Nutrition

What makes food healthy or unhealthy? Hopefully this page can clear up some misunderstandings.

Nutrients

Healthy eating involves keeping every nutrient within some optimal range (...)( The range depends on your age, gender, physical activity level, etc. The exact numbers will be available in another part of this page. ) - in other words, "not too much, not too little".

It's hard (almost impossible) to mentally keep track of every nutrient, so people typically rely on some sort of general food guide: By averaging enough different foods together, hopefully most nutrients will fall into their optimal ranges. But to really know for sure, you can check with the nutrition calculator (https://olam.wiki/nutrition.html).

Energy

The human body uses food as fuel.

This is measured in Calories (sometimes spelled "kalories" for disambiguation).

The word "energy" can feel a bit misleading here, because:

It's easily confused with non-food energy, which this wiki also talks about.
If you eat a high-calorie diet that is low in other nutrients, you will not feel energetic at all - you'll probably just get fat.
- Some western diets fit this profile.
- The body needs other nutrients (especially vitamins) in order to burn calories.
- Body fat is extra calories stored, much like a gas tank of a car.

Food energy exists in a few forms:

Carbohydrates (carbs) : 4 kalories per gram (...)( Varies slightly - for example: sucrose has 3.88 kalories/gram; some complex carbohydrates have 4.11 kalories/gram. ) (...)( Includes sugars & starches (and fibre, although fibre can't be fully digested/absorbed). )
Fats (oils) (lipids) : 9 kalories per gram (...)( varies slightly )
Protein (amino acids) : 4 kalories per gram (...)( varies slightly )

The body can also burn a few other miscellaneous things, such as alcohol (7 kalories per gram).

The exact ratio of protein/fats/carbs can vary widely and still be healthy, as long as there is...

the right amount of total calories
enough protein (bare minimum: about 10% of total calories)
enough fat (bare minimum: about 10% of total calories)
enough of each vitamin and mineral.

Protein

The body needs a certain amount of protein - or more specifically, amino acids.

Protein quality

There is a lot of confusing information about this, but it all boils down to:

There is a recommended daily amount of total protein.
There is also a recommended daily amount of each essential amino acid.
(see background knowledge)- Proteins are made of amino acids.
- There are about 20 different amino acids, 9 of which are essential.
- The body still needs the non-essential ones, but it can (if it needs to) convert essential amino acids into non-essential ones. The conversion can't go in the other direction.

It's not hard to meet both recommendations, just by eating a variety of proteins. A plant-based diet should generally include both grains and legumes.

Another factor in protein quality is digestibility, but this is not an issue if the food is cooked properly.

Fats

The body needs to eat some fat, for two reasons:

To absorb fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K), these vitamins must be eaten with fat.
There are essential fatty acids: omega-3 and omega-6.

For these 2 purposes, the amount of fat the body needs is fairly small - typically less than 10% of total calories.

Fiber

Fiber is not absorbed by the body, but needed for healthy digestion.

Vitamins and minerals

It's important to get enough (...)( but not too much. Luckily, there's a wide range for most of these. ) of every nutrient on this list:

Macro minerals (electrolytes):

Potassium
Chloride
Sodium
Calcium
Phosphorous
Magnesium

Trace minerals:

Iron
Zinc
Manganese
Copper
Selenium
Iodine

Vitamins: (wondering about missing letters?)Over the last century, some vitamins have been renamed; hence some numbers and letters are missing.
But this list is (hopefully) the full list of all known vitamins. If you think I missed any, please mention it in the discussion.

A
C (Ascorbic acid)
D
E (Tocopherols)
K
B1 (Thiamin)
B2 (Riboflavin)
B3 (Niacin)
B5 (Pantothenate, or pantothenic acid)
B6 (Pyridoxine)
B7 (Biotin)
B9 (Folate, or folic acid)
B12 (Cobalamin)

Supplements

A daily multivitamin supplement can usually provide your full recommended daily intake of all vitamins and trace minerals - quite cheaply (about 15 cents/day). But it can't provide enough of the macro minerals (electrolytes). That's because: if it did, the pill would be so big that you couldn't swallow it.

Hence you need to get most of your macro minerals from food - especially from vegetables and legumes.

There's a common misconception that "synthetic vitamins are useless, you have to get all your nutrients from food". That is not true.

But what is true, is that supplements can't completely replace food, for the reason mentioned above. (...)( In theory, you could supplement everything including protein and calories, but it would get a lot more expensive than just eating food. You'd also miss out on the thousands of other substances naturally found in plants, which aren't technically nutrients but probably have some health benefits. )

One way to eat healthy is to eat the cheapest whole plant-based ingredients available, and take a multivitamin.

Choline

Scientists are still uncertain whether or not this nutrient is truly essential (...)( some studies suggest that the average healthy body can produce enough choline on its own, but others suggest that some people need to get their choline from food. ). I recommend to try and hit the targets of other nutrients first, and if choline falls short, don't worry about it.

Nutrient targets

This page is incomplete. This section will be filled in soon.

For easy tracking of nutrients, check out the nutrition calculator.