Nutrition

Nutrition refers to the process of eating, digesting, and using food, and the study of this process, especially to determining an optimal diet for purposes of health?, [weight loss]?, body building, or other purposes.

There exists a large category of disease which are caused by malnutrition?, or the lack of proper nutrition. These include :

• [heart disease]?
• beriberi?
• rickets
• scurvy
• [vitamin deficiency disease]?
• kwashiorkor
• pellagra?

Additionally, several diseases directly or indirectly are impacted by diet, or require very close attention to diet. These include

• metabolic or nutritionally related disease such as diabeties? or hypothyroidism?.
• various eating disorders such as [binge eating]?, [anorexia nervosa]?, or bulimia?

Current dietary guidelines in the United States are presented in the concept of a [food pyramid]?. Detailed information on general nutrition is available at the Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Information Center, at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/.

Some concepts in nutrition include these need to be filled out

• calorie
• vitamins and minerals
• proteins
• fats
  • [saturated fat]?
• carbohydrates
  • sugars
  • starches
• cholesterol
  • "good" cholesterol ([hdl cholesterol]?)
  • "bad" cholesterol ([ldl cholesterol]?)

Controversies in modern nutrition include:

• The current disparity in food availability between first and third world populations, see famine? and poverty?
• How large a place dairy products should take in the [food pyramid]?
• How much meat and animal products is appropriate in diet, see also vegetarian and vegan
• Should genetic engineering be used the production of food crops and animals
• Are the use of pesticide?s, and fertilizer?s damaging to the foods produced by use of these methods, see also [organic farming]?

/Talk