Nutrition

Pyramid Power

The main components of healthy eating habits include food from the six basic food groups. And if you cover your bases, you probably don't need to take supplemental vitamins. You can get all the nutrients your body requires just by eating right. In fact, it is best for your body to absorb vitamins and minerals directly from food rather than from a little pill. Each vitamin, mineral or nutrient you absorb has a particular job to perform.

There is nothing mysterious about the food pyramid. You have probably seen it in school and on food packages. It is simple but important information; it doesn't require any memorization or complicated math. All you have to remember is to eat lots from the bottom, less from the middle and a little from the top. That's it. It is not necessary to eat the exact number of servings from each group every day. Instead, your intake should average out to the portions indicated over a period of 1 to 2 weeks.

Calories

The energy in food is called calories. Everyone talks about them as if they are the last things you would want to put into your body. But the truth is, you need them. You need them because your body is always using energy, whether you're running, walking, standing still or sleeping. Cut back on calories too much, and your system will slow down. Lay off them altogether, and you will die. More people in the world die from too few calories than from too many.

Calories:

supply energy for growth

provide energy so your heart, lungs, brain and other organs can operate to keep you alive

give you energy to be physically active

give you energy for thinking


If Calories Are So Great, Why Is Everyone So Paranoid About Them?
Because it is so easy to get too many of them, and extra calories turn into fat. You can put on fat if you take in more calories than your body can use. To avoid adding extra fat, you have to eat as many calories as you need, and no more. Some people manage this by figuring out how many calories they use in the day, memorizing the amount in various foods, then adding up as they chew and swallow. This is a bit extreme! We don't recommend you do this. Counting calories can make mealtime more tedious than any math class. Unless your health-care provider has put you on a special weight-loss diet, you don't have to bring your calculator to the dinner table. Just having a general idea of how many calories are in the foods you eat should be enough to help you keep excess calories from becoming excess fat.

A Calorie Is a Calorie Is a Calorie
An important point to remember is that all calories are the same. The calories in a piece of chocolate cake are no more fattening than the calories in a strawberry. The cake is more fattening than the strawberry because it contains more calories, not a different kind of calories. In other words, foods vary greatly in the number of calories they give you, so it's not only the amount you eat that matters, but the number of calories in the food you choose to eat. You could, for example, eat one piece of chocolate cake and end up consuming many more calories than you would get from eating several baskets of plain, fresh strawberries.

There are a lot of overweight people who complain that they get fat even though they don't eat very much. This is often true. Very often, they're not eating big meals, but the foods they DO eat at those meals are very high in calories.

Remember:

Growing bodies need more calories than grown ones. That's one reason why you shouldn't put yourself on a low-calorie diet right now without checking with your health-care provider. If you just start hacking away at the calories in your diet, chances are good that you'll disturb your body's growth in some way.

Busy bodies need more calories than inactive ones. When you're active, you spend energy that could be helping you grow. You have to make up for it by eating more.

Large bodies need more energy than small ones do. The more body you have, the more energy it takes to keep it going.


How can you tell how many calories are in the foods you eat? The easiest way is to read the nutrition information label on the package. This tells you how many calories are in one serving. You can use the nutrition-information labels to compare the number of calories in different brands and types of foods.

Carbohydrates

Unless you are on some wacky and dangerous diet, you should eat more carbohydrates than anything else, because more foods are classified as carbohydrates. Potatoes, pasta, bread, rice, fruits of all kinds, honey, and sugar are all carbohydrates. What makes carbohydrates alike, obviously, is not the way they taste, but the fact that they are made of sugar. Sugar takes on different forms, so the sugar in a potato or in a piece of spaghetti tastes different from the sugar you would find in a candy bar or can of soda. The different forms of sugar not only have different flavors but, more important, have different effects on your body.

Carbohydrates have gotten a really bad rap from people who think they are fattening. The truth is that most carbohydrates contain no fat at all. Plain potatoes, rice, pasta, and many types of bread are fat-free. The fat comes along with the butter, cream and cheese you add to them.

Carbohydrates...

... give you energy. Of all the nutrients, carbohydrates are the best source of energy. It takes a while for the energy from protein and fat to get into your system. Your body can use the energy from carbohydrates right away.

... contain lots of in vitamins.

... contain fiber. As we said before, fiber is the rough stuff in food that keeps your digestive system "regular." In other words, it helps you have regular bowel movements.


Not all carbohydrates provide these benefits. Plain sugar, honey, corn syrup and molasses don't add anything to your diet but yummy flavor and calories. In fact, they actually make you hungrier and weaker than before you ate them. Here's what happens:

You are hungry.

You eat a candy bar.

You're not hungry anymore, because the sugar from the candy is immediately released in your blood, which carries the energy from the sugar to your brain. When your brain is receiving energy, you don't feel hungry.

Now your body reacts. It can't handle that much sugar. It produces a substance called insulin to clear the sugar out of your blood.

The insulin does what is supposed to do and more. It gets rid of the sugar from your candy, plus whatever sugar was left in your body from an earlier meal. Now there is no sugar left to provide energy for your body and your brain. What happens? You feel hungry again. And then the cycle begins all over.

If you are going to have lasting energy, you have to eat foods that are released slowly. Carbohydrates have less obvious sugar (carbohydrates don't really taste sweet) and give you the kind of energy that lasts. So bread, crackers and unsweetened cereals make better snacks than candy, cookies or ice cream. The best carbohydrates are fresh fruits, vegetables, whole-grain breads, cereals, crackers and pasta. They carry lots of vitamins and fiber and they release sugar slowly, providing energy that lasts a long time.

From Your Plate, Not a Pill

Sure, you can buy vitamins and minerals in bottles, but the best source of them is the foods you eat. Since different foods have different vitamins, the best way to make sure you're covered is to eat a variety of foods every day. This is another time when "Pyramid Power" comes in handy. Remember: lots from the bottom, less from the middle and a little from the top. This should ensure a healthy diet that will keep you healthy and full of energy. If your life is very, very hectic, a vitamin supplement can help make up for what you may be lacking in your fast-paced schedule. There are other times when a vitamin supplement is necessary, like when you are healing from surgery or a wound. Vitamins from a bottle are important at times and for many medical conditions. Learn how to calculate your BMI and find out what it means.

Recommended Reading:

Nutrition for Dummies by Carol Ann Rinzler

The completely updated second edition separates the fluff from the fiber with 30 percent new material on the the latest nutritional data and advice. Includes charts, tables and line drawings.

The Carbohydrate Addict's Carbohydrate Counter by Rachael F. Heller and Richard Ferdinand Heller

People who want quick information to help them follow the Hellers' popular carbohydrate addict's program can get easy carbohydrate counts through this at-a-glance book. Easy-to-read, alphabetized bar graphs show which foods are lowest in carbohydrates. High-low comparison charts list carbohydrates in descending order so readers can make fast choices.