The way we should eat
Nutrition
Nutrients provide materials that are needed to keep the body work properly.
It’s divided into macronutrients and micronutrients.
Macronutrients make up most of what we eat. It includes carbohydrates, fat and protein. Because of them, the body gets enough energy to provide necessary life functions. It gives building materials, which the body uses for growth and renewal.
Micronutrients include vitamins, minerals, trace elements and enzymes. In contrast to macronutrients it doesn't supply any energy. Without them it wouldn’t work a lot of processes such as growth.
In nature, some animals consume only one type of food, but people do not. We need to eat a variety of food to obtain the required amount of nutrients. A varied diet is technically known as a balanced diet and it’s one of the most important factors, which affect human’s health.
Nutrients in food
For most of the human history, nothing was known about the chemistry of food. Nowadays, the inscriptions on the packages usually give the exact composition of nutrients.
Essential nutrients (macros) are carbohydrates (sugar, potatoes, oats, pasta ...), protein (meat, eggs, dairy products, legumes ...) and fat (oil, butter, nuts ...).
A balanced diet should contain 25% of energy from fat, 60% of energy from carbohydrates and 15% of energy from protein.
Secondary nutrients (micros) are mainly vitamins and minerals.
Carbohydrates and protein contain 4 calories in 1 gram, while energy in fat is more than doubled, because it contains 9 calories in 1 gram.
How many calories do we need?
It really depends on age, physical activity, etc. and if we really want to know it, we should find out the special scale, which is in most of Clinical Centers, especially in chemist’s shop. For active ones it’s usually up to 2800 kcal.
If we want to lose weight, we have to intake less energy than we burn.
If we want to maintain weight, we have to balance between the intake and...