ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS to sustain a healthy life

Chris Essential Nutrients, Food, Healthy Food, Nutrition and Health November 5, 2021November 5, 2021essential nutrients, nutrition

An essential nutrient is one that fulfils the daily nutritional needs that support health

Essential nutrients such as amino acids foods and choline foods have a variety of particularly important essential vitamins for maintaining immune health and wellbeing. It’s all about nutrition value and daily nutrition needs. We all need nutrition foods high in the daily essential nutrients to provide the nutrition required for human body function.

The body relies on six essential nutrients

By knowing what nutrition benefits there are in foods, you can gain a better understanding of all the different food nutrients there are, especially the essential nutrients and various types of nutrition for maintaining a healthy diet.

WHAT ARE NUTRIENTS?

The six essential nutrients are Protein, Carbohydrates, Fats, Vitamins, Minerals and Water.

WHY ARE NUTRIENTS IMPORTANT?

A healthy diet is all about good nutrition and taking in the essential nutrients in foods.

A person’s body is mostly unable to produce anything on its own. Therefore, to function normally, the body needs enough of the six main nutrients for sustainability. These six essential nutrients provide the dietary requirements the body needs for good health.

What nutrition foods do is supply the body with adequate nutrients to fuel energy, growth, and build immune health to support immune system function. They can provide an immune defence against disease.

Essential nutrients are the various substances… compounds or elements found within foods that, when eaten, can produce growth and development, sustain energy, while providing ongoing support to the immune system. These important food nutrients help develop a strong defence against disease.

You may wonder why you need to rely on an essential diet of healthy foods, rich in food nutrients, to function and maintain health. These essential nutrients strengthen the immune system, creating an immune defence system to sustain life itself, as well as ward off disease.

WHY DO WE NEED THESE ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS?

What benefit is there in having an essential diet rich in nutrients?

There are 2 DIFFERENT TYPES OF NUTRIENTS

As there are a variety of different essential nutrients, these nutrients are separated into two distinct categories… essential micronutrients and essential macronutrients. These provide the foundational major nutrients the body needs to support health.

Micronutrients and Macronutrients

The micronutrients and macronutrients are the main nutrients that provide and sustain health.

Essential micronutrients are those nutrients the body needs to be consumed only in small quantities at a time. These essential food nutrients are the important Vitamins and Minerals that help support immune system function and help to ward off disease by building up your immune system defence.

Essential macronutrients need to be eaten in much larger quantities as they are the major nutrients that provide the building blocks to a healthy diet.

Examples of Nutrients

It’s important to know what nutrition and which nutrients are in these important essential macronutrients. These food nutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and the essential fats. These important essential nutrients maintain the body’s energy levels.

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The six essential nutrients make for a variety of healthy essential food choices, providing the necessary important vitamins and minerals, protein, carbohydrates, and fats for maintaining healthy living.

6 ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS

WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF THESE FOOD NUTRIENTS?

Healthy foods are good sources of nutrients that the body needs for immune health.

The benefits of these six nutrients are:

Proteins help build strong bones for strength and endurance
Carbohydrates provide energy to sustain activity
Healthy Fats are essential for supporting cholesterol levels
Vitamins boost immunity due to their antioxidant benefits
Minerals are needed for immune system function
Water is essential for survival as up to 70% of body components consist of water

The key nutrients form part of essential diet foods that sustain a healthy body.

1 PROTEIN

Protein in DAILY NUTRITION

Proteins represent essential food nutrients for all cell tissues. Protein is one of the essential diet food elements that provides the important basic nutrients that will help sustain good health.

Protein food supports your daily nutrition needs. It is one of the daily essential nutrients that every healthy diet includes. Proteins are essential for building strong bones and strengthening muscles. It’s an important major nutrient the body requires for maintaining skin, hair, and cell growth.

PROTEIN FOR DAILY NUTRITION NEEDS

There are a variety of amino acids foods such as fish, avocado etc. These provide particularly important nutrients and constitute a major source of nutrition. They are the essential nutrients for body function that support long term health.

Fish, meat, and eggs are all excellent amino acids foods as these contain one of the key nutrients to maintain growth, support health and provide for daily nutrition needs.

2 CARBOHYDRATES – DAILY NUTRITION FOODS

ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS TO FUEL THE BODY

Carbohydrates are one of the primary nutrients They are beneficial food nutrients that help fuel the body and support both brain function and the central nervous system, all the while protecting and strengthening immune defence against disease. Carbohydrate foods are excellent sources of nutrients that the body needs for daily nutrition.

Some nutritionists even suggest that carbohydrates are essential food and that about 45% – 65% of your daily calorie intake should come from eating carbohydrates.

HEALTHY CARBOHYDRATE FOODS

Healthy carbohydrate foods are good sources of nutrients and include low carb foods.

Choose healthy options when looking for healthy carbohydrate foods. Look for fiber-rich foods, fruits, and vegetables (except potatoes), whole grain foods, quinoa, whole wheat breads, oats, rye, barley, as these all provide the major nutrients for supporting health.

3 HEALTHY FATS

Healthy fats are nutrition rich foods.

**Carbohydrates foods are good daily nutrition foods.**

Monounsaturated Fat

Monounsaturated fat helps reduce heart disease. Monounsaturated fats help protect organs. They can also lower heart disease and cholesterol levels.

If you are looking to reduce your risk of heart disease, it’s important to reduce your intake of saturated fats to the healthier monounsaturated fat foods.

To help maintain good levels of cholesterol, choose healthy fat food nutrients. Good examples of fats include extra virgin olive oil, avocados, nuts, almonds as these benefit heart health and the immune system.

Omega-3 Fats

Healthy omega-3 fats can be found in sardines, herring, and salmon.

4 VITAMINS

Vitamins help boost immunity

A healthy diet relies on foods packed with essential vitamins and minerals, as they are the essential nutrients the body needs to support health. The best immune system booster foods include vitamins.

The body needs thirteen essential vitamins…

A well-balanced diet needs to include a variety of these thirteen essential vitamins.

These thirteen essential vitamins and all vitamins are essential for the body to function. Vitamins are vital nutrients that help ward off disease, keeping the immune system healthy and strong. Vitamin food nutrients have important antioxidant benefits.

There are two distinct types of vitamins…

WATER SOLUBLE VITAMINS

When the body ingests water soluble vitamins, it expels anything it does not absorb. Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12 and vitamin C are all important vitamins for the body that support the immune system.

FAT SOLUBLE VITAMINS

Vitamins have important antioxidant benefits for supporting the immune system, overall health, and wellbeing.

The body only takes what it needs. Any leftovers are then stored within the liver and the tissue walls, keeping them in reserve.

Vitamins A, D, E, and K are all important essential vitamins for body health and wellbeing.

Healthy sources of vitamins:

Healthy sources of vitamins include fruits and vegetables including leafy greens, spinach, broccoli, red peppers, legumes, cabbage, beetroot, milk, cheese, yoghurt, lean meat, poultry, oily fish, and healthy nuts such as almonds and cashews in moderation, along with whole grain foods such as quinoa, oats, and barley.

5 MINERALS

As with vitamins, a healthy diet should include a variety of essential minerals to support a healthy immune system. They are both major nutrients as they enable the body to stay hydrated.

Minerals and vitamins are essential for our metabolic function. We mustn’t underestimate the importance of minerals in our body. Mineral packed foods provide essential nutrition for survival.

Mineral foods having calcium, zinc and iron contain especially important food nutrients for growing strong bones and teeth, along with helping to regulate blood pressure.

Zinc has antioxidant benefits that help strengthen immunity against disease. It helps maintain a strong immune defence, helping wounds and infections to heal faster.

6 WATER

WATER IS AN ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT

immune boosting foods — ***The body’s energy comes from staying hydrated and eating lots of nutrients in food.***

Water is vital for life itself

Last but not least, water is a vital nutrient, essential for life itself. Without adequate water, dehydration can occur, and the body’s immune system could be at significant risk. Staying hydrated is important. You could go without food for a few days, but water is an essential nutrient, as it’s a critical contributor to overall immune health and staying immune from disease.

Water enables all the essential nutrients from fruits and vegetables to distribute throughout the body. The body is entirely dependent on regular supplies of vital nutrients through regularly eating different types of nutrition… foods rich in essential vitamins and foods with minerals. It is unable to store water for its future use.

It’s important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables because nutrients in foods distribute the essential vitamins and all the important essential minerals the body needs to function. Water helps lubricate the immune cells, avoiding dehydration and preventing constipation.

**Fresh healthy fruits and vegetables are packed with water and different nutrients to meet our daily nutritional needs**.

Essential Nutrients for Children

FOOD AS MEDICINE

Chris Food, Health, Healthy Food, Nutrition and Health June 26, 2021September 14, 2021Food as Medicine, Healthy Food

HOW DOES HEALTHY FOOD INFLUENCE THE BODY?

Have you ever thought of your food as medicine?

Eating nutritious foods directly affects your immune system
Chris Sheldon

Nutritious food, with all its essential nutrients, builds a strong immune system. These essential nutrients, in a well-balanced diet of healthy food choices, can even support those who have a compromised immune system or weak immune system. So, a healthy balanced diet may prevent and treat chronic diseases.

Hippocrates coined the phrase “Food as Medicine” in his renowned quote… “Let Food be thy Medicine and Medicine thy Food” *

Paying close attention to what you eat, how and when you eat, can form the basis for your overall health and wellbeing.

Nutritional habits, or the lack thereof, may very well determine whether you may or may not have a lower chance of acquiring chronic diseases.

It’s a powerful thought.

Viewing food as medicine, as a preventative for treating chronic diseases, is a different paradigm from many people’s conventional way of thought and thinking.

Food is a powerful natural medicine that can not only prevent illnesses, heal, and nourish the body for peak performance… it may also be able to reverse or slow down some chronic diseases.

There are three different paradigms for thinking about nutritious food

1 Food is source of pleasure… savouring the flavours and textures of food

2 Food is fuel for the body… necessary to stave off hunger

3 Food is a means of keeping healthy. Nutritious food can be like medicine, keeping the body healthy.

Eating lots of healthy food is lifestyle medicine… based on a healthy diet. Eating a healthy balanced diet not only nourishes the body but protects and prevents disease.

Food is a natural medicine to the body because nutritious food is high in the essential nutrients and vitamins that boost immune system function. Herbal medicine is actually plant-based food that blurs the boundary between food and medicine.

10 RULES FOR TREATING FOOD AS MEDICINE

1 Consider plant-based food as medicine.

The Mediterranean diet is recommended by many health professionals as a healthy diet to follow as it constitutes a heart-healthy diet. This plant-based diet can greatly reduce the incidence of heart attacks and can even be seen as a heart disease prevention diet.

A Mediterranean diet is based on eating lots of whole natural healthy foods such as grains, fruits and vegetables, oily fish and extra virgin olive oil, with a small handful of nuts and wine – in moderation. It encompasses many nutritious food choices and thus becomes natural medicine for the body.

The Mediterranean diet promotes healthy habits. It’s not only an evidence-based, heart-healthy diet, but can greatly aid in disease prevention and ending chronic diseases.

2 EAT HEALTHY FOOD.

…rather than relying on dietary supplements

For many years people around the world have ignored the importance of eating natural plant-based healthy food in their diet and some have reached for supplements to support their overall health care.

The pharmaceutical industries are very heavily invested in selling supplements. But Natural Medicine treats food as medicine and avoids the need for dietary supplements.

A healthy diet is eating a variety of healthy food from all the food groups. By simply treating food as medicine, it should reduce the need for taking supplements. Where possible, seek out fresh food markets where fresh, healthy food is brought straight from the farm.

Purchasing oily fish from the fish monger, whole grain breads from the market bakery, with grass fed meat and locally made cheese and yoghurts, plus eating lots of plant-based fruits and vegetables, makes for a healthy diet. Therefore, purposely making healthy eating food choices can play an important role in disease prevention and, in particular, preventing heart disease.

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Food is natural medicine and an alternative medicine for health care, as against relying on supplements to boost your immune system. Plant-based oils from olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds and the fats from fish, mostly omega-3 fatty acids, provide important anti-inflammatory benefits.

Healthy fat foods help to support the immune system, due to their important essential nutrients and the essential minerals in foods.

Supplements should only be used as a back up to a good diet…. not as a replacement for eating healthy and nutritious food. However, many health professionals will consider herbal medicine, taking a more holistic medicine approach. This means recommending a balanced diet of nutritious food as medicine, to assist in a person’s health care.

By regularly eating fresh fruits and vegetables direct from local markets, you are not only supporting your local farms and food markets, but you are enhancing your own health care at the same time.

3 View healthy food as lifestyle medicine.

Natural medicine can not only heal and protect but prevent and treat many diseases brought on by having an unhealthy diet. The well-known saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” was coined because an apple is, when eaten with the skin on, a natural medicine with health benefits that support and strengthen the immune system.

When looking for healthy foods to eat throughout the day, apples always make an excellent choice when it comes to healthy snacks. An apple is not only a nutritious healthy food to eat on a daily basis, but a good source of vitamins, carbs and is also full of soluble fiber and water.

Eating healthy food such as apples on a regular basis may play an important role in helping to lower the risk of high blood pressure and cholesterol levels plus prevent the onset of stroke, heart disease and diabetes.

A balanced diet should always include fruits and vegetables, especially when it includes the humble apple as they will give a weak immune system a boost.

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4 EAT SLOWLY AND MINDFULLY

MAKE HEALTHY FOOD CHOICES

Mindful eating is paying close attention to what you eat, how and when you eat. Specific foods can directly impact your health. Healthy food fuels the body, giving it energy and sustainability, as well as helping to detoxify the body.

Eating a healthy diet supports the immune system and the nervous system, while aiding digestion and regulating blood pressure, helping it to function properly.

We all need to be more mindful of making healthy food choices. It’s important not to choose the convenience of fast food, unhealthy breakfast cereals, high in salt, sugar, and highly processed foods. We should choose heart-healthy foods. Avoid processed foods and refined products as they often have high levels of salt, sugar, and other additives.

Replace processed foods with whole grain healthy foods such as wholemeal bread, quinoa, oats, and beans… to sustain you throughout the day.

5 AVOID EATING WHEN STRESSED

Try to avoid eating when stressed as stress can greatly impact the nervous system.

Increased stress levels put a strain on the digestive system, as well as affecting your mood swings, alertness, and energy levels. Therefore, avoid eating when stressed, especially highly processed foods as these foods compound your stress levels.

Seeing food as medicine enables you to make good food choices. Healthy food is natural medicine for the body. Nutrient rich foods help the body heal and repair itself, improving health and wellbeing.

Eating a well-balanced diet (including healthy breakfast foods to start the day), followed by healthy snacks, including several servings of fruits and vegetables throughout the day, is a healthy eating plan for when feeling stressed.

Read how to Transform Your Diet

6 HEALTHY FOOD NOURISHES AND PROTECTS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

Nutritious food nourishes and protects the immune system. Research has shown that certain unhealthy dietary habits can adversely affect your health and you are more susceptible to chronic diseases.

The essential nutrients in healthy food give a protective layer at the same time as nourishing, supporting, and strengthening the body’s immune system, helping the body to function properly. These supportive qualities are reasons to regard food as medicine.

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7 HEALTHY FOOD IS LIFESTYLE MEDICINE

…for a Healthy Heart

Defend yourself against the possibility of acquiring some chronic diseases by recognising the importance of food and its effects on your health. Diet and health go hand in hand. Eating healthy foods gives the body a defence against the onset of disease. Good eating is a lifestyle medicine choice. Making good plant-based food choices may protect the body against many diseases. Eating a variety of plant-based fruits and vegetables, rich in the essential nutrients and minerals in foods, increases antioxidant levels that help support the immune system.

Heart-healthy foods such as healthy fat foods like avocados, extra virgin olive oil, oily fish and almonds, cashews and walnuts are excellent healthy options for a more balanced diet for heart health. Choosing a heart-healthy diet decreases the chances of heart attacks as it helps to lower cholesterol levels and inflammation associated with cardiovascular diseases.

Other important heart healthy foods include cocoa in dark chocolate in moderation) and whole grains such as quinoa, oatmeal, and brown rice. Spinach, sweet potatoes, carrots, oranges, broccoli, and red peppers are all rich in vitamins and minerals essential to support a healthy diet.

Many health professionals recommend following a more Mediterranean diet plan as it has all the elements of a healthy diet. It is also using food as medicine to sustain a life of health and wellbeing.

How does the Mediterranean diet benefit heart health?

The Mediterranean diet is regarded as a heart-healthy diet that is natural medicine that not only improves and supports the immune system, but possesses health benefits for longevity.

The Mediterranean diet is regularly eating a variety of healthy foods. It’s a healthy diet that is conducive to healthy eating habits that have been followed by those living around the Mediterranean region over many centuries. Studies have shown that those who have long lived in the Mediterranean region and enjoyed its healthy food benefits, have experienced longevity, health and wellbeing, and enjoy a far lower risk of heart disease.

Therefore, it’s important to eat plenty of nutritious foods, along with healthy fat foods. It’s also essential to include whole natural grains, fish, nuts, lots of fruits and vegetables, extra virgin olive oil, olives, along with cheese and moderate amounts of wine.

8 MAKE FOOD A LIFESTYLE MEDICINE CHOICE

Choose healthy foods as medicine, based around a balanced diet full of nutritious foods. Such foods include healthy fat foods, lots of plant-based, fiber rich foods and lots of fruits and vegetables. These are all seen as natural medicine that strengthens the immune system.

Making these healthy food choices should not be viewed as replacement or alternative medicine, but as supporting the immune system to nourish and protect.

Regarding food as medicine is a way of seeing food as a support to medicine. It is not an antidote to chronic disease but making good food choices to strengthen and support the immune system can help improve it. Changing to being more conscious of following a more healthy diet, with lots of healthy food meals along with healthy snacks can improve your health dramatically… at the same time as protecting against disease.

9 WE ARE ALL UNIQUE

When a diet is deficient in the essential nutrients, vitamins D and C and many of the minerals in food, the risks of certain chronic diseases are heightened. Supermarkets are often full of attractive highly processed foods, stripped of goodness and replaced with processed fats, sugar and salt. These foods need to be avoided. A diet which is high in refined foods and/or high in sugary additives helps to contribute to diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer.

Because we are all unique, we all have our different requirements. Some may have a genetic disposition to developing chronic disease, or require certain medication to overcome, stress, depression, or other conditions. Temptations towards certain unhealthy foods such as processed foods, high sugar and high-fat foods place some people at a disadvantage.

The bottom line is to look after your own health care by eating lots of nutritious foods because they constitute natural medicine that boosts the immune system.

10 ADOPT A HOLISTIC MEDICINE APPROACH

Lifestyle changes to promote wellness

Seeing food as medicine can play an important role in improving, strengthening, and supporting the immune system, when you follow a healthy eating regime.

Viewing food as medicine means you have a natural medicine at your disposal, medicine that focusses on the whole person… the body, mind, spirit, and the emotions. Having a well-balanced diet, including lots of healthy fresh food, is a great starting point in looking after your own health care.

A good starting point to achieving innate immunity is to regard food as medicine to strive for wellness of mind, body, and spirit.

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Benefits of Eating Mushrooms

Chris Healthy Food, Nutrition and Health, Tips and Advice, Videos April 15, 2021September 14, 2021inflammation, mushrooms, Nutrition Facts

Health Benefits of Mushrooms

The humble mushroom has long been grown for cooking and in recent times used to add flavour to a variety of cuisine dishes.

Mushrooms are widely used by chefs to add flavour and depth to meals. Chefs recognise its flavoursome qualities, and it is regarded as an essential element, enhancing many and varied cuisine dishes.

There are millions of mushrooms produced around the world. There are thousands of edible mushrooms, but only about 100 are cultivated commercially. Mushrooms are basically a fungus and are mostly grown in the dark.

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The Benefits of Eating Mushrooms

1 Antioxidant Benefits

Mushrooms help protect against free radicals that may invade the body and cause harm, such as cancer and heart disease.

Mushrooms have heart health benefits as they are low in calories, fat, and cholesterol, making them an excellent red meat substitute in many salads and pasta dishes. They are a good source of minerals, as well as fibre and vitamins.

2 Benefits to the Immune System

We would all like to strengthen our immune system, especially since the threat of Covid-19 infection now exists around the world. There are many products that promise to boost the immune system.

There are millions of people with autoimmune diseases or inflammatory diseases and allergies. And there are also many people whose immune systems may be a bit too active. But having an overactive immune system is not all bad. Your immune system maybe in overdrive and attacking all sorts of things such as tree pollen, but that heightened state of alert may also cause some budding tumours in the body.

Therefore, we want to boost the parts of the immune system that fight infection whilst downgrading the parts that may cause inflammation… and mushrooms might just fit the bill. Making mushrooms a part of your regular diet has been shown to not only boost the immune system, but mushrooms can also reduce inflammation.

This video explains how mushrooms can boost immunity while reducing inflammation...

More benefits of eating mushrooms

How to Read Nutrition Facts Labels

Chris Healthy Food, Nutrition and Health, Nutrition Facts, Videos January 2, 2021September 14, 2021Nutrition Facts, Nutrition Labels

Reading Nutrition Labels on Food Packages

You can find nutrition information on the labels of food containers. This is important dietary information when selecting foods to cook for a well-balanced meal. It is particularly necessary, when planning a diet for diabetics, growing children, elderly people, and those on a paleo diet or a keto diet plan, to have the correct calorie intake.

When eating out at fast food restaurants, it’s also important to look, for example, at the McDonalds nutrition facts or KFC nutrition information. This will help to ensure that you do not exceed the recommended daily intake of sugar, fats and calories.

Reading food labels can be scary… and confusing.

Here are ten tips to help you…

10 Tips for Reading a Food Label

Tip #1 Our food is fuel for the body.

The body burns food as you go about your day.

Tip#2 Food provides energy for your daily activies.

The more active you are, the more calories you burn.

Tip #3 Know how much is in one serving.

To know how much energy food contains, you must know the serving size. This can be determined using a measuring cup.

Tip #4 The calories listed are per serving.

The calorie listing is important because it tells you how much energy you get from one serving of food.

Since the calories listed on the label are per serving, if you have multiple servings you have to multiply the number of calories by the number of servings.

This will give you the total calories that you have eaten. For example, 232 calories times 10 servings equals 2320 which is the total calories eaten.

There are three types of foods that provide energy… fats, carbohydrates and protein. If you add all these ingredients together you can calculate the total calories.

Tip #5 Know the type of calories that you are eating.

Tip #6 How fatty is your fuel?

Fats are the most concentrated foods which means that a large number of calories are present in a small amount of fat. Make sure you eat healthy fats like fish and nuts.

But remember a very little bit of fat burns for a long time and contains lots of energy.

Tip #7 Sugar is too sweet.

Carbohydrates are foods that are broken down by the body. If you are running a race that requires a lot of energy then carbohydrates are a good choice. However, if not burned right away, carbohydrates are stored almost immediately.

Excess carbohydrates have been tied to many health problems.

Tip #8 Premium-fuel food for the body has a lot of protein.

Protein is the third and final ingredient in food that provides us with calories. Protein provides good energy levels, keeps your weight steady and helps the body to repair itself.