Good Food For The Body

Introduction 

Some food stuffs: plantain, rice, palm oil, peanut oil, yam and a carton of spaghetti 

There is nothing much better than a person to eat some good food. When I say good food, I mean natural food items in their natural form and unprocessed state. Convenience foods packed in readily forms like spaghetti and oats thought good, need to be supplement with adequate natural ingredients to compensate for the loss of vitamins, minerals and fibers during the milling processing. 

Processed foods has much of their vitamin A, B-Complex, B1, B2, B6, B12 and folate removed. 

Vitamin C, D, K and E are also removed and chemical forms of the same vitamin added.

Good eating is fueling the body with good natural and wholesome foods; and with all these vitamins including plant photochemical as we can note later.

The body use fuel or energy from the foods we eat to carry out some of its internal activities, as well as physical actions like walking, breathing and sleeping.

An activity like talking, singing, running and swimming required some energy.

To drive a car for over five kilo meters, you need to expend some energy too. A noted African,Ghanaian scientist has said “good food is the greatest single factor in securing good health.”

I subscribe to this opinion. Refine foods need to be supplement with plenty of fruits and vegetables. The refined foods are usually lacking in organic nutrients. This is where they become a problem in the body.

Fruits and vegetables has many and varied vitamin, minerals and fibers that help to release the energy in processed refined foods. For example, an oat meal should go with at least seven assort fruits 

including a vegetable green such as pea. The many foods we eat come from various food groups. 

These were scientifically classified.

Food Groups

A closer observation shows different animals, birds, insects, reptile feeds on different foods. You cannot find an animal or a bird feed on one specific food or a grain. The food items they eat varied significantly. Even as human beings, we eat assort types of foods. In this regard, our scientists classified foods into two main groups.

 1. According to chemical composition; and, 2. According to special functions in the internal metabolism.

Chemical classification of foods

Scientists divide the foodstuffs we eat into six groups. Carbohydrates or carbs for short. These are starch and sugar products. They are usually formed by green plants.

 Examples are: Brown rice, whole wheat flour, potatoes with their skins and similar root vegetables like yams and cocoyams. Stems like sugar cane and beet root.

Carbs are again sub-group into starches, sugars and celluloses.

The carbs are further divide into simple and complex starches, sugars and celluloses.

Carbohydrates, specifically glucose or simple sugars when eaten will release the energy in the foodstuff quickly into the body cells. The body needs glucose or sugar. It is one of the simple sugars that we use every day. All internal cells, systems, and organs in the body need sugar to do their work well. Your brain needs sugar. Your muscles need sugar as primary fuel before anything else. Sugar is readily oxidized to release the much need energy.

Starch has to be break down into simple sugar like glucose. Excess is stored as glycogen, in the muscles and tissues. This is where I and you gain extra weight quickly.

 Here we need to be cautious that eating much sugar has its down side. It can cause teeth decay.

Ordinary household sugars (white sugar) you put in your tea or custard has no food value. It is just a sweeter. Use it sparsely. Or substitute it brown sugar which has much nutritional ingredient like vitamins and mineral salts. All the vitamin A, B, C, and mineral matter in the sugar cane has been removed during the milling and refine process to make white sugar.

Carbs are very important foods for our body. Some are good and some bad. I have mentioned at least six foods that are good carbohydrates above. Any carb that is unprocessed like brown flour for making brown bread is a good carbohydrate.

The bad ones are in the form of convenience food products like white sugar, white rice, white breads and biscuits made with white flours. It is these white products that has its much health beneficial matters removed.

View and download a large listings of many carbohydrate foods here with this link http://iuhealth.org/images/ril-doc/carbohydrate Counting Food LIST.pdf.

Or copy and paste the link into your internet browser.

Other sources of carbs

Fruits: apples, mangoes, pineapples, tomatoes and peach. Boys berry, raspberry, oranges, limes and lemons. Any fresh fruit is a source of carb, sugar or starch

With the exception of limes and lemons, these are sources of complex sugars. After being properly digested, they changed to simple sugars.

Nuts: almonds, walnuts, tiger and grass nuts, and peanuts are complex carbohydrates.

Legumes: all types of beans especially green bean and soya bean. These are another source of complex carbohydrate.

Spices: especially green pepper, red pepper, garlic, ginger and onions. Sage and celery.

All these are natural sources of starch and sugars.

Seeds: melon, jack fruit, sunflower and 

When eaten in their natural states, they seem to be filling; and at the same time make us not to over eat. This is because of their fiber content.

A 1g of carb. will provide you with 3.6 calories. As fruits now are being measured in cups rather than grams, one cup of a fruit is the same as the size of one big banana fruit. Hence, one cup of any fruit is equal to one gram.

Fats and oils

Fats and oils have a special role to play in good eating. These are like the grease a machine used for lubricating parts of the component. But they provide more energy than carbs. A 1g fat will give out twice the energy value of a 1g of a carb diet. In other words, you get at most 7.2 calories from a gram of fat.

Fats come from meat, beef, egg yolk, all nuts, butter and margarine.

Palm oil and peanut oils are fats but are liquids at room temperature and pressure; whereas, egg yolk and margarine are solids at the same temperature and pressure.

Specifically, fats and oils are derived from two sources:

1. Animal fats: pork meat, beef, red meat and turkey. Cod liver oil and shark liver oil are good fish oils. Mullets, sandiness and salmon fish oils contain essential omega fatty acids -3 and -6 that sustain the health of the heart.

2. Plant source or vegetable fats: all nuts for example, walnuts and peanuts. Palm oil, pears and beans. Others are olive oil and coconut oil. Seeds too have oils. Sunflower oil is got from its seeds.

In colder regions, oils can be solids. Fats and oils are reserve foods stored in the body that are readily available when the body needs extra energy.

Eating fats and oils is very important for good health, fueling the body for heat, work and protecting the internal organs of the body.

Again, we need extra fats when the weather is very cold to maintain our body temperature at the optimum level.

Protein

A protein will give the same energy output as in a gram of a carb. Proteins build the body. Our body is at least 16% protein. Like fats, they come from both animal and plant source.

1. Animal protein: fish and poultry. Egg white, milk, chicken and turkey.

A protein like an egg is very much useful in a meal. So is a fish. These are builds the body. They provide all the nutrients the body need to grow, develop and replaced dead cells.

2. Vegetable protein: from seeds, nuts, roots, stem and leaves of plants.

Seeds: sunflower, black berry, tomatoes, guavas and cucumbers.

Nuts:  Peanuts, walnuts and cashews. Tiger nuts and grass nuts. Pine nut is a good nut.

Legume: green beans, soya bean, black eye bean, lima bean and all beans. Green pea is a delight.

Root crops or tubers: fresh potatoes, cocoyams and yams in their skins. Green vegetable yam that grows on flowering stalk is another. 

Green leafy (foliage): all green leafy vegetables or greens: pumpkin leaves, sage, brussel sprout, broccoli and basil or scented leaves.

Water is another but vital source of food. It is need for dissolving food that is properly chewed for absorption into the body cells. Water is to be sip sparely during meal time. Food should be eaten regularly and at regular times.

Do not skip your breakfast except that you are fasting.

Always start the day with a good breakfast of fresh leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts including fats and proteins.

To your good health!

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