Nutrition

Basic Nutrition

The Three Types of Food

Meal Composition

Balancing Meals & Servings

Nutrition Label Information

Salt

About this page:

This collection of posts is all about what you have heard over and over again, but probably do not fully understand. 

"Unsaturated is better than Saturated" 

"Carbs are bad, mmk?"

"X, Y, Z causes heart disease" 

"Diabetes is deadly."

Yes, we've heard it all before and yet look at us... we are as unhealthy as ever. I truly believe we are chronically unhealthy because we do not understand the how's or the why's, and therefore we can not form a cohesive idea of what it all means. Most importantly, without this level of understanding, we are unable to make the correct nutritional choices, and we enter a vicious circle of health and weight management issues. Myself included.

This is the first in a series of posts that I will write about the physiological aspects of food & nutrition. Don't worry, it wont be complicated. What it means is that I will go into WHY some foods are good, and why some foods are bad. I will also go into HOW this actually affects our internal chemistry and processes and WHAT it means for our health. 

It amazes me that I have been studying Biology for nearly 10 years, and yet I have not encountered much of any of this information. We learn that the key to health is "Diet and Exercise" yet we do not learn the who, what, when, where, why, or how of it. I feel like what we commonly know about nutrition has almost no effect on us as a society because we are not presented with the information in a way we can understand it. It's a mystery to us and therefore perhaps we are more careless.

We do know a few catch phrases, and general nutritional guidelines, but all that crap we hear doesn't sway much of us into eating healthier... even if we have the means or the OPTION right in front of us. Partly because we don't understand, and partly because unhealthy options are readily available, well preserved, and cheaper. As I learn more about this, I realize just how backwards our society is when it comes to nutrition... and just how crazy it is for this day and age.

Begin rant: It is entirely up to us to independently research and investigate nutrition on our own. It is not a subject we have many lectures and classes on. Why is nutrition, which plays such a pivotal role in biological processes, such a mystery to us. Why, when we have textbooks and classes dedicated to every other area of biology, are we left to our own devices about how we obtain all the energy and extracellular nutrients? Why are students of Biology left to connect the dots on their own about how we obtain our energy, and how we get our nutrients! Come to think of it, I know more about how plants get theirs than how I get my own! If Biology students aren't learning it, I know everyone else isn't either. End rant.

Nevertheless, the health risks associated with unhealthy habits reminds me of the "boogie man," just a scary bed time story that is more myth than reality...  but the truth is, it is a slow and steady climb to these diseases, but it will happen, it does happen, and it is actually the leading cause of death in our country. We call it heart disease and stroke, and 1 in 3 people will die from one of the two. Granted, of course not all of these deaths were caused by unhealthy eating habits but the truth is that a decent majority is. 

Bottom line... it's preventable. It is time we all learned how, and why.