Nutrition is the cornerstone of good health. More precisely, getting optimum nutrition is what makes you healthy. As the saying goes, “You are what you eat,” eating right is absolutely essential for your health and well-being. Optimal nutrition can ward off many of today’s serious illnesses like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and premature aging. It’s about getting adequate amounts of the vital nutrients, and if you’re not acquainted with them, now is the time to start.
Protein
You need protein because the cells of the body require it in order to grow and keep themselves healthy. Protein is made up of its building blocks, amino acids. During digestion, protein gets broken down into amino acids which our body uses to rebuild back into our own tissue and blood proteins.
Essential amino acids are those that must be obtained from the diet while non essential amino acids can be synthesized by the body. A complete protein is one that supplies all eight essential amino acids, which are isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. There are 2 kinds of protein, namely animal protein and plant protein. Animal protein contains all essential amino acids (therefore is considered complete), while plant protein are lacking in one or a few essential amino acids.
Carbohydrate
Carbohydrates or carbs are the fuel source for the body’s energy. There are 2 forms of carbohydrates, which are complex carbohydrates and sugars. Complex carbohydrates were once thought of as “fattening,” but not anymore. Found in rice, bread, pasta, and potatoes, complex carbohydrates build glycogen stores in the body, to be broken down during physical activity, and are an important part of any athlete’s diet.
Sugars are the other type of carbohydrates that exist. They provide an immediate, but short term store of energy that gets depleted pretty fast. There are 4 kinds of sugars namely, fructose, glucose, lactose, and sucrose. Fructose is the sugar found in fruits, glucose is blood sugar, lactose is milk sugar, and sucrose is refined sugar. Of all these types of sugars, sucrose is the least healthy, and excessive intake can damage the body’s ability to produce insulin, resulting in the onset of diabetes.
Fat
Fats are just one of the essential nutrients. There are 3 major groups of fats, which differ in their basic molecular structure, namely, saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. Most foods contain a mix of them. Regardless of what you hear, moderation is the key when it comes to fats.
Recent understanding of fats has found that it is trans fat (a type of unsaturated fat) that is the culprit, and not saturated fat. Trans fats raise LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and lower HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol). They come about from the hydrogenation of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat during deep frying or exposure to oxygen.
Saturated fats are found in butter, animal fat, and coconut oil. Saturated fats can raise blood cholesterol levels if taken in excess. But it is more complicated than that because cholesterol is needed by our bodies. And butter is actually a good fat because it doesn’t transform into trans-fat, lacking essential fatty acids as it does.
Polyunsaturated fats are found in olive oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, and seafood. In the past, polyunsaturated oil was regarded highly, but modern cooking methods may transform them into trans-polyunsaturates, a trans-fatty acid. Nonetheless, omega 3 fatty acids are part of this group, and are essential for health and wellbeing.
Monounsaturated fats are found predominantly in olive oil, nuts, and canola oil. When refrigerated, they turn solid. Basically, monounsaturated fats are considered the “best” of the fats, and believed to lower LDL cholesterol. The low rate of heart disease in Mediterranean countries is attributed to the high consumption of olive oil, which is rich in monounsaturated fat.
Fiber
Fiber is sometimes called roughage, and denotes the physical particles of food that your body cannot digest, mainly. There exists both soluble and insoluble fiber, and most fiber-rich foods contain both kinds. The different varieties of fiber (insoluble and soluble) include cellulose, hemicellulose, dextrin, inulin, lignin, pectin and gums. Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin are mainly found in grains, wheat, and oatmeal, and add “bulk” to the stools.
Pectin, dextrin, and the other gums are water soluble fiber that help in lowering blood cholesterol and slow down digestion, but otherwise do not add bulk to stools. They do assist in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) though.
A balanced diet should contain adequate quantities of both soluble and insoluble fiber. Fruits, vegetables, and grains are the best sources of all the fiber that we need. High fiber diets help protect against heart disease, assist in toxin elimination, and reduces constipation and hemorrhoids.