The Characteristics of a Healthy Diet - Essay Example

"The Characteristics of a Healthy Diet" is a perfect example of a paper on food and nutrition.
1. List and describe the six categories of nutrients. The food contains six categories of nutrients: carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. Fat, protein, and carbohydrates provide energy (measured in calories) and other building blocks. Vitamins, minerals, and water are essential to the body’s chemical machinery but are not sources of calories.

· Water carries nutrients and body chemicals to body cells then carries waste products away.

· Carbohydrates are the main sources of energy. They are classified into two groups: complex carbohydrates (or starches) and sugars.

· Fat is another source of energy. It acts as a cushion to protects organs.

· Protein builds, repair, and maintain body cells. Most body cells are made of protein. Provide provides energy when carbohydrates and fat are in short supply

· Vitamins Keep the body running smoothly, help skin stay healthy, and heal wounds.

· Minerals build cells especially teeth and bones. Iron helps blood carry oxygen.

(Ward & Haynes 2007)

2. What are the characteristics of a healthy diet? A healthy diet is characterized that if it is taken regularly will provide sufficient quantity and quality of macro and micronutrients and other non-nutrient elements (such as fibers, vitamins, and antioxidants) to maintain the optimal functions of the body and therefore optimal health in the general context of a healthy lifestyle (physical activity and mental status).

3. Describe how might you use the scientific method to learn if a diet supplement increases weight loss? The scientific method utilizes a testing procedure to detect the exact effect of a diet supplement on weight loss. The first step involves the formation of the hypotheses to be tested as a true cause-and-effect relationship. The second step involves conducting the experiment and collection of the data. The data is then analyzed as to accept or reject the hypothesis. It is then determined whether a diet supplement increase weight loss or not.

4. Analyze how personal beliefs about health and weight feed the misinformation of fad diets? Personal beliefs about health and weight loss are usually not based on scientific facts. For example, it is widely accepted that excessive fat in a diet is the primary cause of obesity, heart disease, and other health problems but this has been proven wrong. People guided by wrong personal beliefs rush into fad diets thinking they would lose weight and be more healthy. Fad dieting without an understanding of their underlying biochemistry only leads to a yo-yo cycle. Fad diets do not address the root cause, which is metabolic dysfunction or hormonal imbalance. However, the real key to long-term weight loss is healthy metabolism in a balanced hormonal state.

5. How could you, as a consumer, determine the reliability of nutrition information? To determine the reliability of nutrition information different sources could be reviewed such as governmental or commercial organizations. They provide results for testing of the truth and reliability of the information provided on different nutrition labels.

6. What information is on a nutrition label? Explain why some information is mandatory and why some are voluntary. Nutrition label includes the following information: identity, or name of the food, and the net quantity statement, or amount of product, the listing of each ingredient that has been used for that particular food product and in descending order by the weight of

the ingredient. Also provide information on certain nutrients such as total calories, calories from fats, total fat, cholesterol, sodium, etc…

These mandatory and voluntary components are the only ones allowed on the Nutrition Facts panel. The voluntary components are mentioned as they become mandatory if food is enriched with any of these voluntary components.

7. Define “organic.” What are the rules for a product to make this claim? How is organic nutritionally different from non-organic? Organic is defined as food grown without the use of persistent or toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. It is not pesticide-free as environmentally friendly methods are used to keep pest problems under control.

Products are organic when the level of pesticide residues found in fruits and vegetables have no negative effect on human health. Organic food was proved by research to be safer and healthier. For example, organic milk contains higher levels of beneficial nutrients and vitamins than milk from non-organic cows. 8. What does irradiation do to/for foods?

Irradiation causes damage to food by breaking up molecules and creating free radicals. The free radicals damage vitamins and enzymes and combine them with pesticides to form new chemicals. Some of these newly created chemicals are toxic and their long-term effect has not been studied yet. In summary, irradiation causes foods to lose up to 80% of its vitamins and damage natural enzymes which make food easier to be digested. The amount of loss depends on the dose of irradiation.