The Nutrition Definition Of Food

Food is any material eaten for nutrition, primarily to supply vital nutrients to organisms. The nutritional value of food can be assessed in two ways: by the amount of a nutrient required to support the body weight or the ability of an organism to absorb, metabolize and utilize nutrients. Food is generally of animal, plant or fungi origin, and has vital nutrients, including vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, fat, or minerals. In addition, food is used to promote growth, improve fertility, or sustain life. It is the source of energy and nutrients and therefore all living creatures feed on it, whether they have a human body or not.

Plants have organs for gathering food as well as digestive systems to process it. In a sense, plants are food machines that secrete digestive enzymes, hormones and other elements to break down and extract nutrients from food as needed. In this way we can say that plants are the food of the world, a term taken from the book “The Green Book” by agriculture specialists such as agricultural biochemist Vincent Roth, who works at the University of Missouri. Animals, humans and bacteria each secrete hormones, enzymes and other elements that help them digest, absorb and utilize food.

We can conclude that plants and animals feed on food to obtain all of the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids and enzymes necessary to grow and survive. Bacteria and other microorganisms process foods and release the materials as waste products. All of this food chain is important to the food industry. In this way, nutrition is represented graphically in the form of quality ingredients by food manufacturers and retailers. By paying attention to nutrition, the food industry seeks to provide consumers with healthy products that contribute to good health through the use of high quality, natural ingredients. For instance, a hamburger that has been injected with growth hormones will not taste as good as one that is made without using growth hormones.