
• Food described dependences of other related factors on nutrition like food related habits, care of food, personal hygiene and sanitation so that people can get proper nutrition.

Why is nutrition important?

Good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle. It is a famous saying “you are what you eat”. A healthy diet consists of a well-balanced diet which is composed of all important nutrients in right proportion in our daily meal. It helps to prevent malnutrition and onset of diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, cancer & stroke etc.

Food that we eat acts as a fuel to the body & provide essential nutrients which further act as:

Body-building foods: – Proteins, Minerals- Muscles, bones & organs are built up and maintained by the protein supplied by the food. Minerals like iron, phosphorous affect the formation of the blood – skeleton tissue (bones).

Protective foods – Vitamins, Minerals – essential for safeguarding the body against diseases.

Regulatory foods – Water, Roughage- Water is required to regulate body processes such as digestion, excretion, maintenance of the body temperature and the electrolyte balance. Roughage helps normal body movements.

Energy-giving foods – Carbohydrates, Fats- Energy required constantly for the voluntary & involuntary activities of the body.

Important Nutrients required by the body:

• Carbohydrates
• Proteins
• Fats
• Vitamins and Minerals
• Water
• Roughage

What to eat and what not to ?

It is important for us to know what to eat and what to avoid. Your plate has to be wholesome and balanced and needs to include the right ingredients to provide you the right nutrition that you need. As stated above you need carbohydrates, proteins, fats and vitamins and minerals along with water and roughage. Refer to the list below for the food items that you can add to your diet.

Carbohydrates rich foods –

• Cereals like wheat, brown rice, maize, whole wheat bread, jowar, ragi (Complex) rice, noodles, white flour, biscuits, pasta etc are simple carbohydrate
• Starch, arrowroot, vegetables like potato, sweet potato, and yam
• Fats and oils: Butter, vanaspati, ghee, cooking oils
• Sugar, jaggery, honey

Protein rich foods –

• Milk and milk products like milk, curd, cheese, buttermilk
• Pulses and legumes-soybeans, grams, groundnuts and other nuts & seeds
• Meats-fish, chicken, mutton, eggs

Vitamins & minerals rich foods-

• Whole milk and milk products.
• All green leafy vegetables.
• Coloured fruits & vegetables like mangoes, papaya, carrots, etc.
• Pulses
• Sprouted pulses
• Almonds
• Milk and milk products
• Bengal gram whole
• Til
• Rice flakes

What is Nutrients:-

It can be defined as those constituents in food that must be supplied to the body in sufficient amounts in order to grow, reproduce and lead a normal healthy life. Various nutrients are Protein, Carbohydrates, Fats, Vitamins, Minerals and Water.

What is Malnutrition:-

Malnutrition Is that state of health which arises from incomplete nutrition. This is due to inadequate food and ill balanced diet. Inadequate diet can be due to both excess or less amount of food than the required amount.

What is under Nutrition?

Under nutrition stands for the diet which is deficient both in quality and quantity or in other terms the food which does not provide essential nutrients for the proper maintenance of health. Small children, growing children, pregnant women and lactating mothers are prone to under nutrition.

What is over nutrition?

When the diet contains nutrients in amount excess than the required amount for the body it becomes unbalanced. Continuous use of such diets leads to abnormality in food.

The basic Nutrients:-
Nutrients are compounds in foods essential to life and health, providing us with energy, the building blocks for repair and growth and substances necessary to regulate chemical processes.

There are 6 essential nutrients that the body needs to function properly

1. Carbohydrates (CHO)
2. Lipids (fats)
3. Proteins
4. Vitamins
5. Minerals
6. Water.

Food source of the above essential nutrients are:-

• Carbohydrates: pasta, rice, cereals, breads, potatoes, milk, fruit, sugar
• Lipids (most commonly called fats): oils, butter, margarine, nuts, seeds, avocados and olives, meat and seafood
• Proteins: meat, dairy, legumes, nuts, seafood, and eggs
• Vitamins: common vitamins include the water-soluble B group vitamins and vitamin C and the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K

Fruits and vegetables are generally good sources of Vitamin C and A and folic acid. Grains and cereals are generally good sources of the B group vitamins and fibre. Full-fat dairy and egg yolks are generally sources of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E. Milk and vegetable or soya bean oil are generally good sources of vitamin K.

• Minerals: (sodium, calcium, iron, iodine, magnesium, etc.): all foods contain some form of minerals.

Milk and dairy products are a good source of calcium and magnesium. Red meat is a good source of iron and zinc. Seafood and vegetables (depending on the soil in which they are produced) are generally good sources of iodine

• Water: As a beverage and a component of many foods, especially vegetables and fruits.

Definition of Food:-

Food can be defined as anything edible that can be solid, semisolid or liquid which when swallowed, digested and assimilated in the body, proves useful to it. These substances not only keep the person alive, but also provide energy used for growth and development, regulate the body processes and protect the body from diseases.

Importance of Food:-

Food is the most essential requirement for sustenance of human life. Even if a human being does not have shelter over their head or clothes over their body, they would still survive if they get wholesome nutrition. That is why all over human history, we have been motivated to search and seek food. Throughout history food has acted as a catalyst for societal transformation, societal organization, competition, development, conflict and expansion.

Once civilizations had emerged throughout the world, food helped to connect them together. The early travel and discovery of the new world was in search of food and these food trade routes acted as international communication channels which exchanged not only food, but academic, cultural and religious ideas too. It also had a big hand in the Industrial revolution, where potato and sugar were as important as the steam engine as a catalyst. In fact the sugar plantations in West Indies were arguably the earliest prototype of an industrial process.

In the more modern civilizations food has served as the biggest pleasure aid for human beings. Most of our celebrations are centered on good food. It has been scientifically proven that food can lift a person’s mood by producing endorphins. This is why preparation and production of food has evolved to Culinary Arts. From the earliest production of food where vegetables were eaten raw and meats spit fired to modern styles of sous vide and molecular gastronomy, we have certainly come a long way. With the globalization of the world, there is a plethora of ingredients which are available everywhere and the advances in science which have made incredible equipment to cook the food in, there are innumerable ways that food can be cooked and presented. This is causing a boom in the Food Production industry to constantly reinvent itself and surprise the customer.

Physiological function of food:-

To provide energy :-

• Body needs fuel for voluntary and involuntary activities.
• Carbohydrate and fat rich foods are main sources
• Carbohydrate are starch, sugars and cellulose.

Fat sources are vanaspati, butter, ghee, nuts and oil seeds. – 1 gram of carbohydrate yields 4 kilocalories, 1 gram of fat yields 9 kilocalories, 1 gram of protein yields 4 kilocalories.

To repair body tissues & build new cells and tissues: –

Proteins, water and minerals build cells muscles and blood. Protein sources are cereals and pulses. Animal protein comes from milk products eggs, fish and meat. Minerals are found in egg, meat, fish, green leafy vegetables etc. Body tissues are continually broken down and replaced by new ones. Proteins, minerals and water is required to replace them.

To regulate body processes:-

Essential fatty acids present in certain fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins and water all perform certain regulatory functions – coagulation of blood, maintenance of body temperature, activation of enzymes etc.

To protect against diseases:-

Vitamins and minerals protect body from injury and diseases. They help in regulating growth, muscular co-ordination, eye sight, digestion and other body processes. These are present in green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, milk, meat, liver and eggs etc.

Social functions of food:-

Man is a social being food helps him to be social. During special occasion like marriages, birthdays etc. food is an important ingredient.

Psychological Functions of Food:-

Food satisfies certain emotional needs. Food is used to express feelings of special attention, friendship, recognition or punishment.