nutrients

There are more nutrients in foods than just their ash and their other traditionally measured constituents. Interactions are continually being discovered between the body and more and more different components of food. Probably about 5% of digestion and metabolism is understood so far and only in broad outline.

You can learn the real nutritional value food by paying attention to the immediate and longer term effects of different foods on feelings, health and vitality. Some foods bring immediate changes before digestion has even begun. Taste and smell can be nutritional. Others take months to take effect. Some foods are a waste of energy digesting others are astonishingly rewarding. A food diary can be used to focus more closely and pinpoint problems.

Nutrient charts can be misleading when they don't specify their measures. Some measure percentages of protein, fats and oils, carbohydrates and fiber by volume and others by weight. Some by dry weight and some fresh weight. Sometimes there are differences within in the same chart. The standard scientific measure is by calories.

Nutrient contents are often oversimplified. Meat and beans are often classed as protein while ignoring their other components and ignoring the protein content of other foods.

The quality of nutrients depends on freshness, growing conditions, temperature, soil quality, processing and handling. Many degrade with age and processing.

protein
We don't need to force ourselves to eat protein. It is almost impossible to get insufficient in the course of eating enough to get the energy to survive, unless we try to live on lollies. All unprocessed food contains proteins. Grains, fruit and vegetables contain high quality proteins and many have nearly as much or more than animal products. When we eat healthily our body tells us when we need more proteins.

Amino acids from the digestion of proteins are essential for the body's DNA to generate new proteins to replace old as cells come and go. Proteins are in every cell. Enzymes are proteins.

The daily protein intake usually recommended in dietary guidelines to replace protein turnover is 50 grams (5 twenty cent pieces). More refined estimates are as low as 15 grams.

If we eat more that we need for replacement the surplus is used for energy and burdens the metabolic and eliminatory systems. It is much less efficient than sugars and fats as a source of energy.

The degradation products are toxic and destructive. Proteins require heroic digestive and metabolic effort. They are acid forming due to the acidic minerals left after digestion. When pH falls too low the body mines calcium from bone and teeth as a buffer to raise pH.

A high protein plant based diet with for example a lot of grains, pulses or soy or gluten fake meats causes some of these same problems as a high protein, animal based diet. Better but not optimal.

The minimum amount of protein necessary for maintenance of body is best for energy levels and health.

oils and fats
are essential for hormone and cell wall production. A zero fat diet causes problems quickly.

Metabolism of fats for energy by humans is slower, less efficient and more destructive than carbohydrates from grains, fruit and vegetables. Staggering quantities of food oils are refined by industrialised agriculture. Overuse is a cause of many easily avoidable diseases including diabetes and heart disease.

Fats and oils makes the blood thicker slowing circulation and reducing oxygen uptake and distribution. The more saturated the fat the greater the impact and the longer it lasts. A half-hour after a double meat or cheeseburger a quarter or third of a blood sample will be a fat emulsion floating on the top. Relaxation through suffocation. Getting to sleep is easier. Fats are often eaten as a tranquillizer.

Animal fats and some plant fats have most of the carbon links in their molecular chain taken up by hydrogen bonds and so are stiffer and less flexible. These hydrogenated (saturated) fats have a higher melting point, a longer shelf life and are thicker at body temperature. After eating they stay longer in circulation than unsaturated fats before they break down (if they break down) and so have a greater opportunity to thicken the blood and attach to blood vessel walls and fat cells. Long tubes of hardened fat are withdrawn from blood vessels during coronary bypass surgery.

Fats in meat and dairy products produce a full feeling often mistaken as satisfying a need for protein.

Eggs are more than 50% fat. Lean meat can be 70% fat.

Plant oils although less damaging still take their toll in high quantities particularly after processing or cooking saturates them. They go a step further to form polymers at high temperatures as in frying pans. The plastic glaze can be seen on cooking utensils and on the food.

Nuts, avocados and seeds can be 75% fat. Plants from cold climates contain oils that are liquid at lower temperatures and less viscous so they circulate more easily in the blood stream and are used quicker.

The oils in fresh fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts can be enough. See how the body feels with little or no refined oil in the diet.

•	no hard fats. No saturated fats
•	no overheated fats or oils
•	Little of no deep-fried food
•	no margarine. Perhaps try a little olive oil on toast or a little tahini or spreads like humus or baba ganoush
•	use unsaturated or mono saturated oils preferably cold pressed
•	cook with heat stable low smoke oils
•	lightly baste with oil and grill

fibre
Insoluble fibre is mostly not digested but the microorganisms that feed on it in the gut produce gases that puff up faeces (so they float like foam). which helps their passage and maintains the health of the digestive system. Like a few other plant foods too much produces wind.

Some brans like wheat bran fibre are sharp and lacerate the gut. Bread is traditionally eaten with butter or oil as a lubricant.

minerals and vitamins
Nutritional minerals and vitamin supplements where these are deficient can bring dramatic and immediate improvements in mood and thinking. Some are useless or toxic if they exceed requirements so its worth researching their effects. A better diet might work slower but is more sustainable.

sugar
Refined carbohydrates including sugar and alcohol stimulate the pleasure centres and relieve stress. Quitting and withdrawal is as difficult and uncomfortable as addictive drugs.

High levels of sugar in the blood from eating refined carbohydrates leads to proteins being coated with a fur of short chain sugar molecules. This alters the shape of hormones and disrupts their action which relies on conformity of shape to receptors molecules. Short sugar molecules also attach to muscle fibers and are sheered when muscle fibers slide over each other. This causes heating and stiffness during movement by increasing friction.

Sugar overstimulates the adrenals and disrupts the hormonal system compounding depression or anxiety.

High sugar levels in packaged and fast foods is the leading cause of the devastating epidemic of hypoglycemia and diabetes in western countries.

There are lots of web-links to sites extolling the virtues of sugar or limply advising moderation. I haven't found one with comprehensive well researched and documented information and references about its effects.

salt
Refined salt has minerals extracted for sale to manufacturing industries to leave mostly sodium chloride. Eating this raises the proportion of sodium to other ions in the body so we eat more to try to restore balance. Natural salt is more satisfying. It contains minerals in a similar proportion to those we have evolved to need and doesn't lead to the insatiable salt cravings that make fast food so more-ish.

copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 21. Dec. 2011

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