Food Elements – Learn about the nutritional elements of food and healthy eating

The purpose of consuming food is to ensure good health and well-being, and therefore healthy eating is an essential aspect of daily eating. The food requirement over the years changes over time, with respect to the stage of life in which you are. So while a child requires food to grow and develop, adults need it more to get the energy they need to function on a daily basis. In addition to that, food is also required to repair the various parts of the body that are worn out or have had to be discarded through wear and tear.

We tend to use various parts of our body with everything we do, whether it’s breathing, thinking, moving, playing games, or working on the computer. This means that we need to be able to continually replenish our bodies with a variety of elements that are present in food and drink.

Below are the various elements of food that exist, their characteristics, the way they can be used, and the correct way specific foods should be combined for maximum benefits:

The Food Elements

Healthy eating is only possible when you make sure your body is getting the right food elements in the right amount it needs. Therefore, it is essential to know the nutrition of the food in order to be sure that everything is being consumed. Some of the food items you need to be aware of include starch, sugar, albumin, fat, minerals, and indigestible ingredients.

These are often put together to form the basic classes which include carbonaceous, nitrogenous, and inorganic. While all starches, fats, and sugars fall into the carbonaceous category, albumen is considered nitrogenous. All inorganic substances include all the minerals that we need for the body. It should be noted that all healthy recipes or menus must ensure that all the various food categories are finely balanced in one meal.

Carbonaceous: All starches, sugars, and fats are included in this category. Starch can be found in grains, most vegetables, and also in some fruits. The sugars are available in the form of cane, grape, other fruit sugars, and milk sugar (a component of milk).

Glucose, for example, is a man-made sugar similar to grape juice. It is made from potato or corn starch in a chemical process. However, it is not as sweet as the natural sweeteners that nature provides. Fats can also be found in plant and animal foods. Butter and tallow are examples of animal fat, but you can also find fat in plant sources like nuts, beans, and some fruits like olives.

While fat is commonly used as a free element (as in butter) and we use plenty of it in many not-so-healthy recipes, free fat is not only hard to consume, it also interferes with the digestion of other foods.

Nitrogenous: Albumin in its purest form can be found in the white of an egg. The entire white of an egg is nothing more than pure albumen. You can also find albumin in other animal and plant foods, such as oats. Gluten closely resembles albumen and is also a nitrogenous element. It is found in rye, barley, and wheat. Casein is also part of this class of food elements and can be found in peas and beans.

Inorganics – Almost all the foods we eat have some proportion of inorganic and mineral matter. Cereals and milk have a large proportion of the minerals we need on a daily basis.

Indigestible substances: These are foods that cannot be digested by the body and are therefore only intended to provide bulk to the food we eat. The bran and fibrous tissues of the body are examples of indigestible foods.

Food Item Uses

Most of the food we eat is carbonaceous in nature. This is something that has been verified after studying the daily eating habits of various cultures. The carbonaceous food element allows our body to produce heat and, together with other food elements, allows us to use strength and force. The carbonaceous elements in food also help the body to replace fatty tissue that is consumed in the fat burning process.

Although fats produce the most heat among the carbonaceous food items, it should be remembered that these are the most difficult to digest and can therefore lead to various health problems. Healthy eating considers that only the recommended proportion of fat should be included in meals daily.

Nitrogenous nutritional elements help keep the brain, nerves and muscles healthy and fit. These are the food elements that ensure that you stay healthy in all aspects, including mental health. All healthy recipes should include a decent proportion of nitrogenous food elements to ensure that the stimulus for tissue change is provided to the body at all times, thus keeping all tissues in shape.

The most commonly required inorganic elements are phosphates. These provide the building blocks for bones and nerves and are therefore essential for good bone health.

Combination of Food Elements

There is a saying that “too much of everything is bad”, and this also applies to food. While all elements of food are required by the body, each element of food needs to be consumed in a specific ratio to ensure healthy eating and healthy living. If you want to learn how to cook healthy recipes, you need to know which of the food elements the body needs and in what quantity.

On the one hand, the body’s daily intake must ensure 6 carbonaceous food elements for 1 nitrogenous food element. It has also been noted that this one sixth of nitrogenous food items can be used up to 3 ounces in a 24 hour span.

So if you want to make sure that you are preparing healthy recipes for your family, you must make use of this scientific knowledge about nutritional elements to ensure that your family stays healthy and fit.