Why do we need holistic food-based nutrients?

• Introduction
• What are the essential nutrients that food provides the body?
• What affects proper absorption of nutrients?
• Summary

Introduction

Humans are a funny species. Of the four minimal needs to survive – oxygen, water, food, and a functioning nervous system – we can only play around with one, food. And boy, do we ever!

Atkins diet, vegan diet, paleo diet, raw food diet, low-carb diet, the list goes on and on. The thing is most of these diets aren’t aimed at helping you get and stay healthy. Most of these diets exist because of wanting to lose weight, or personal beliefs.

Of course, there are those of us who aren’t on a specific diet, but we give in to our sweet tooth and cravings, delighting our taste buds instead of boosting our immune system.

Modern dietary guidelines have led us to believe that we can just pop a synthetic multi-vitamin, and everything will be fine. But it’s not that simple. Humans aren’t supposed to get nutrition from molecules made in a lab.

Our bodies are built to get nutrition from food. Why? It all comes back to biology. Food contains essential nutrients including fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. These nutrients work together to give you energy and to build and maintain your body. One example of this co-dependence is the process during which fat helps vitamins A, D, and E get absorbed. The presence of vitamin D is necessary for calcium absorption.

So even though we can get creative with what foods and diets we eat, in the end it is all about nutritional balance. This balance is only achievable with food-sourced nutrients.

What are the essential nutrients that food provides the body?

The essential nutrients that we currently know of belong to one of the following groups:

• • 1. Fats
    2. Carbohydrates
    3. Proteins
    4. Vitamins

Together these nutrients build, fuel, and protect your body. Some of these nutrients you need a lot of, macronutrients, and others, micronutrients, are required in smaller dosages.

Fats and carbohydrates are easy for us to consume enough of since they are found in almost everything we eat. The two groups that seem to be tricky for people are proteins and vitamins.

Proteins contain amino acids. The human body needs 20 specific amino acids, and of these there are 8 we can only get from food. Proteins that contain these 8 essential amino acids are called complete proteins. These proteins are animal based, and found in poultry, meat, fish, milk, eggs, and cheese. If you are on a diet that eliminates these types of proteins, chances are you’re lacking one or more of these essential amino acids. There is also a good chance that you are lacking one or more of the essential vitamins.

There are 13 essential vitamins – A, B (8 different forms), C, D, E, and K. If you are trying to eliminate fats from your diet, you should know that A, D, E, and K are only found in fat, and fat aids your body in the absorption of these vitamins. These vitamins are fat-soluble. This leaves the 8 forms of vitamin B, and C, which are water-soluble.

What affects proper absorption of nutrients?

Let’s say you are eating a well-balanced diet that includes all known essential nutrients, but for some reason you are still not thriving. What is going on? Most likely it is because you are not absorbing these essential nutrients. Good absorption is dependent on subject and co-ingested factors.

Subject factors are all factors that are specific to you – age, gender, microbiome, nutritional and medical statuses, etc. These are factors that most of us know about. We know that as we get older our bodies just don’t work as well as they used to.

Co-ingested factors are the other nutrients ingested alongside the essential nutrients. Some of these nutrients interfere with the absorption of essential nutrients, while others enhance it. The ones that enhance the absorption could be considered synergistic substances. A great example, already mentioned above, is how healthy fats aid in the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.

Summary

Humans need essential nutrients in the complete and complex forms found in food. There is still much to learn about human nutritional requirements, and although we know a lot of these essential nutrients it would be naïve of us to claim to know them all. Eating a well-balanced diet including all the macro and micronutrients is the best way to help our bodies thrive and survive.

Factors that you would need to consider when you are getting your nutrients from food is the production, storage, and preparation of your food.

To preserve and protect the nutrients naturally present in cod liver oil, we at Green Pasture Products use the age-old traditional method of fermentation to extract the cod liver oil from the livers. To learn more visit Why Fermentation Matters