Nutrition - Vitamins

There are a group of organic compounds containing carbon that vitamins consist of. These are needed for normal metabolism and normal growth. Eating some animal products/plants are ways to to obtain vitamins in your diet as all vitamins are made by plants.

From the action of bacteria in our GI tract, we can synthesise some B vitamins and some K vitamins ourselves. B vitamins include riboflavin and biotin.

There are also inactive vitamins (pro-vitamins e.g. beta-carotene) that can help our bodies to assemble small amount of certain vitamins. Beta-carotene cane be found in dark green and yellow vegetables. In the right circumstances, our bodies can make vitamin A. However, vitamin A needs to be found from elsewhere as the vitamin A in beta-carotene doesn't produce enough.

Fat soluble vitamins can only be absorbed, transported and used when fat is there. These vitamins are A, D, E and K. There is a large lack of fat-soluble vitamins when a diet is low in fat which can result in a person becoming ill. Any lack of vitamin A means the body will not be able to produce hormones that are necessary such as oestrogen, cortisol and testosterone.

Water soluble vitamins are absorbed, transported and used in water. These vitamins are B and C. They have an effect in the cells as they are absorbed along the digestive tract however, these vitamins can't be stored in the body in large amounts. These vitamins are essential for our daily diets to avoid becoming ill. Deficiency will occur when refined simple carbs are a large part of our daily diets. This is because it leads to an excess of sucrose.

Next up will be the purposes and sources of all the vitamins. :)

Nutrition - Food quality & Organic foods

Continuing from the last post...

There is a "Cycle of Food Quality" which helps to understand food production.

This starts with nutrients from soil that help to grow plants, the plants are then eaten by animals, animal produce is then eaten by man, man eats plant produce, man then decides how to enrich soil and the cycle starts again.

Now we move onto "Organic foods".

Relating to studies, organic produce was shown to have the same or higher nutrient content than commercial food in 85% of cases. Around 70% of organic producers in the UK are checked that they are meeting the correct requirements put down by the European law. The Soil Association also states that the main reasons people should purchase organic food are minimal use of additives, animal welfare paramount, no genetically modified foods are used, no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides are used when producing and there is no routine antibiotic use on the animals.

The following list are all medical conditions/health problems that have a main cause through food and diet.

These are as follows: metabolic syndrome, cancers (some), high cholesterol, asthma, stroke, heart disease, arthritis (some types), infertility, menstrual irregularities, eczema, diabetes, obesity and hypertension.

The next post will relating more to "nutrition" as a whole...