Nutrition For Dummies
Overview
Updated with the latest available research and the new 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines
It's a scientific fact: You really are what you eat. Good nutrition is your meal-ticket to staying sleek, healthy, and strong—both physically and mentally. Nutrition For Dummies, 7th Edition is a complete guide that shows you how to maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent chronic disease. This book gives you the know-how to put together a shopping list, prepare healthy foods, and easily cut calories. Along the way, there's up-to-the-minute guidance for building a nutritious diet at every stage of life from toddler time to your Golden Years. Enjoy!
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About The Author
Carol Ann Rinzler is a former nutrition columnist for the New York Daily News and the author of more than 30 health-related books, including Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, Heartburn and Reflux For Dummies, The New Complete Book of Food, the award-winning Estrogen and Breast Cancer: A Warning for Women, and Leonardo’s Foot, which the American Association for the Advancement of Science described as “some of the best writing about science for the non-scientist encountered in recent years.”
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nutrition for dummies
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Nutrition is the science of how your body uses the food and drink you consume to build new tissues and power every organ and part from your brain down to your toes. Get the most from your daily diet by making healthy choices. © ARTFULLY PHOTOGRAPHER / Shutterstock.comHow to Cut Calories the Easy WayYes, it’s hard to control your weight.
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Losing weight is simple math. If you cut 3,500 calories out of your diet in the course of a week without reducing your daily activity, you can say goodbye to a whole pound of fat.Yes, reading that sentence is easier than actually doing it, but two tricks make the job easier. First, cut calories in small increments — 50 here, 100 there — rather than in one big lump.
The websites listed here give you accurate, balanced information complete with nutritional guidelines, medical news, and interactive features. But as terrific as they are, what's listed here is only a start.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Nutrient Database
The USDA Nutrient Database is the ultimate official food info chart, with nutrient data for more than 5,000 foods in several serving sizes and different preparations.
This is by no means the complete A+ list of foods with extra special attributes. For example, chicken soup is not included, because what more can anyone say about this universal panacea? How about this: These ten foods are super good enough.AlcoholModerate alcohol consumption relaxes muscles and mood, expands blood vessels to lower blood pressure temporarily, and lowers the risk of heart disease, either by reducing the stickiness of blood platelets (small particles that can clump together to form a blood clot), by relaxing blood vessels (making them temporarily larger), or by increasing the amount of HDLs (“good cholesterol”) in blood.
General Diet & Nutrition
Count the listings in your favorite food book, and you're likely to discover that more foods have names beginning with p than any other letter of the alphabet. Choosing ten nutritious ones is a cinch.The papaya, also known as the paw-paw, is a pear-shaped melon with versatile pale-yellow flesh that you can serve cooked when unripe or enjoy raw when ripe (look for an orange-y gold rind).
Coffee is actually a drink with benefits for virtually every part of the human body. Start with the fact that coffee is nutritious. It's brewed from beans, so many of the nutrients that make them a powerhouse show up in your coffee cup.A single cholesterol-free 6-ounce cup of plain coffee brewed from grounds delivers 12 percent of the magnesium and potassium and 16 percent of the calcium you'd get from a half cup of cooked kidney beans, all for a skinny 2 calories (versus 70 calories for the kidney beans).
General Diet & Nutrition
Genetically engineered foods, also known as GMOs or bioengineered foods, are foods with extra genes added artificially through special laboratory processes. Like preservatives, flavor enhancers, and other chemical boosters, the genes — which may come from plants, animals, or microorganisms such as bacteria — are used to make foods more resistant to disease and insects, more nutritious, and better tasting.
A food allergy can provoke a response as your body releases antibodies to attack specific proteins in food. Your immune system is designed to protect your body from harmful invaders, such as bacteria. Sometimes, however, the system responds to substances normally considered harmless. The substance that provokes the attack is called an allergen; the substances that attack the allergen are called antibodies.
Belly fat may be hazardous to brain health for both genders, even when the body with the belly isn't overweight and its BMI (the body mass index) is within normal range.The human body stores extra fat in several well-defined places, and as the body ages, these fat deposits tend to expand. For women, it's hips and thighs.
Some foods and some diet plans are so obviously good for your body that no one questions their ability to keep you healthy or make you feel better when you're ill.For example, if you've ever had abdominal surgery, you know all about liquid diets — the water–gelatin–clear broth regimen your doctor prescribed right after the operation to enable you to take some nourishment by mouth without upsetting your intestines.
General Diet & Nutrition
Interactions aren't the only drug reactions that keep you from getting nutrients from food. Some drugs have side effects that also reduce the value of food. For example, a drug may
Sharply reduce your appetite so that you simply don't eat much. The best-known example may be the amphetamine and amphetaminelike drugs such as fenfluramine used (surprise!
Like some foods, individual nutrients — vitamins and minerals — may also interact with medicines. The table lists some common vitamin/mineral and drug interactions. Here are four common examples:
Antacids containing aluminum compounds bind with the bone-building mineral phosphorous, carrying it right out of your body.
Your body obviously needs the fuel that food provides, but certain foods provide some benefits that aren't obvious for both your body and your brain functions.
Citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, an antioxidant vitamin that seems to slow the development of cataracts. Bran cereals provide fiber that can rev up your intestinal tract, countering the natural tendency of the contractions that move food through your gut to slow a bit as you grow older (which is why older people are more likely to be constipated).
The human brain is about 60 percent fat, and most of that is DHA. This fatty acid is vital for the proper functioning of the adult brain but even more important for the development of the fetal brain and spinal cord. (Consuming foods with DHA also helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.)
More than 20 years after the seven fat-deprived babies showed up at North Shore, an entire catalog of well-designed studies has documented the advantages conferred on infants whose mothers get plenty of DHA — the best source is fish oils, fish, and seafood while pregnant — along with all the normal vitamins, minerals, and other essential components of a healthful diet, of course.
The next time your teen brother, nephew, son, or friend tells you he's a grown-up, smile pleasantly and hand him a tuna sandwich. In fact, the brain of an older teen — think 15, 16, 17, and 18 — is particularly "plastic," meaning particularly able to build the new connections required to learn new things like high-school math, science, history, and literature.
A food that acts like a medicine is one that increases or reduces your risk of a specific medical condition or cures or alleviates the effects of a medical condition. For example:
Eating foods, such as wheat bran, that are high in insoluble dietary fiber (the kind of fiber that doesn't dissolve in your gut) moves food more quickly through your intestinal tract and produces soft, bulky stool that reduces your risk of constipation.
When you eat, food moves from your mouth to your stomach to your small intestine, where the nutrients that keep you strong and healthy are absorbed into your bloodstream and distributed throughout your body. Take medicine by mouth, and it follows pretty much the same path from mouth to stomach to the small intestine for absorption.
General Diet & Nutrition
Oysters, celery, onions, asparagus, mushrooms, truffles, chocolate, honey, caviar, bird's nest soup, and alcohol beverages. No, that's not a menu for the very, very picky. It's a partial list of foods long reputed to be aphrodisiacs, substances that rev up the libido and improve sexual performance. Take a second look, and you'll see why each is on the list.
There may be another weapon in the arsenal to help heal injured brains: food. Traditionally, to reduce the loss of brain cells and limit damage to an injured brain, doctors concentrate on ensuring an adequate supply of oxygen and controlling swelling that pushes the soft brain against the inside of the hard skull.
General Diet & Nutrition
Anandamide is a cannabinoid, a chemical that hooks up to the same brain receptors that catch similar ingredients in marijuana smoke. Your brain produces some anandamide naturally, but you also get very small amounts of the chemical from cocoa bean products — chocolate. In addition, chocolate contains two chemicals similar to anandamide that slow the breakdown of the anandamide produced in your brain, thus intensifying its effects.
Caffeine is a mild stimulant that raises your blood pressure, speeds up your heartbeat, makes you burn calories faster, makes you urinate more frequently, and causes your intestinal tract to move food more quickly through your body.Although it increases the level of serotonin, the calming neurotransmitter, caffeine also hooks up at specific receptors (sites on the surface of brain cells) normally reserved for another naturally occurring tranquilizer, adenosine (a-den-o-seen).
General Diet & Nutrition
Tryptophan is an amino acid, one of those "building blocks of protein." Glucose, the end product of carbohydrate metabolism, is the sugar that circulates in your blood, the basic fuel on which your body runs. Milk and cookies, a classic calming combo, owe their power to the tryptophan/glucose team.Start with the fact that the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are made from the amino acids tyrosine and tryptophan, which are found in protein foods (like milk).
Yes, it’s hard to control your weight. No, you don’t have to give up every delicious food. Simply editing your plate can reduce the calories and help skim off the pounds.
Use low-fat or no-fat dairy products.
Use sugar substitutes instead of sugar.
Skim the fat off all soups and stews.
Choose low-fat desserts.
General Diet & Nutrition
Like every discipline, nutrition has its own particular language. This chart clues you in to several prefixes and suffixes that can make deciphering nutrition-speak a cinch.
Element
Meaning
amyl-
starch
an-
without
anti-
against
-ase
an enzyme
di-
two
-emia
found in the blood
gastro-
referring
Clean hands plus clean prep space plus appropriate hot or cold temps adds up to safe food. The rules are simple, and the rewards are great. Here’s what you need to know to keep your food safe and nutritious:
Wash your hands before (and after) touching food.
Wash all fruits and vegetables before you use them.
General Diet & Nutrition
Most nutrition experts agree that healthy adults can get virtually all the nutrients they need from a balanced diet. But not every body is the same, and these bodies may need more than the average body:
When you’re pregnant, you need extra amounts of some vitamins, minerals, and protein to meet the needs of the growing fetus.
This chart defines the words – and the abbreviations – used in nutrition to describe quantities of solids and liquids from the miniscule (vitamins and minerals) to the relatively large (water).
Abbreviation
Measurement
Equivalent
g
gram
1,000 milligrams
1,000,000 micrograms
mg
milligram
1/1,000 gram
mcg
microgram
1/1,000,000 gram
kg
kilogram
1,000 grams
2.
The same plant foods that yield carbohydrates are also the source of phytochemicals — natural compounds other than vitamins manufactured only in plants (phyto- is the Greek word for plant).Phytochemicals, such as coloring agents and antioxidants, are the substances that produce many of the beneficial effects associated with a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains.
Allergic reactions aren't the only way your body registers a protest against certain foods. You might have experienced this when eating a food you like, but that doesn't like you. Other reactions to foods include the following:
A metabolic reaction: Food intolerance, also known as a non-allergic food hypersensitivity, is an inherited inability to metabolize (digest) certain foods, such as fat or lactose (the naturally occurring sugar in milk).
Nutrition is the science of how your body uses the food and drink you consume to build new tissues and power every organ and part from your brain down to your toes. Get the most from your daily diet by making healthy choices. © ARTFULLY PHOTOGRAPHER / Shutterstock.comHow to Cut Calories the Easy WayYes, it’s hard to control your weight.
General Diet & Nutrition
You know that the mouth is where you put your food, but did you realize it was part of your digestive system? Well, it is. The act of chewing (the technical term for it is mastication) is the first step in digesting. Your body must break down food into smaller and smaller pieces so that the nutrients contained in the food can be released from the food and used by your body.
Is there really an anticancer diet? Probably not. The problem is that cancer isn't one disease; it's many diseases with many causes. Some foods seem to protect against some specific cancers, but none seem to protect against all. For example:
Fruits and vegetables: Plants contain some potential anticancer substances, such as antioxidants, chemicals that appear to prevent molecular fragments called free radicals from hooking up to form cancer-causing compounds.
The MIND diet combines two popular diets. If there is one — no, two — diets on whose virtues every reputable expert agrees, it's the Mediterranean diet and DASH, also known as Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. Both diets, built on a base of plant foods plus low-fat, protein-rich foods, such as fish and poultry, are known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
General Diet & Nutrition
The cells in your adult brain — like other body cells — do face two natural enemies: oxidative stress and inflammation. The old news was that after a certain age, say, 30, your brain begins to shrink until it simply shrivels into nothing. But scientists who have actually taken the time to sit down and count brain cells find practically no age-related loss of those hippocampal cells responsible for cognition and memory.
General Diet & Nutrition
Food additives may be natural or synthetic. For example, vitamin C is a natural preservative. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) are synthetic preservatives. To ensure your safety, both the natural and synthetic food additives used in the United States come only from the group of substances known as the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) list.
General Diet & Nutrition
Sometimes the combinations of interacting foods and drugs are surprising. Astounding. Or breathtaking. Everyone knows that people with asthma may find it hard to take a deep breath around the barbecue. The culprit's the smoke, right?
Yes. And no. Breathing in smoke does irritate air passages, but — the surprise — eating charcoal-broiled food speeds the body's elimination of theophylline, a widely used asthma drug, reducing the drug's ability to protect against wheezing.
The safety of any chemical approved for use as a food additive is determined by evaluating its potential as a toxin, carcinogen, or allergen, each of which is defined here.
Defining toxins
A toxin is a poison. Some chemicals, such as cyanide, are toxic (poisonous) in very small doses. Others, such as sodium ascorbate (a form of vitamin C), are nontoxic even in very large doses.
General Diet & Nutrition
Not every food and drug interaction is an adverse one. Sometimes a drug works better or is less likely to cause side effects when you take it on a full stomach. For example, aspirin is less likely to upset your stomach if you take the painkiller with food, and eating stimulates the release of stomach juices that improve your ability to absorb griseofulvin, an antifungus drug.
No food will change your personality or alter the course of a mood disorder. But some may add a little lift or a small moment of calm to your day, increase your effectiveness at certain tasks, make you more alert, or give you a neat little push over the finish line.The watchword is balance:
One cup of coffee in the morning is a pleasant push into alertness.
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