Nutritional value

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Nutritional value or nutritive value as part of food quality is the measure of a well-balanced ratio of the essential nutrients carbohydrates, fat, protein, minerals, and vitamins in items of food or diet concerning the nutrient requirements of their consumer. Several nutritional rating systems and nutrition facts label have been implemented to rank food in terms of its nutritional value. [1] [2] International and national guidelines exist to inform consumers about optimal nutrient intake from their diets. [3] [4] [5]

On a biological scale, nutritive value of food may vary for different health conditions (leading to dietary recommendations and particular diet foods), seasonal differences, [6] age, [7] sexual differences, [8] and interspecies or taxonomic differences. [9]

Related Research Articles

A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excreted by cells to create non-cellular structures, such as hair, scales, feathers, or exoskeletons. Some nutrients can be metabolically converted to smaller molecules in the process of releasing energy, such as for carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and fermentation products, leading to end-products of water and carbon dioxide. All organisms require water. Essential nutrients for animals are the energy sources, some of the amino acids that are combined to create proteins, a subset of fatty acids, vitamins and certain minerals. Plants require more diverse minerals absorbed through roots, plus carbon dioxide and oxygen absorbed through leaves. Fungi live on dead or living organic matter and meet nutrient needs from their host.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietary supplement</span> Product that provides additional source of nutrients

A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order to increase the quantity of their consumption. The class of nutrient compounds includes vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, and amino acids. Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols. Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, such as collagen from chickens or fish for example. These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients. The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe and appropriately labeled.

Food energy is chemical energy that animals derive from their food to sustain their metabolism, including their muscular activity.

A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched chain of carbon (C) atoms. Along the chain, some carbon atoms are linked by single bonds (-C-C-) and others are linked by double bonds (-C=C-). A double bond along the carbon chain can react with a pair of hydrogen atoms to change into a single -C-C- bond, with each H atom now bonded to one of the two C atoms. Glyceride fats without any carbon chain double bonds are called saturated because they are "saturated with" hydrogen atoms, having no double bonds available to react with more hydrogen.

In the U.S. and Canada, the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) is used in nutrition labeling on food and dietary supplement products to indicate the daily intake level of a nutrient that is considered to be sufficient to meet the requirements of 97–98% of healthy individuals in every demographic in the United States. While developed for the US population, it has been adopted by other countries, though not universally.

The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is a system of nutrition recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) of the National Academies. It was introduced in 1997 in order to broaden the existing guidelines known as Recommended Dietary Allowances. The DRI values differ from those used in nutrition labeling on food and dietary supplement products in the U.S. and Canada, which uses Reference Daily Intakes (RDIs) and Daily Values (%DV) which were based on outdated RDAs from 1968 but were updated as of 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phytochemical</span> Chemical compounds produced by plants

Phytochemicals are chemical compounds produced by plants, generally to help them resist fungi, bacteria and plant virus infections, and also consumption by insects and other animals. The name comes from Greek φυτόν (phyton) 'plant'. Some phytochemicals have been used as poisons and others as traditional medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weston A. Price Foundation</span> Organization

The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), co-founded in 1999 by Sally Fallon (Morell) and nutritionist Mary G. Enig, is a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to "restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism".

Chromium deficiency is described as the consequence of an insufficient dietary intake of the mineral chromium. Chromium was first proposed as an essential element for normal glucose metabolism in 1959, and was widely accepted as being such by the 1990s. Cases of deficiency were described in people who received all of their nutrition intravenously for long periods of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nutrition facts label</span> Table of nutrition facts on food labels

The nutrition facts label is a label required on most packaged food in many countries, showing what nutrients and other ingredients are in the food. Labels are usually based on official nutritional rating systems. Most countries also release overall nutrition guides for general educational purposes. In some cases, the guides are based on different dietary targets for various nutrients than the labels on specific foods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pet food</span> Animal feed for pets

Pet food is animal feed intended for consumption by pets. Typically sold in pet stores and supermarkets, it is usually specific to the type of animal, such as dog food or cat food. Most meat used for animals is a byproduct of the human food industry, and is not regarded as "human grade".

Nutritional rating systems are used to communicate the nutritional value of food in a more-simplified manner, with a ranking, than nutrition facts labels. A system may be targeted at a specific audience. Rating systems have been developed by governments, non-profit organizations, private institutions, and companies. Common methods include point systems to rank foods based on general nutritional value or ratings for specific food attributes, such as cholesterol content. Graphics and symbols may be used to communicate the nutritional values to the target audience.

A Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) was a nutrition facts label originally designed in 1996 in the United Kingdom (UK) as a collaboration between the government, the food industry and consumer organisations. GDAs appeared on the front and back of food packaging to help raise awareness of how much a food item represents as a proportion of a balanced intake each day in each food element. The British initiative was followed in the European Union (EU) and influenced similar systems in other countries including the United States.

Sustainable diets are "dietary patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and wellbeing; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe and equitable; and are culturally acceptable". These diets are nutritious, eco-friendly, economically sustainable, and accessible to people of various socioeconomic backgrounds. Sustainable diets attempt to address nutrient deficiencies and excesses, while accounting for ecological phenomena such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and land degradation. These diets are comparable to the climatarian diet, with the added domains of economic sustainability and accessiblity.

Dietary Reference Values (DRV) is the name of the nutritional requirements systems used by the United Kingdom Department of Health and the European Union's European Food Safety Authority.

The history of USDA nutrition guidelines includes over 100 years of nutrition advice promulgated by the USDA. The guidelines have been updated over time, to adopt new scientific findings and new public health marketing techniques. The current guidelines are the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015–2020. been criticized as not accurately representing scientific information about optimal nutrition, and as being overly influenced by the agricultural industries the USDA promotes.

Nutrition psychology (NP) is the psychological study of the relationship between dietary intake and different aspects of psychological health. It is an applied field that uses a interdisciplinary approach to examine the influence of diet on mental health. Nutrition psychology seeks to understand the relationship between nutritional behavior and mental health/well-being NP is a sub-field of psychology and more specifically of health psychology. It may be applied to numerous different fields including: psychology, dietetics, nutrition, and marketing. NP is a fairly new field with a brief history that has already started to contribute information and knowledge to psychology. There are two main areas of controversy within nutrition psychology. The first area of controversy is that the topic can be viewed in two different ways. It can be viewed as nutrition affecting psychological functions, or psychological choices and behavior influencing nutrition and health. The second controversy is the defining of what is "healthy" or "normal" as related to nutrition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994</span> 1994 statute of United States Federal legislation

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 ("DSHEA"), is a 1994 statute of United States Federal legislation which defines and regulates dietary supplements. Under the act, supplements are regulated by the FDA for Good Manufacturing Practices under 21 CFR Part 111. The act was intended to exempt the dietary and herbal supplement industry from most FDA drug regulations, allowing them to be sold and marketed without scientific backing of their health and medical claims.

Reference Intake (RI) is a food labelling system in the European Union and the United Kingdom. It is a means of communicating recommended nutrient intake to the public. Reference Intakes replaced the term Guideline Daily Amount (GDA), although the principles behind both are the same. The major difference is that GDAs existed for men, women and children; there is only one set of RIs for an average adult.

Vitamin B<sub>3</sub> Class of chemically related vitamers

Vitamin B3, colloquially referred to as niacin, is a vitamin family that includes three forms, or vitamers: niacin (nicotinic acid), nicotinamide (niacinamide), and nicotinamide riboside. All three forms of vitamin B3 are converted within the body to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). NAD is required for human life and people are unable to make it within their bodies without either vitamin B3 or tryptophan. Nicotinamide riboside was identified as a form of vitamin B3 in 2004.

References

  1. "Nutritive value – Biology-Online Dictionary | Biology-Online Dictionary". www.biology-online.org. 7 October 2019.
  2. "Nutrient requirements – British Nutrition Foundation". www.nutrition.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-07-26. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  3. "GUIDELINES FOR USE OF NUTRITION CLAIMS". fao.org. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  4. "Guide for Older Adults on Using the Nutrition Facts Label". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2018-07-31. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  5. "Nutrition claims – Food Safety". Food Safety – European Commission. 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  6. Macdiarmid, Jennie I. (August 26, 2014). "Seasonality and dietary requirements: will eating seasonal food contribute to health and environmental sustainability?". The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 73 (3): 368–375. doi: 10.1017/S0029665113003753 . PMID   25027288.
  7. "What is the relationship between child nutrition and school outcomes?". ResearchGate.
  8. Alur, Pradeep (July 26, 2019). "Sex Differences in Nutrition, Growth, and Metabolism in Preterm Infants". Frontiers in Pediatrics. 7: 22. doi: 10.3389/fped.2019.00022 . PMC   6374621 . PMID   30792973.
  9. "Nutrient Requirements of Animals". The National Academies Press.