Nutrition Concepts and Controversies, 14th Edition

f you care about your body, and if you have strong feelings about food, then you have much to gain from learning about nutrition—the science of how food nourishes the body. Nutrition is a fascinating, much talked-about subject. Each day, newspapers, Internet websites, radio, and television present stories of new findings on nutrition and heart health or nutrition and cancer prevention, and at the same time, advertisements and commercials bombard us with multicolored pictures of tempting foods—pizza, burgers, cakes, and chips. If you are like most people, when you eat you sometimes wonder, “Is this food good for me?” or you berate yourself, “I probably shouldn’t be eating this.” When you study nutrition, you learn which foods serve you best, and you can work out ways of choosing foods, planning meals, and designing your diet wisely. Knowing the facts can enhance your health and your enjoyment of eating while relieving your feelings of guilt or worry that you aren’t eating well. This chapter addresses these “why,” “what,” and “how” questions about nutrition: ▪▪ Why care about nutrition? Why be concerned about the nutrients in your foods? Why not just take supplements? ▪▪ What are the nutrients in foods, and what roles do they play in the body? What are the differences between vitamins and minerals? ▪▪ What constitutes a nutritious diet? How can you choose foods wisely, for nutrition’s sake? What factors motivate your choices? ▪▪ How do we know what we know about nutrition? How does nutrition science work, and how can a person keep up with changing information? Controversy 1 concludes the chapter by offering ways to distinguish between trustworthy sources of nutrition information and those that are less reliable.