Preface

Chapter 4......................................................................................................................256

Chapter 5 ...................................................................................................................... 257

Chapter 6......................................................................................................................258

Chapter 7 ......................................................................................................................259

Chapter 8......................................................................................................................260

Chapter 9...................................................................................................................... 261

Chapter 10 ....................................................................................................................262

Chapter 11.....................................................................................................................263

Chapter 12 ....................................................................................................................265

Chapter 13 ....................................................................................................................266

Course Questions ......................................................................................................... 267

If you are taking this course on nutrition, you probably already have some idea that there is more to the study of nutrition than the four basic food groups and the food pyramid. Nutrition has become a vast topic of discussion in many areas of health and the sciences. As you will learn, the substances we take in as food every day become part of us in our entirety. This means that most of us need to pay a great deal more attention to what we put in our mouths than we are.

This course will give you the basics of the different biochemical molecules found in the food we eat and will teach you why we need them. You will learn about the importance of water, electrolytes, and minerals in the study of many aspects of nutrition, including nutrition for athletes, food insecurity and food safety, disorders related to nutrition, and much more. In this course, you will likely learn much more than many doctors learn about the topic of nutrition in medical school. Sit back and see if you can find ways to incorporate what you learn in your own life as well as in your future profession, whatever that may be.

In chapter one of the course, you will study the basics of food, including what it is made from. Food can be anything that is edible to humans. Your food is made from a variety of substances called macronutrients. You might recognize these as carbohydrates, protein, and fat. All food is made from these three types of macromolecules. You also consume micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. You will be introduced to these basic food components and will learn what fiber is and why it is indigestible.

Chapter two in the course is a nice discussion of what happens to the food we eat after taking a bite of it. All substances absorbed into the body must be extremely small; this means that your bite of food must become millions of molecules of tiny fragments of food. We will also talk about why you eat at all. People will eat food that is not even appetizing, simply because of a complex mechanism of feeding and satiety centers in the brain that tell us to eat. We will also talk about the cultural and religious influences of food choices in society and about what makes for a healthy diet.

Chapter three will help you feel more comfortable talking about carbs. You'll see how carbohydrates are either simple or complex and where they come from in the everyday diet. The chapter talks about how plants make and store the carbohydrates they produce. It also covers the way animal cells use carbohydrates for energy and how glucose levels are regulated in humans. You will be introduced to insoluble and soluble fiber and you will learn their nutritional benefits. Finally, you will study the various types of artificial and alternative sweeteners.

Chapter four covers the fatty components of the diet. Believe it or not, fats are necessary for a healthy diet. You will learn what the best fats look like and which are not at all good for you. Even so, there are fat replacers from many different sources used to give the taste and feel of a delicious, fatty diet – even when you are eating something low in fat. The different types of replacers are covered in this chapter. After reading this chapter, you will know which types of fatty foods are best to eat and why they are so good for you.

Protein is the last of the main calorie-producing macronutrients to study and is the topic of chapter five in the course. It is the only organic source of nitrogen in your diet and is crucial for building cell structures. Enzymes are almost always made from proteins and, without proteins like hemoglobin, the transfer of gases in the human bloodstream would be nearly impossible. You will learn where proteins come from, how they are made inside your cells, and how you break them down when they are not necessary. Finally, you will learn about what makes a complete protein and how people on restricted diets get the protein they need to sustain life.

Chapter six covers the micronutrients, vitamins and minerals in the everyday diet. While needed in much smaller quantities compared to the macronutrients, you will see how much you need these in your diet just as much as those other nutrients. Vitamins are carbon-based molecules that serve many different functions in the biochemistry of your body. Minerals, on the other hand, are not carbon based but are still needed equally. In this chapter, you will learn the food sources and about the conditions arising when a mineral or vitamin is deficient in the diet.

Chapter seven in the course is about water, which is also a macronutrient of sorts, even though it doesn't offer any calories or energy to the body. You will see how important

water is to all living things. You'll notice that water isn't found as pure water in your body but contains numerous electrolytes. You will learn the crucial electrolytes in your diet and whether or not electrolyte drinks are helpful to you. Finally, you will study water-based disorders, such as dehydration and water intoxication – both of which are possibly fatal to you if not prevented and treated.

Chapter eight looks at important nutrients you may never have heard of before. They include the many plant-based phytonutrients usually linked to all of the bright colors you see in these foods. Choline is another nutrient gotten from foods or taken as supplements by some health enthusiasts. There is also a lot of buzz about antioxidants in food; you should know what an antioxidant is and why they are important to your health.

Chapter nine is an excellent lesson on what it means to have a healthy weight and how to achieve it. You will study body composition, the body mass index, and how to know what happens if a person is out of the normal range of what we call "healthy". There is more in this chapter on how to read nutrition labels and how to safely gain or lose weight. Fad diets and common diets like the paleo and vegetarian diets are also covered in this chapter.

Chapter ten in the course teaches you about nutrition and athletic performance. You'll see that muscle is mostly protein but that it doesn't feed off protein during normal exercise. You will learn how muscles use energy, how to fuel yourself before, during, and after physical activity, and how to eat for the best athletic performance. There are a lot of so-called fitness experts that claim to have the sports nutritional supplements you'd need but you will see in this chapter that regular food is best to sustain health and physical activity.

Chapter eleven studies nutrition and how much of an important factor it is in supporting health. You will learn about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020 to 2025, which looks at what is known about diet and our health. Newer topics called nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics are introduced, which involve studies researchers are doing to look at individual ways your diet can be tailored to your genes and how food affects your genetic