Food and Nutrition

Nutraceuticals are food or part of food playing an important role in keeping normal physiological function that maintains healthy human being. The food products which are used as nutraceuticals can be categorized as dietary fibre, prebiotics, probiotics, polyunsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants and other different types of herbal/ natural foods. These nutraceuticals fight against some of the key health problems such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes, cholesterol etc. The demand for nutraceuticals has increased over the past few years and they are being used by people for various therapeutic outcomes.

Food technology is the production processing for making food. Food technologists apply their knowledge about food science to operate, design and manage the facilities and equipment involved in the processing and storage of foods. Due to the insufficient uptake of certain vitamins and mineral, many diseases are now caused. Food technologists are now working on foods which will not get spoilt easily and will also provide essential nutrients to the body. Food technology research has reached an advanced the nutrition research field.

 The food we eat has a significant impact on our health, change in diet can help avoid or control many health problems like obesity, diabetes and certain risk factors for cancer and heart disease. Dietetics is the science deals with how food and nutrition disturbs human health. Dietetics has a strong prominence on public health.  Dietician nutritionists apply nutrition and food science to help people progress their health and provide care and consultation to patients. A balanced diet is a cornerstone of health. All the age of people should enjoy a variety of healthy foods from all of the foods groups, including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, low-fat or fat-free dairy and lean protein. But women also have special nutrient needs (women’s diet and nutrition) and, during each stage of a woman's life, these needs change.

The Nutritional genomics emphases on the interface between bioactive food components and the genome, which consist of Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics. Nutrigenomics and Nutrigenetics are focused on the association among human genes and nutrition that means how genetic variation affects due to nutrients. Nutrigenetics examines how a body counters to nutrients based on genetics and Nutrigenomics studies how nutrients affect body’s expression of genes. Information that is related to nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics help to inhibit, treats, or even cure certain diseases.

Food is the essential thing for both plant and animals to survive .plants are Autotrophic, they prepare their own food providing some of it to other organisms. Whereas Animals are Heterotrophic, they cannot build their food inside themselves and intake from other plants or animals. One prepares its own food and one depends on other for food. Plants require light, water and about 20 elements known as essential elements to meet all their biochemical needs. Some plants cannot produce their own food and must obtain their nutrition from outside sources these are parasitic or saprophytic. Some plants are mutualistic symbionts, epiphytes, or insectivorous. Most animals take their nutrients by the ingesting of other organisms. The molecules necessary function for animals are amino acids, lipid molecules, nucleotides, and simple sugars and the food consumed consists of protein, fat, and complex carbohydrates. Animals convert these macromolecules into the simple micro molecules essential for keeping cellular functions. The conversion of the food consumed to the nutrients involves digestion and absorption. During digestion, food particles are broken down into smaller components, and later, they are absorbed by the body.

Prebiotics are the elements that come mostly from fibres, and indigestible food components that promote the growth of helpful bacteria in our gut and that human can’t digest. They help in improving gastrointestinal health as well as potentially increase calcium absorption. The fruits like bananas, onions, garlic and whole grains naturally contain prebiotics. Prebiotics comprise fructooligosaccharides and galactooligosaccharides. Probiotics are live microorganisms which when consumed may give a health benefit to the host. Certain species of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) and Bifidobacterium spp. are usually used in the manufacture of probiotic products. Probiotics promote the inherited disorder, reduce lactose intolerance, decrease diarrhoea incidence, management infections, act as antibiotics, suppress tumours, and shield against carcinoma. Foods such as yogurt, kimchi, and naturally contain probiotics. A few probiotics naturally found in foods are Bacillus coagulants and Saccharomyces boulardii. Probiotics slow the growth of harmful bacteria and facilitate in maintaining the function and strength the barrier provided by intestinal walls.

Renal nutrition is concerned with making certain that excretory organ patients eat the proper foods to make dialysis efficient and improve health. A diet prescribed in chronic renal failure and designed to regulate the intake of protein, potassium, sodium, phosphorus, and fluids, depending on individual conditions. Carbohydrates and fats are the principal sources of energy. Protein is less in number; the amount is determined by the patient’s condition. Milk, eggs, meat, cereals, vegetables, fruits, bread, rice and pasta are the primary sources of calories. The key points of renal nutrition are eating more high protein foods, and less high salt, high potassium, high phosphorus foods. The low potassium level of the diet also makes it useful in hyperkalemia. The diet could also be nutritionally inadequate and should be supplement with vitamins and electrolytes.

 Nutritional Disorder is caused by due to intake of insufficient food or of bound nutrients, an inability of the body to absorb and use nutrients, or by overconsumption of certain foods. In other words, Nutritional Disorder is that the nutritionary imbalance that is because of either overnutrition or undernutrition. It may cause by the presence of toxin within the diet. They may include deficiencies or excesses in the diet, obesity and eating disorders, and chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, and diabetes mellitus. Nutrition deficiency diseases include developmental abnormalities that can be prohibited by diet. Hereditary metabolic disorders that respond to dietary treatment, the interaction of foods and nutrients with drugs, food allergies, and intolerances in the food supply. When vitamin levels so much exceed the body’s needs and the body stores these excesses they can cause vitamin toxicity.

By taking excesses or imbalances intake of energy and nutrients deficiency disease that is malnutrition occurs. The terms malnutrition consists of 2 main teams of conditions undernourished and overnutrition. When the body doesn’t get enough nutrients this type of malnutrition is called undernutrition and while the body gets too many nutrients this condition is called overnutrition. Due to the nutrient loss, excessive dieting and less intake of nutrient diarrhoea, excessive sweating, kidney failure, food allergies, severe injury, serious illness, and a lengthy hospitalization can be caused. Nutritional deficiencies have generally been the leading causes of death and disability.  Poverty and lack of food are the primary reasons for the occurrence of malnutrition.

The term food industries cover a series of industrial activities that includes the processing, conversion, preparation, preservation, packaging of foodstuffs and that supplies most of the food consumed by the world population. The raw materials used are generally of vegetable or animal origin and produced by agriculture, farming, breeding, and fishing. Some food processing techniques, such as freezing, preserve the nutritional content and other methods, such as cooking, can also improve nutritional content. Further, preserved food is available for much longer time periods than non-preserved foods. The main advantage to processing foods is the ability for producers to ensure food safety and remove or prevent dangerous toxins. For example, Milk pasteurization, removes harmful bacteria from raw milk, making it suitable for human consumption. Food processing methods that remove water, such as drying and smoking, reduce the possibility of bacterial growth because the bacteria rely on the water to grow and multiply

Food acts as medicine which helps the body to prevent some diseases. The food that we consume in diet play a vital role in controlling inflammation levels helps the digestive organs to process and eliminating waste, balancing blood sugar, controlling blood pressure and cholesterol level (cardiovascular health) and many more. Medicinal food includes anti-inflammatory foods and anti-inflammatory components of certain foods and herbs are linked with lowered inflammation. The Healing diet begins with a high menu in vegetables, fruits, sprouted seeds rich in omega-3, fruits, wild meats and these anti-inflammatory foods can prevent the way inflammation affects our bodies and our lives. The healing foods diet will introduce you into a total health transformation and this diet is designed to help overcomes from diseases like Diabetes, Heart Disease, Digestive disorders, Fatigue, Depression, Hormone imbalance, and Cancer prevention. The major groups of anti-inflammatory foods are green leafy vegetables, walnuts, coconut oil beets, broccoli, fruits like pineapple, blueberries, salmon etc.

The food contains characteristic chemicals, including starches, sugars, proteins, and vitamins. However, a few foods contain harmful characteristic poisons. Once in a while, a poison is available as a normally happening pesticide to avoid bug attack or to shield the plant from waste when harmed by climate, dealing with, UV light or organisms. Food Toxicants covers distinctive perspectives from the field of toxicology including applications to identify sustenance allergens, hereditarily adjusted living beings

Food hygiene means to ensure the safety of food from production to consumption. Food can become contaminated at any point during harvesting, processing, storage, distribution, transportation, and preparation. Food safety includes handling, storing and preparing food to inhibit infection and to make sure that food keeps enough nutrients to have a healthy diet. So unhygienic food can also cause poor nutrition. The Food Safety Management System (FSMS) provides a preventative methodology to detect, prevent and decrease food-borne hazards. This is to decrease the risk of food poisoning and to make food safe for consumption.

Strategies in food analysis applied to food products manage the standards and the obtained tools of nourishment examination, emphasizing fruit and vegetable products. Nourishment examination is the way toward deciding the healthful substance of food and nourishment items. The procedure can be performed through an assortment of techniques. Food examination is the train managing the application, study and advancement of logical methodology for describing the properties of nourishments and their constituents. These scientific methodologies of analytical techniques in food safety are utilized to give data about a wide range of attributes of food, including their arrangement, structure, physicochemical properties.

 Food and Nutrition Therapy is a total dietetics practice which gives wide, evidence-based sustenance treatment for everybody, new-born children, kids, and grown-ups. Nutritious Therapy expands one's wellbeing potential however exclusively planned nourishing and method of life changes. It empowers the advantages of healthy, good, natural nutrition for perfect prosperity, and also the remedial impacts of specific nourishments for particular wellbeing conditions. Nourishing Therapy distinguishes the nutrition that makes look and feel best. The essential objective of nutrition therapy for diabetes is to accomplish great glucose control.

"Indigenous food" can in a split second resound with commodification rehearses, post-expansionism, food uncertainty, gender-role associations, and so forth. Then again, we may watch the development of counter-developments, for example, elective nourishment systems, food legacy safeguarding, nourishment power, gender activism, nourishment and atmosphere activity, among others. These counter-developments hold diverse stakes and bear different plans yet they all have a similar target: Regaining control. As fascinating as it can be to draw a moral line between the former historical constructs and social practices and the subsequent counter movements, social reality should not be surrounded in such mechanism.

 The gastrointestinal tract plays a key role in obesity through its contributions to satiation and satiety, production of gut hormones that influence appetite, absorption of nutrients that ultimately determine the positive energy balance that results in obesity, changes in bile acids and the micro biome, and the metabolic products of microbial digestion of nutrients (short-chain fatty acids) that modify some of the metabolic factors that are associated with obesity. Obesity usually is associated with morbidity related to diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. However, there are many gastrointestinal and hepatic diseases for which obesity is the direct cause (e.g., non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) or is a significant risk factor. When obesity is a risk factor, it may interact with other mechanisms and result in earlier complicated diseases. There are increased odds ratios or relative risks of several gastrointestinal complications of obesity: gastroesophageal reflux disease, erosive gastritis, gastric cancer, diarrhoea, colonic diverticular disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, acute pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer. Gastroenterologists are uniquely poised to participate in the multidisciplinary management of obesity as physicians caring for people with obesity-related diseases, in addition to their expertise in nutrition and endoscopic interventions.