We are what we eat! The body is composed entirely of molecules derived from food. Macronutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrate) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) are absorbed through the digestive tract, whose health and integrity depends fundamentally on what we eat. Our nutritional status determines to a substantial extent, our capacity to adapt and maintain health. Biochemical imbalances resulting from suboptimal nutrition experienced over generations are recorded and expressed genetically as strength and weaknesses of specific body processes. Our genes express themselves in our environment (food, water, air, etc.). If the environment is too hostile for them, the body cannot adapt and disease results. If the environment is nourishing, we have a greater resistance to disease and are more likely to experience health and vitality.
Optimum nutrition is giving yourself the best possible intake of nutrients to allow your body to be as healthy as possible and to work as well as it can. Many great visionaries have embraced it. In 390 B.C. Hippocrates said: “Let Food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. Edison in the early twentieth said: “The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and the cause and prevention of disease”. Linus Pauling, who was to chemistry what Einstein was to physics and who won two Nobel Prizes said that, “optimum nutrition is the medicine of tomorrow”.
To date, fifty (50) nutrients have been identified as essential for health and they include minerals, vitamins, amino acids, fats, oxygen, water, fiber and so on. Our health can be promoted and maintained at the highest level if we are able to achieve a optimum intake of each nutrients every single day. Through optimum nutrition we can improve mental clarity, mood and concentration, improve resistance to infections, increase physical performance, improve quality of sleep, extend a healthy life span and more.
Nutrient density, as defined as the relative ratio of nutrients to calories, is the hallmark of good food. Foods low in nutrient density are often termed “empty calorie” or “junk food”. The leading nutritional problem in the US today is the “overconsumption of undernutrition”. Statistically, studies have concluded that almost two thirds of an average American’s diet is made up of fats and refined sugars. This contributes to nutrient deficiencies that can rob the body of its natural resistance to disease and contribute to faster aging.
The concept of biochemical individuality has brought about many changes including the emergence of new preventive diagnostic procedures such as nutritional assessment and risk factor analysis. These utilize physiological data, personal and family health history, dietary analysis and advanced biochemical screening to help nutritional practitioners determine individual biochemistry and nutritional status.
Vitamin and Minerals help regulate the conversion of food into energy in the body and can be separated into two categories: energy nutrients, which are principally involved in the conversion of food to energy and protector nutrients, which help defend against damaging toxins derived from drugs, alcohol, radiation, environmental pollutants or the body own enzymes processes.