Note: this post has been updated in September 2021.
What is Nutrition
“Nutrition is the science that interprets the interaction of nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health, and disease of an organism.” Wikipedia
According to the World Health Organization, “Nutrition is the intake of food, considered in relation to the body’s dietary needs. "Essential nutrients your body requires include carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, water, and fiber. Absorption of nutrients starts the minute we start to digest our foods, as they are transported throughout the body to assist in the metabolic processes of the human body. See What Is an Essential Nutrient?
One of the excellent sources for reliable up to day information on nutrition is provided by Dr. Michael Greger on his NutritionalFacts.Org site. The information and videos are free to read and view.
NUTRITIONFACTS.ORG is a strictly non-commercial, science-based public service provided by Dr. Michael Greger, providing free updates on the latest nutrition research via bite-sized videos. There are more than a thousand videos on every aspect of healthy eating, with new videos and articles uploaded every day.
Whenever there is a new drug or surgical procedure, you can be assured that you or your doctor will probably hear about it because there’s a corporate budget driving its promotion. But what about advances in the field of nutrition? The reason we don’t see ads on TV for broccoli is the same reason groundbreaking research on the power of foods and eating patterns to affect our health and longevity gets lost and buried in the medical literature–there’s no profit motive. It may not make anyone money, but what if our lives would profit? - via Dr. Michael Greger, NutritionFacts.org
The Story of Nutritional Facts - Dr. Michael Greger
What Is Good Nutrition?
What is good nutrition? There’s a lot of truth in the adage, “You are what you eat.” Good nutrition means getting the right amount of nutrients from healthy foods and in the right combinations. Nutrition is really the building block of life.
Good nutrition means getting the right amount of nutrients from healthy foods in the right combinations for the body. Having nutritional knowledge and making smart choices about the foods you eat can and will help you achieve optimum health over your lifetime, and be a key to avoiding obesity, poor immunity, cardiovascular diseases, and type-II diabetes, among many other illnesses.
Nutrition is just part of developing and maintaining good health. Good health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being: a healthy mind, body, and spirit. Eating right is easy to talk about, but it can be exceedingly difficult to make because of all the choices we must make when it comes to food and lifestyle. Look at this article by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Thomas Campbell, MD: Eating Right: 8 Principles of Food and Health
A must-have reference for your plant-strong library begins with The China Study: Deluxe Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health
Nutrient Density
When we look at the definition of nutrition and how important it is to get our essential nutrients and to get them in the right combination, there is another especially important concept in nutrition that many are not aware of. It is called nutrient density and calorie density. For now, I will just touch on the concept of nutrient density.
Nutrient density is the ratio of nutrients (like vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc.) relative to the calorie (energy) content in a food. A food with high nutrient density is rich in key nutrients per one hundred calories of food. A food with a low nutrient density contains very few nutrients per one hundred calories of food. For example, vegetables have an extremely low nutrient density, and nuts, seeds, and oils have an exceedingly high nutrient density.
The idea is to eat food that is in the green area most of the time and to eat food in the red area rarely. This is also an excellent guide to follow when you want to lose weight or maintain your weight. Choosing food in the green area will allow you to eat more to fill you up.
Calories comparison of 400-calories-of-different-foods
Role that nutrition
To get a better understanding of what is good nutrition, and the role Nutrition plays in our lives, view the following articles.
Maximizing Your Nutrition
Ideas to Improve Your Nutrition
Use Nutrition to Boost Your Health
How Good Nutrition Could Save Your Life
Time to act
Science confirms that a diet rich in whole, plant-based foods can help you live to the fullest. In fact, a growing number of physicians advocate a completely plant-based diet for many of their patients who suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Three great sources:
Plant-Based Nutrition, 2E (Idiot’s Guides) and
Nutrition Facts: The Truth About Food
The Forks over Knives plan shows you how to put this lifesaving, delicious diet into practice in your own life. This easy-to-follow, meal-by-meal makeover is the approach Doctors Alona Pulde and Matthew Lederman (featured in the documentary) use every day in their nutritional health practice—a simple plan that focuses on hearty comfort foods and does not involve portion control or worrying about obtaining single nutrients like protein and calcium.
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