Does Healthy Food Bring Oxygen To Your Blood?

Healthy foods are foods that give your body enough energy to maintain its functions and support your overall well-being. Eating a healthy diet does not directly bring oxygen to your bloodstream. However, the energy from a well-balanced diet provides your body with the nutrients it needs to support the organs responsible for this process.

Food Metabolism

When you eat, your body breaks down the foods in your diet and extracts beneficial substances called nutrients. These nutrients --- which include substances such as proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals --- give your body energy, promote growth and development, help your body carry out repairs and generally give you the means to sustain your life. The mechanism your body uses to break down food for energy and nutrients is known as your metabolism. Your metabolism supports anything you do that requires energy. By logical extension, this includes your respiratory processes --- which draw in oxygen --- and your cardiovascular processes, which distribute that oxygen.

Drawing in Oxygen

When you breathe in, the oxygen content of the air you breathe travels down your trachea to airways called bronchi and enters your lungs. It then passes into hundreds of millions of tiny inflatable sacs called alveoli. Each of these alveoli is surrounded by extremely small blood vessels called capillaries. The oxygen in your alveoli passes to these capillaries through a process called diffusion and enters your bloodstream. This newly oxygen-rich blood then flows to your heart and is pumped to the rest of your body through your arteries. Oxygen-depleted blood returns to your heart through your veins, then flows back to your lungs' capillaries and gathers more oxygen.

Healthy Foods

A healthy diet provides you with a variety of nutrient-rich foods --- such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains --- while limiting your intake of potentially harmful foods such as fats, sugar and sodium. However, your diet can contain too much of any type of food and lead to an overabundance of calories. To eat healthy, you need to eat the proper foods in portions that fit the needs of your metabolism and don't cause you to add on extra pounds.

Specific Food-Related Risks

The lack of certain nutrients can increase the risks for asthma and other respiratory problems in children, according to a 2003 review published in the journal "Thorax." Low intake of fish, which contains omega-3 fatty acids, was specifically indicated in poor respiratory health. Additional problems may stem from low intake of the nutrients contained in fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. Some studies indicate that low intake of these foods can also cause respiratory problems in adults, although other well-designed studies do not support these findings.