Nutrients

Nutrients nourish our body and give us energy. Energy is the ability to do work. Our body uses energy for every action to move, to breathe, to think, to grow. Repairing body parts when we get hurt takes energy too. All this energy comes from nutrients in the food.

You know that all foods contain moisture. The solid part of food is made up mostly of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Carbohydrates and fats supply our body with fuel for energy. If the carbohydrates and fats are not used for energy, they are stored in our body as fat. Proteins provide our body with material for growth and repair. Protein foods also contain some carbohydrates or fats. Meat always has fat with the protein, even if the meat is lean; milk has both carbohydrates and fat with the protein. Vitamins and minerals are other important nutrients which help our body to function properly.

The research workers proved that a balanced diet contains all the nutrients necessary to keep us healthy. No one food supplies all the nutrients that our body needs. Because some foods are high in certain nutrients and other foods are high in other nutrients, it is important for us to eat a variety of foods.

Over half of the food we eat should be in the form of carbohydrates. Most of the carbohydrate foods should be complex ones. Sweet foods

222 ♦ Learning to Understand a Medical Text

such as sugar jam, syrup, frosting, cake and candy are not a good source of carbohydrates. Our body needs vitamins and minerals to change sugar into energy. But refined sugar has no vitamins or minerals in it. The best sources of carbohydrates contain natural sugar or starch as well as vitamins and minerals. When we are not very active we should get most of the carbohydrates that we need from fruits and vegetables because they are low in fat.

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