Food is Fuel
By Jessica Elsner
A balanced diet. A raw diet. A fad diet. Avoid gluten. Avoid sugar. Go vegetarian. Don’t eat carbs and you’ll get skinny.
emember when the big nutrition debate was as simple as whether or not butter vs. margarine was better? Today’s messaging has gotten so out of control that we seem to be more confused than ever about what foods we should or shouldn’t consume. It’s not just messaging from the media either. It’s our friends, families, and co-workers who also put ideas in our heads or influence us into changing our behaviors.
R How about a new message; one that instead talks about how
the body actually uses food to empower you to make the right choices for yourself? As far as our digestive process is concerned, it’s the energy and nutrients that make up the foods we eat that our bodies care about. Let’s start by discussing the energy require- ments of the body, more commonly known as calories.
Calories are a unit of energy. They help us measure how
much energy we’re consuming compared to how much we’re using. Everyone has a minimum number of calories they need to consume in order to just breathe and stay alive without even mov- ing, eating, etc. This minimum requirement is called our Basal Metabolic Rate. In a perfect setting we consume a “healthy bal- ance” of calories, meaning we put as much energy into our bodies as we use up. Foods each have their own calorie count that tells us how much energy is stored in the chemical makeup of a particular food. For example, a medium sized banana contains 105 calories. Caloric information about our food is available to us on the food label, however the label is actually indicating how much energy the food contains not how much energy we derive by consuming it.
When we put more energy (calories) into our bodies than
we’re able to burn up, then our bodies will store the extra energy as fat in our cells, causing weight gain if done on a continuous basis. Likewise, if we burn up more energy than we take in then the result will be weight loss. Once food is consumed the digestive process is started. Through this process energy will be released and stored in various areas of the body for the body to use as needed. It’s this stage where what we eat becomes especially important. The breakdown of energy use is as follows: 10% supports digestion 20% supports physical activity 70% supports basic functions of the body
Our brains use roughly 20% of our energy resources in order to function properly and stay healthy. The majority of the energy used here comes from carbohydrates, but also requires help from lipids (fats), protein, amino acids and micronutrients.
Carbohydrates Carbohydrates come from starch, sugar and fiber and are
converted into glucose during digestion. Glucose refers to sugar that is transported through the blood stream to supply energy to all the cells in our bodies. The Glycemic Index is used to associate a number from 1-100 with a particular food to indicate its effect on
18 Essential Living Maine ~ September/October 2016
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