Nutrition
A Beginner’s Guide
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Nutrition
A Beginner’s Guide
Dr Sarah Brewer
A Oneworld Book
Published by Oneworld Publications 2013
Copyright © Sarah Brewer 2013
The moral right of Sarah Brewer to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-85168-924-8
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-78074-081-2
Typeset by Cenveo, India
Oneworld Publications
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This book is dedicated to my wonderful family, who provide love and support during all those long hours of research and writing!
Contents
*
© Crown copyright. Department of Health in association with the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Government and the Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland.
†
© U.S. Department of Agriculture.
MyPyramid.gov
website. Washington, DC.
When it comes to food, do you follow Hippocrates’ famous axiom: ‘You are what you eat’ and select the most healthy, nutritious diet possible? Or do you follow the advice of Mark Twain: ‘Eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside’?
Each of us has a complex relationship with food that goes beyond obtaining the nutrition required to fuel growth, body maintenance, physical activity and good health. Some live only to eat – planning meals and snacks in advance, experimenting with new tastes and craving old favourites. These people are likely to obtain more nutrition than they need and struggle with weight-related health issues. But some eat only to live, juggling their body image and hunger to obtain just enough nutrition to sustain life. Interestingly, the way you obtain nutrition can have a huge impact on your health, and even your life expectancy. For example, prolonged calorie restriction has been shown to extend average lifespan by 50 to 100 per cent in all species studied, including yeast, worms, spiders, flies, fish, mice, rats, dogs and monkeys. In all likelihood, a restricted diet can extend human life, too. In fact, according to a recent review from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, cutting back on food intake (while maintaining proper nutrition to guard against vitamin and mineral deficiencies) is the only intervention known to slow consistently the rate at which we age and to increase the human lifespan. So what’s the catch? Well, cutting back on food intake isn’t as easy as it sounds – as any calorie-controlled dieter will tell you. And you need to restrict calories to around two-thirds of your normal daily needs in order to prolong your life by twenty to forty years. Yet while a so-called starvation diet may be associated with a longer lifespan, more often than not it is accompanied by protein and micronutrient deficiencies that attract their own health problems.