Nutrition

At the very first, the word “Nutrition” may sound sort of boring but it is quite interesting. To define the term in simple words, nutrition is the nourishment that our body needs for all its normal internal functions. Now the question may arise, where does our body get the required food from?

Yes! This is why we eat food! Foods provide us with nutrition that helps our body grow, function, and stay healthy. In other words, foods and nutrition are the way that we get fuel, making our body energetic. Experts say that nutrition is likely an ingredient that contributes growth, supplies energy and balances life.

In addition to that, nutrition is also regarded as the study of nutrients in our daily diets. In some way, it is called health nutrition. A proper understanding of health nutrition really helps to choose a balanced diet according to our age, metabolism, and achieve the best out of what we eat. As our body cannot make all the nutrients on its own so we must get those through our diets.

Essential nutrients include carbs, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. When you combine with being physically active and maintaining a proper and healthy weight, eating correctly is an acceptable way to help your body to be stronger and healthier. That is why, nutrition is necessitous for everyone.

Besides, proper nutrition keeps away from diseases and promotes one’s overall health. Likewise, a person who has breast cancer or currently undergoing treatment, proper eating habits are important for her in order to boost immune system, energy level and mood. However, people suffering from deficiencies or other health conditions may need special supplements to add missing nutrients to their diets. Thus, a well-balanced diet full of essential nutrients helps to support a healthy life.

For all that, nutrition we get from foods is the resultant of nutrients. Nutrients are categorized into two types, and those are: Macronutrients and Micronutrients

Macronutrients are those that our body needs in large amounts, whereas our body needs micronutrients less than that of macronutrients. There are three macronutrients that require daily into our body. Such as, proteins, carbohydrates and fats are known as macronutrients which are needed to us regularly. However, not only your body required macronutrients but also your body requires smaller amounts like vitamins and mineral.

Long story short, macronutrients are proteins, carbohydrates and fats and micronutrients are vitamins and mineral. These nutrients all together give us nutrition for our well-being.

However, required nutrition may vary from person to person based on their age, metabolism, body structure, BMI, the energy requirement for everyday tasks, and many more. It will be a wise decision if you go for any consultancy with doctor in order to get a proper nutrition, or, you can read through online journal to know about healthy foods, providing us with nutrition.

Consuming essential nutrition is a must for leading a healthy lifestyle. Excellent and well-balanced nutrition reduce the risk of chronic diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, and cancer, leading to a serene state of health. Even, through proper nutrition, a pregnant lady will be able to get healthy pregnancy outcomes because it helps to support normal growth of the baby carrying inside, and balances the healthy weight during pregnancy. What so ever, different types of nutrients are essential in separate ways. Synchronously all the nutrients work and help us stay healthy. There are thousand reasons behind its importance and some specific significant nutrients are given below:

Carbohydrates
Carbs are the primary source of calories for energy. Carbohydrate is the fuel source to meet up the high energy demand of our brain cells. It helps preserve muscle. Carbohydrate contains fibers which promote our digestive health. Carbs help in strengthening the muscles of the heart, kidney, brain, and central nervous system.

For instance, fibre is also a type of carbohydrate that keeps the body’s digestive system healthy. It provides energy and helps in getting rid of toxins from the body as carbs keep one full for longer, which prevents one from ending up overeating. Carbohydrates that we obtain from fruits and vegetables also meet up our requirements of vitamins and minerals.

Proteins
Proteins are essential components of our body cells. Proteins build tissues and muscles. Proteins are made up of amino acids. Which are mainly the major structural components of our body cells? The human body can produce 10 of the 20 amino acids. The rest must be supplied through food. Protein is an essential building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood.

Fats
Fats help the healthy development and growth of immune function, vitamin absorption, hormone production, and more. Besides, fats give energy for daily tasks also. Getting the right kind and amount of dietary fat, however, can be tricky. Too much of the wrong type of fat increase the risk of health problem. They also help protect our organs and help keep your body warm.

Vitamins
Vitamins are micronutrients as our body requires tiny amounts of vitamins, yet lack of vitamins causes diseases. Vitamins help grow strong bones, support our immune system. It boosts energy level, improves the immune system, digestive system, cell growth.

Minerals
Minerals are essential for making hormones and enzymes. Minerals also help body tissue fluids from becoming more acid or more alkaline. Our body uses minerals for many different jobs, including keeping your bones, muscles, heart, and brain working properly. Minerals are also important for making enzymes and hormones. There are two kinds of minerals: macrominerals and trace minerals.

Water
We know that 60% of an adult human body consists of water. Water is a prime component of body cells, tissues. Water helps create saliva, protects muscles, spinal cord, and joints, maintains the body temperature, aids our digestion, helps blood oxygen circulation, fight off illness, and so on. So, it’s crucial having foods that contain water and drinking fluids.

Thus, proper nutrition is the first condition to maintain well-being.

Foods that we consume every day contain different types of nutrients. Human body receives carbohydrates from bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, soft drinks, corn and other food items. They come in different forms as well, for instance in sugars, fibre, starches. Protein from meat, fish, eggs, beans, milk, yogurt, cheese, nuts, and seeds and fats from nuts, seeds, fish, peanut butter, boiled soybean, flaxseed oil, cheese, and eggs, plays the most prominent role than other component of food items.

As the human body is completely depended on food and its benefits, an imbalanced diet has many disadvantages. For instance, the body finds it difficult to use the carb surplus. Therefore, if you have an excess amount of carbs in your diet, there’s a possibility that the body is not putting it to healthy use, and it turns into fat. Over consumption of protein causes weight gain, bad breath, constipation, diarrhea, dehydration, kidney damage, increase cancer risk, heart diseases, and risky diseases.

Lack of vitamins can cause anemia because a lack of vitamins resists our body from absorbing nutrients from food. Besides, vitamin deficiencies cause bone abnormalities, neurological problems, visual and skin changes. Excessive consumption of fats causes weight gain and chronic diseases.

On the other hand, if one does not get enough of these fats in the diet, the most likely symptoms are those of essential fatty acid deficiency including Dry, scaly, flaky, dull, or bumpy skin, dry or brittle hairs, soft, frying, splitting, or brittle fingernails.

Lack of minerals may cause fatigue, dizziness, irregular heartbeats, muscle weakness, numbness of hands and feet, weight loss, and many more. Last but not least, not drinking a sufficient amount of water may cause kidney failure, dehydration, persistent headache, fatigue, dull skin, constipation, urinary infection, and others.

The balanced consumption of these food items according to how much nutrients they contain defines our physical health’s well-being. Eating a clean diet undoubtedly helps maintain good health. Likewise, an imbalanced diet causes diseases and other health hazards. Proper nutrition gives one energy to survive the whole day and keeps away diet-related illnesses.

So, it’s quite evident that our daily diet affects our health both directly and indirectly. Nutrition gives our body the instruction on how to function. That’s why the inadequacy of food and nutrition causes various health hazards. Lack of proper nutrition is called malnutrition. Which may cause some severe health damage.

Lack of carbs, proteins lead to the weak immune system, muscle wasting. Lack of nutrition causes diseases; likewise, overeating may cause health hazards too. Imbalanced diet disarranges our metabolic policy, resultantly causes weight gain or weight loss, increases the risk of heart diseases, causes blood pressure, indigestion. Poor nutrition leads to stress, whereas having excess food contributes to obesity.

Before consuming food, it is important for you to know the food value of an item and know how much nutrition the item contains because what we eat leaves impacts our overall health. We must keep in mind that eating a selection of foods that include all the daily nutritional needs can improve health and lead a healthy lifestyle.

While purchasing a product at the supermarket, the first thing that attracted you is either a brand name or the product’s packaging. Prior to your purchase, it is an excellent habit to look at the price, manufacturing date, and expiration date. Subsequently, you will have the idea of that product’s longevity and its value.

In general, people don’t pay heed to the nutrition labels embedded on the other side of the product’s MRP and expiration date. But these nutrition labels are sealed with the intention to not only aware the customers about the product components but also assist the health-conscious people in unearthing all the details of the product.

For instance, if you are looking forward to maintaining a healthy diet and creating a food diet where you included all the nutrition methods, this article will help you understand the nutrition labels on the product and choose a suitable product that meets all of your requirements.

What nutrition labels comprise of:
Albeit the nutrition level or the amount of different nutritional elements mixed in the product varies in many ways, primarily depends on the nature of the product, all the products have nutrition labels. Even it is applicable for fruits and meat as well. For instance, chicken breast nutrition labels define the amount of nutrition available in the chicken breast, or banana nutrition labels read the amount of nutrition level in the fruit.

Traditionally nutrition labels contain these following information:

• Product name
• Brand Name
• Ingredients used (Can be mentioned in either percentage format or weight format depends on the how that element is measured)
• Nutritional information (such as the average amount of energy, fat, protein, sugars and salt)
• Details of the manufacturer
• Weight
• Instruction for people who should avoid this product

Read it like a pro!
Now the question comes, how do you read the labels? Most of the product’s labels are designed so that everyone can read it and understand it before purchasing it. However, you want to really read carefully and look out for the following information.

Energy Level
Universally, the energy level of any product is measured as the kilojoule (kJ). The more kJ present in the product, the more it becomes unhealthy. You want to consume less kJ than you use daily, otherwise, you will lose the balance in your body. For instance, products or foods that serve over 600kJ are considered junk food, and as health-conscious, you really want to avoid such energy levels.

Fat Level
You must know that fat and saturated fat is completely different from each other. Fat usually refers to the extended version of kJ, and saturated fat is the cholesterol producer in the body, which creates cardiac diseases and can jeopardize your life. In order to maintain your body and stay fit, consume as low fat as you can!

Sugar Amount
You don’t want to consume too much sugar! The sugar level in the labels read the amount of carbohydrates present in the product or food.

Fiber
High fibre foods such as wholegrain bread and cereals improve digestion and help you to feel full.

In conclusion, there is nothing technical about the nutrition labels as manufacturers design it in such a way to make it understandable to everyone. All you have to know is how the amount of this or that component of the product you want to avoid.