Nutrition Basics [From a Dietitian]

June 24, 2024

Written and Presented by Olivia Farrow, RD, MHS

Created with support from Dietitian Success Center's Dietetic Intern, Melissa Kirkwood MAN(c).
Reviewed by Krista Kolodziejzyk, RD, MPH, MBA

Are you wanting to learn more about nutrition but don’t know where to start? In this video (click to watch!) and blog, we will dive into the basics of nutrition to give you a foundation of nutrition knowledge that you can use in your daily life.

We will cover the basics of what nutrition is, what nutrients your body needs, and how you can enhance your well being with nutrition.

To start off, take a moment to think about what nutrition means to you. What do you think of when you hear the word nutrition? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

What is Nutrition?

So, what does nutrition actually mean? To give a fairly simple definition, nutrition means giving our bodies the nutrients needed from food to help us stay healthy and live well.

Now, what about nutrients?

Nutrients

Let’s talk more about what nutrients are. Nutrients are found in the foods we eat and drink. They help to prevent or slow down illnesses and give our bodies what they need to work properly. This includes helping our bodies grow and develop , giving our body’s energy, feeding our brain, muscles, and organs, and so much more. Now, there are a few different types of nutrients. These types are macronutrients, micronutrients, and water.

Macronutrients

Let’s start by talking about macronutrients, macronutrients, or macros for short are nutrients that give our bodies the energy they need to work and keep moving. These macros are made out of calories. You can think of calories like fuel in a car. You need fuel to be able to drive a car, much like you need calories to give your body the energy it needs to work properly.

There are three types of macronutrients. Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Let’s explore each of these in more detail.

Carbohydrates (Carbs)

Starting with carbohydrates, or carbs for short. Our bodies break down carbs into sugar. Carbs are important for our health, as they are our body and brain’s main source of energy.

As an example, let’s take a food with carbohydrates, an apple, and see how it breaks down in the body. We eat the apple, and once it enters our body, it’s broken down in your gut into sugar, a. k. a. glucose. Glucose enters the blood And travels around the body, delivering energy to different parts of the body, like the muscles and the brain.

Carbs can be divided into three different groups. These include sugars, fiber, and starches. First, sugars can be found in foods like milk, fruit juice, fruit, as well as candy and soda pop. Fiber can be found in fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains, to name a few. Starches can be found in beans, cereal, pasta, bread, rice, some vegetables, and foods made with flour like bread, muffins, and crackers.

Carbs can be either simple or complex. Simple carbs are easy for your body to break down. They give your body quick boosts of energy, but that energy doesn’t last long. Then there are complex carbs. Complex carbs take a bit longer for your body to break down and use as energy. These carbs give us energy that lasts longer than simple carbs.

It’s best to eat mostly complex carbs to have energy that lasts you throughout the day. Examples of simple carbs are honey, candy, soda pop, white bread and bakery products like muffins, white pasta, and juices.

Complex carbs include fruits, vegetables, whole grains like whole grain bread and oats and beans. One way to think about simple and complex sugar is to think of your body like a bonfire. We want to keep your bonfire burning for a long time. We can think of simple carbs like white bread as sticks and complex carbs like whole grain bread as logs.

So if you add sticks or simple carbs to your bonfire, Your bonfire will burn the sticks quickly, giving you a spark of energy not last very long. But if you add logs, complex carbs to your bonfire, you will burn through the logs slower and will have a longer lasting flame.

Protein

The next macro is protein.

When we eat protein, our body breaks it down into building block like pieces called amino acids. These building blocks are used to build and fix parts of the body like muscles, bones, skin, hair, and nails. Our bodies also use these proteins for energy, and you can get protein from both animal and plant foods.

Some animal foods with protein are meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products like yogurt and milk. Some plant foods that have protein are beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, and soy foods like tofu. It’s important to eat a variety of different protein foods to give your body all the different types of building blocks it needs.

Fats

Our third macro is fats. Fats help our brain work well and give our body energy. Fats help you stay full longer, flavor, and help your body use some vitamins. There are three different types of fats that we will talk about. Trans fats, saturated fats, and unsaturated fats. Artificial trans fats are made through food processing.

These fats tend to be in foods that are ultra processed, like deep fried foods, store bought baked goods like cupcakes, frozen pizzas, and some margarines. Then, saturated fats can be found in meats, dairy products like milk and butter, and coconut and palm oil. Last is unsaturated fats. These fats can be found in nuts, seeds, olives, olive oil, avocados, fatty fish, and other vegetable oils.

So why do we care about the different types of fats? Because fats can play a role in your heart health. Trans fats and saturated fats can raise the type of cholesterol in your body called LDL cholesterol. LDL cholesterol can be thought of as lousy cholesterol. You can remember this because they both start with an L.

If your LDL cholesterol is high, it raises your risk of heart disease. Another type of cholesterol is HDL, which you can remember as happy cholesterol because of the H. This type of cholesterol in your body lowers your risk of heart disease. Unsaturated fats can raise this type of cholesterol and lower the LDL or lousy cholesterol.

So we want to choose unsaturated fats more often.

Micronutrients

Now let’s talk about micronutrients. Micronutrients help our body turn food into energy and are important for overall health. All different types of micronutrients have different roles in the body. There are two types of micronutrients, vitamins and minerals.

Micronutrients Some examples of vitamins are vitamin A, C, D, E, K, and the B vitamins. Some examples of minerals are iron, sodium, calcium, potassium, iodine, and zinc. Your body gets these different vitamins and minerals by eating a variety of foods. Let’s focus on some specific micronutrients that you may have heard of.

Vitamins

To start with vitamins, you may have heard of vitamin C and vitamin D.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is important for your body as it can protect you from infections, as well as building and fixing damage to your bones, skin, and teeth. You can find vitamin C in oranges, strawberries, broccoli, and peppers, red and yellow.

Vitamin D

Next is vitamin D. Your body needs vitamin D to have a strong immune system and for bone health. You can get vitamin D from the sun as well as from some eggs, salmon, cod liver oil, and drinks with added vitamin D, which is usually in milk and plant based foods.

Minerals

Some mineral examples you may have heard of are iron and calcium.

Iron

Iron helps to move oxygen around your body through your blood. It can be found in foods like meat, seafood, and legumes like beans, lentils, and tofu.

Calcium

Next, calcium helps to keep your bones and teeth strong. It can be found in foods like kale, milk, cheese, and almonds.

Water

The last nutrient we’ll cover is water. We can’t forget about water. Your body needs water to work right and keep you hydrated. We can get water from drinking water, other beverages, and from some watery foods like cucumber, watermelon, or soup. Water does not give your body energy as it doesn’t have any calories.

But not drinking enough water can definitely make you feel sluggish and poorly. Here are some tips to add more water to your daily routine. You can bring a reusable water bottle with you when you leave the house. When you have water with you, you’re more likely to drink it. Try to drink water with your meals.

If you find water boring, you can add foods like fruit and mint for extra flavor. Keep water in a jug in your fridge. This gives you easy access to water, especially if you like your water cold. Finally, you could try carbonated water. If you like soda pop, carbonated water might be a great way to get that same fizzy feeling without the added sugar.

Leave us a comment on ways you stay hydrated.

Building a Balanced Plate

Now that we’ve talked about the different foods and how they impact our bodies, let’s discuss how to combine those foods together to create a balanced plate. The balanced plate can be an intuitive way to know how much of the types of foods to include at meals.

The idea is to fill a quarter of your plate with protein foods, a quarter with grains and starches, and half your plate with vegetables and or fruit. You can also add some of those healthy unsaturated fats to your plate.

When building a balanced plate, try to include a variety of different plant and animal proteins. Next, try to add whole grain and high fiber options for your grains and starches, more often for more long lasting energy throughout the day. Then, choose a wide variety of colorful fruits and vegetables to get lots of different micronutrients and fiber.

And you can choose unsaturated fats more often. Remember, unsaturated fats are our plant sources of fats that improve our happy or HDL cholesterol.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s go over some general nutrition tips related to how you eat.

Mindful Eating

First, let’s talk about mindful eating. You may have heard of mindful eating before. Mindful eating helps you to be more aware of how you feel and your overall experience when eating. This means paying attention to yourself and your food while eating without judgment or negativity.

Examples of judgment and negativity may sound something like this. I shouldn’t be eating this. I’m a failure because I ate that. I’m not allowed to eat that. Instead of placing judgment on what we eat, we want to recognize and be aware of our eating experience. This may mean noticing when you are hungry and noticing when you are full.

You can practice being more mindful and aware of what, where, when, why, and how much you eat. You can ask yourself questions like, Was I distracted when I ate? What time was it when I ate? Did I enjoy the food or drink I had? When you are mindful, you may start to use your senses more and notice the textures and tastes of your food.

Being more aware of your eating and eating habits can change how you experience eating and allows you to enjoy your food.

Eating Enough Food

The next tip is to eat enough throughout the day. Eating enough food, and eating approximately every three to four hours, gives your body the energy it needs to get through the day.

Let’s think back to our bonfire. If you have enough logs to burn throughout the day, and you continue to add them to your bonfire, you will have a longer lasting fire. We want to make sure to eat a variety of foods. Once again, to make sure we get enough macros and micros that our body needs.

Eat Carb Foods with Protein and Fiber Foods

The third tip is to eat a carb food with protein and fiber foods. Adding protein and fiber with carbs helps to make your stomach feel more satisfied. And helps to slow down your digestion. Once again, if we think about our bonfire, Adding protein and fiber with carbs is like adding different types of logs to the bonfire that help our fire burn slower and longer.

Here are a few examples. Having Greek yogurt as a protein with berries as a carb and fiber and walnuts as another protein and fiber. Another example is having apple slices carb and fiber, and peanut butter as our protein and fat.

Choose Foods with less Sodium, Sugar, and Saturated Fats

The last tip is to choose foods with less sodium, sugar, and saturated fats. Ultra processed foods and drinks can have high or added amounts of these nutrients in them. Choosing these foods too often can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. They also often have less of the important macro and micronutrients your body needs to thrive and fight against diseases.

Try to choose ultra processed foods less often and choose other more nutritious foods more often. Or choose the ultra processed foods in smaller amounts. Ultra processed foods include sugary drinks like soda pop, chocolate, candy, jam, and syrups, potato chips, and bakery products like muffins and cakes.

Fast foods like burgers and fries, frozen foods, and processed meats like deli meat. These are often higher in sugar, sodium, and saturated fats as well. Let’s recap. Having a balanced plate and eating a variety of foods can give your body the macros and micros it needs to run properly. Try to make water your drink of choice. You can replace some more sugary drinks like soda pop with carbonated or regular water. Then, try to keep easy and nutritious snacks around. Snacks like nuts and seeds, fruit, carrot, and celery sticks can be quick to grab as an easy snack. Finally, try to choose foods with more fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and less sodium, sugar, and saturated fats. Fiber is a complex carb that gives us long lasting energy, and vitamins and minerals are the micronutrients our bodies need to work well. Sodium, sugar, and saturated fats are often found in ultra processed foods. We want to choose these foods less often or in smaller amounts, as they have less of the nutrients our bodies need to work properly.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

And if you found this video or blog helpful, please share it with your friends and family who might benefit from it too. Thank you for watching!