What is the Importance of Proper Nutrition?

The importance of proper nutrition to health is too late

From the aspects of the relationship between the types of food nutrition and human health, as well as the balanced diet and reasonable nutrition model, which are of great significance to human health, it is discussed that if humans want to maintain their own health, they must pay attention to the principles of diet and nutrition.

Human life must be maintained through diet. The human quality of life and mentality have a great relationship with diet and nutrition. Human intelligence, physical strength, learning ability, exercise ability, disease prevention ability, rehabilitation ability, reproductive ability, life span, height, Weight is also inseparable from a nutritional diet. An unbalanced nutrient intake will cause many diseases. Therefore, reasonable nutrition and a balanced diet are important measures to prevent diseases.

1. What is reasonable nutrition

Reasonable nutrition refers to food, nutrient supply, and ratio suitable for various conditions (age, gender, physiological conditions, labor load, health status, etc.). Reasonable nutrition can maintain the normal physiological functions of the human body, promote health and growth and development, and improve the body's workability, resistance and immunity, which is beneficial to the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. ). According to the research of modern nutrition, the various nutrients needed by the human body are divided into 6 categories, namely protein, fat, carbohydrate (carbohydrate), inorganic salt (including trace elements), vitamin, and dietary fiber. There is not only a demand for these nutrients but also a proper ratio of nutrients.

2. The relationship between reasonable nutrition and human health

Nutrition is the process by which living organisms continuously take in the necessary substances from the outside world to sustain life activities. For people, nutrition is the whole process of ingesting food from the outside world, digesting, and absorbing the substances needed by the body to maintain life activities. These substances needed to maintain the normal growth and metabolism of the body are called "nutrients."

At present, there are more than forty kinds of nutrients required by the human body. We can subdivide them into seven categories: one is carbohydrates, whose function is to maintain the activity of body cells, mainly derived from grains; the other is lipids, whose function It is to maintain the cell structure and function, which is mainly derived from oils (edible oil, fat, nuts); the third is protein, whose function is to maintain the activity of body cells, and the main source is fish, meat, beans, eggs, milk, etc.

 The fourth is vitamins, whose function is to regulate physiological functions, which are mainly derived from vegetables and fruits; the fifth is minerals, whose functions are to build and repair body tissues and regulate physiological functions, which are mainly derived from vegetables and fruits. The sixth is water, which functions as Regulating physiological functions, the main sources are beverages and soups; seventh is dietary fiber, which functions to prevent human gastrointestinal diseases and maintain gastrointestinal health. It is derived from various plant foods.

Reasonable nutrition requires the three major nutrients to provide heat as a percentage of total heat energy: 

• protein 10%-15%, 
• fat 20%-30%, and
•  sugar (carbohydrate) 60%-70%.

Various foods have different nutritional characteristics and must be properly matched to get comprehensive nutrition. The traditional eating habits of our country are relatively reasonable and have great advantages; mainly cereals, supplemented by vegetables, low sugar, and high fiber. But with the economic development and the improvement of living conditions, many people begin to tend to eat more animal food. The current high incidence of cardiovascular disease, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and obesity has a great relationship with this dietary structure.

Third, how to achieve reasonable nutrition?

Let us take an example of reasonable nutrition. The Chinese Nutrition Society designed the Balanced Diet Pagoda of Chinese Residents'' according to the characteristics of the dietary structure of Chinese residents. It vividly points out the reasonable dietary structure of human beings: the bottom layer is plant food, including bread, oatmeal, rice, noodles, etc., per person every day You should eat 300-500 grams: the second layer is vegetables and fruits, and you should eat 400-500 grams each day; the penultimate layer is fish, meat, poultry, and eggs, and you should eat 125-200 grams a day ( 50 grams of fish and shrimp, 50-100 grams of livestock and poultry meat, and 25-50 grams of eggs); milk and legumes occupy the fourth layer. 

Every day, milk and dairy products are consumed at 100 grams, and beans and soy products. 50 grams; the top layer is fat, not more than 25 grams per day. Nutritionists believe that the daily oil intake of a normal adult should account for 20%-25% of the total calories based on calories. For example, a person weighing 60 kg should consume 50-90 grams of fat per day. should.

To prepare a reasonable diet is to choose a variety of foods so that the nutrients contained are complete and proportioned to meet the needs of the human body.

1. Coarse grains and fine grains should be matched reasonable mix of coarse and fine grains can improve the flavor of the food, help the complementation of various nutrients, and increase the nutritional value and utilization of the food.

2. The types of non-staple foods should be diverse, with meat and vegetables: meat, fish, milk, eggs, and other foods are rich in high-quality protein, and a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits are rich in vitamins and inorganic salts. The combination of the two can be cooked into a wide variety of delicious and fragrant dishes, which are not only rich in nutrition but also enhance appetite, which is beneficial to digestion and absorption.

3. Matching of staple and non-staple food: Staple food refers to food crops mainly containing carbohydrates. Staple food can provide the main heat and protein, and non-staple food can be supplemented with high-quality protein, inorganic salts, and vitamins.

4. Dry-dilute diet combination: The staple food should be matched with a dry-dilute diet according to the specific situation so that it can increase satiety and help digestion and absorption.

5. To adapt to seasonal changes: summer food should be light and refreshing, add salt, and sour foods appropriately to increase appetite and supplement the loss of salt due to sweating. Winter meals can be appropriately increased fat content to increase heat. The preparation is reasonable.

The diet should be properly matched

In today's society with richer materials and increasing technological levels, how to eat more scientifically or to be more beneficial to health is a topic of concern. Some people summarize the current people's pursuit of diet into the four characteristics of "eating miscellaneous", "eating roughly", "eating wild" and "being vegetarian". From a nutritional point of view, it is still necessary to combine these four characteristics with a reasonable combination, which may be more in line with people's needs for various nutrients. For middle-aged and elderly people, a reasonable combination is more important.

Thick and thin

Scientific research shows that a reasonable combination of different types of grains and processed products can improve their physiological value. After the food is processed, some nutrients are often lost, especially dietary fiber, vitamins, and inorganic salts, and these nutrients are also what the human body needs or is easy to lack.

Meat and vegetable collocation

Animal oil contains more saturated fatty acids and cholesterol, so it should be matched with vegetable oil, especially vegetable oil (the ratio of vegetable oil to animal oil is 1:2). Animal fat can provide vitamin A, vitamin D, and cholesterol, the latter is the raw material for the synthesis of corticosteroids, sex hormones, and vitamin D in the body. According to the latest research reports, cholesterol also has anti-cancer effects. Eating a small amount of animal oil every day should be beneficial and harmless.

Acid-base collocation

This acid-base, combined with the complementation of the nutrients contained in the two, plays a very good role in maintaining the body's acid-base balance. In fact, many of the cooking habits formed by the Chinese people for a long time belong to the combination of acidic foods and alkaline foods. In general, animal foods are acidic, while plant foods such as green leafy vegetables are alkaline. The benefits of the combination of these two types of foods are obvious to the human body, and it is also the advantage of the combination of meat and vegetables.

Reasonable nutrition is the cornerstone of health, and irrational nutrition is a breeding ground for diseases. Although some diseases are caused by a variety of factors such as lifestyle, unreasonable diet, obesity, and unbalanced nutrition are particularly important factors. We must change the old traditional concept, establish a scientific concept of nutrition and health, and truly achieve reasonable nutrition and a balanced diet.