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".

But it can be quite tedious to track every nutrient manually, 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 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).