What is Food?
Food is consumed to provide nutritional support for the body; different foods provide different nutrients and different nutrients perform different biological or nutritional process. Consider this; the human body is a finely tuned biological machine, capable of incredible feats of strength, intelligence, memory, powers of deduction, learning, balance; the list goes on. Like any finely tuned machine, clean and constant fuel in our case; food in the form of protein, carbohydrates, good fats, vitamins and minerals needs to be readily available and ingested. If not, this machine will slow down, perform poorly and ultimately, stop running.
Food is the first basic need of the life. Food is any material, usually of plant or animal origin that contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.
Role of Food in our body
Food intake helps to maintain a specific bio-chemical processes in the body which known as Nutrition. Food plays three main important roles in the human body. These are: 1) Produce energy to keep warm, move and work; 2) Develop, replace and repair cells and tissues; 3) Protect against, resist and fight infection and recover from sickness.
Relation between Food & Nutrition
Food Composition
Food is composed of many different substances; not all substances are important for the Nutrition & Health aspect, some may harmful to our body also. Some substances of Food are essential for life, some are required by body for normal nutritional process, some are required to maintain other physiological process & good health, some are not beneficial to Nutrition & Health but not harmful to our body, but some are so much harmful to our body. Food may contain 'Macro-nutrients' (major nutritional components that are present in relatively large amounts, such as carbohydrate, protein, fat etc) and 'Micro-nutrients' (major nutritional components that are present in relatively small amounts, such as vitamins, mineral). Food also contains water and roughage (dietary fibre). Food may contain colors (natural and synthetic), flavors, pharmacologically active substances (such as caffeine, steroids, and salicylates, which chemically affect the body), natural toxicants (naturally occurring poisons, such as cyanide), additives (in case of commercial foods) and various contaminants (substances resulting from a contaminated environment, such as pesticides). Many other components can also be present in food (see Figure 1).
Nutrients
The six (6) major component of Food which required by the body to maintain normal Nutrition process is known as nutrients. These are: 1) Carbohydrate; 2) Protein; 3) Lipid (Fat and Oil); 4) Vitamins; 5) Minerals & 6) Water. Nutrients are broadly classified in to two groups; Macro-Nutrient & Micro-Nutrient. Macro-nutrients such as carbohydrates, protein and fat are needed in larger amounts. Micro-nutrients such as vitamins and minerals are needed only in small amounts. The body cannot function properly if one or more nutrients are missing.
Classification of Food
According to function or role of food in human body, Foods are classified into three groups; i) Energy Yielding Food (Foods that gives us energy to keep body warm, move and work), ii) Body Building Food (Foods that develop, replace and repair cells & tissues) & iii) Protective Food ( Foods that protect against, resist & fight infection and recover from sickness)
According to Source, Foods are classified into two groups; i) Food from animal source & ii) Food from Plant source.
