Nutrients = macronutrients and micronutrients
Nutrients: Biological nutrients improve the health, while chemical pollutants - as their direct opponent - cause the perfect environment for many diseases. The wide spectrum of nutrients divides itself into macronutrients and micronutrients.
Macronutrients: Energy for the body. Macronutrients are nutrients which provide energy to the body. It concerns carbohydrates, proteins and fat. They deliver combustion energy and new components for the power production to the body.
Carbohydrates (with high nutrient and energy values) - the carbohydrates or saccharides, to which above all belong the sugar and the starchs, form a chemically and biologically significant material class. As a product of the photosynthesis, carbohydrates are the biggest part of the biomass. The important basic food, which shows a high portion in carbohydrates, are the different grain kinds which are processed to food (rice, wheat, maize, millet, rye, oat) or are used as a animal feed (above all barley, oat, maize). The starchy grain products are among others bread, noodles, cakes. Also the root nodules of the potato and the peas belonging to the legumes, beans and lenses show a high carbohydrate portion. The most important carbohydrate component in the energy balance of the body is the glucose. Every body cell can take up glucose by the cell membrane or deliver again. Then, in the cells of the different organs, she can deliver by metabolization the chemical energy for muscle work, anabolic processes or cerebral activity or be stored in the form of glucose chains as a glycogen. Recommendation: Use grain and legumes of high quality and high valued, natural carbohydrates.
Albumen (essential amino acids power proteins) - amino acids are a smaller class of organic compounds of primary amine and carboxylic acids. They are the components of peptides and proteins (albumen). The protein production occurs in the cell nucleus - the genes. Moreover, they regulate the characteristics of the acid and base in the body. Besides, the amino group works as a base and the carboxyl group as an acid. The net profit from it is measured as a pH factor.
Proteins have the following special functions in the body: Defence of infections, composition of the tissues and the whole build, control of numerous metabolism processes and formation of energy reserves. An essential amino acid is an amino acid which an organism needs, however, cannot be build from elementary components themselves.
If these amino acids are not a component of the food, the organism cannot survive on a long-term basis. All essential amino acids are extracted from plants; hence, a suitable combination of vegetarian or vegane products can supply humans with enough amino acids.
Fat (unsaturated, essential fatty acids) - neutral fat is Ester of the trivalent alcohol glycerine with three, mostly different fatty acids. As natural materials the fat is attributed to the lipids. Fat serves the body as an energy supplier, insulator against cold, solvent for fat-soluble materials like some vitamins, protection for internal organs as well as the nervous system and are components of the cell membrane. In plants you find fat particularly in seed or germs, in the animal organism in the fatty tissue. While unsaturated, essential fatty acids from the nature are very healthy, the increased consumption of saturated fat from the industrial mass manufacturing is injuriously for the health.
from: Wikipedia - headword: Carbohydrates / Protein/ fat (translation from german version)
Micronutrients: Materials for biological growth
Micronutrients are materials, that metabolism of herbal and animal organisms must take up, without that they deliver energy. They serve, e.g., for the construction of macromolecules, as a cofactor for essential enzyme reactions or have antioxidative effects. These are purely natural, biological substances from the abundance of the plant world, won from a clean and intact environment. Mineral substances are inorganic nutrients of vital importance which the organism cannot produce itself; they must be supplied to him with the food. In the dietetics mineral substances are those minerals from which an average person should take up more than 50 mg per day. The mineral substances are not available organically and the elements mostly exist as ions or in the form of inorganic connections. Therefore, they are, in contrast to some vitamins, insensitively against most preparation methods. (Sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur)
Trace elements - Trace elements are called mineral substances which must be supplied to the body less than 50 mg per day, so that this can continue its vital metabolism functions. An absence of essential trace elements can cause in creatures important deficiency symptoms (chrome / iron, cobalt / copper, manganese/ molybdenum, selenium / silicium, vanadium / zinc, tin)
Vitamins - Vitamins are involved in many reactions of the metabolism. Their job is a regulation of the utilisation of carbohydrates, proteins and mineral substances, they are responsable for their dismantling or rebuilding and serve therefore also as power production. Vitamins strengthen the immune system and are inalienable with the construction of cells, blood cells, bones and teeth. Vitamins must be taken up with the food, because the metabolism cannot synthesise this in the body. Every single vitamin fulfils certain duties. Thereby, they also differ concerning their various effects. (Vitamin A, vitamin B1, B2, B3, vitamin B5, B6, B7, vitamin B9, B10, B12, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K)
Extracts of herbs (remedial plants) - A remedial plant is a plant in the botanical medicine which can be used because of its high level in active substances for remedial purposes or to the alleviation of diseases. It can be used as a raw material for phytopharmaceuticals in different forms, but also for tea preparations, bath products and cosmetics. Today some plants which were originally important herbs are now counted to luxury food (tea, coffee or tobacco), as spice herbs (pepper, cinnamon, basil) or simply used as food (apple, citrus fruits). Extracts of herbs are won from the different plant parts: Bark, blossom, sheets, fruits, herb, root, rhizome and seed.
Secondary plant materials (phyto substances) - Secondary plant materials are produced only in special cell types and differentiate themselves from primary plant materials by the fact that they are not of vital importance for the plant. Secondary plant materials belong to the natural materials and have a high value for human beings.
Some materials and their meaning for the human being
- Polyphenols (in pomegranate): Lowering of the blood pressure
- Sulphides (in garlic): prevents thromboses
- Polyphenols (in spices): Stimulation of the digestion
- Phenol acids (in fruits): Fight against bacteria
- Polysaccharides: Stimulation of the immune system
- Saponines (in legumes, oat and some kinds of vegetable) as well as
flavanoids (in almost all plants): Anti-inflammatory
- Carotinoide (in green-leafy vegetables): Inhibition of the canceration
- Flavanoids, lipoic acid: antioxidatively
- Phyto hormones, phyto estrogens: effect similar to hormones
Natural antioxidants - Antioxidants are a chemical compound which prevents an undesirable oxidation of other substances. Antioxidants have an important physiological meaning because of its effect as a radical scavenger. They inactivate in the organism reactive oxygen species whose occurence in excess leads to oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is jointly responsible for the ageing process and is brought in connection with the formation of a row of diseases.
Many antioxidants are natural and endogenously occuring materials. As secondary plant materials, antioxidants like carotinoides and many different polyphenol compounds (flavanoids, anthocyanins, phyto estrogens and other) can be found in numerous vegetable kinds and fruit kinds, herbs, fruits, seeds etc. and also in form of made food.
Xanthones - Xanthones are aromatic oxocompounds which as a secondary plant material in the nature put the colour-giving substances to some plants . Beside its importance as colorings and antibiotics, some xanthones like the Mangostan are called as Phyto-Nutrients by various product marketers. 40 out of 210 known xanthones currently are exotic fruits from the tropical regions which grow within the 20th degree of latitude, for example, fruits of the Mangostane. Xanthones were examined only since middle of the 1970s particularly in Asian and American studies. Certain xanthones, mainly polyphenols as for example Mangostan have an antioxidative effect in the body (i.e. in function as highly efficient radical scavenger against free radicals); from it result with some xanthones bactericidal, antibiotic, anti-hepatotoxic, anti-allergic and antimykotic qualities. In a study published in December, 2011 the effect from xanthones of the Mangostan fruit was examined in the chemopreventive treatment of cancer. Original result of the study: „The study ascertains the observed anti-cancer effect of the xanthones by which the noteworthy potential is confirmed as anti-cancer means."
Alkaline food: Basis for the freeing of the body from injurious hiperacidity
Within an alkaline alimentation it is preferred the food which contains less acid shares and more basic shares.The body is "overacidified" by too many acid-producing shares in the food of the usual "civilisation food" what brings the balance of acids and bases of the body in a noxious imbalance. Such a hyperacidity (acidosis) has in the long run unhealthy results which expresses itself in the form of various illnesses and chronic sufferings. With the basic alimentation the food should consist to about two thirds of basic food. For example, potatoes, vegetables, above all dark green salads, fruit, raw milk and dry fruits belong to the preferential "base suppliers".
from: Wikipedia - headword: Micronutrient (medicine) / trace element/ vitamin/ remedial plant / secondary plant materials / antioxidants/ xanthones/ basic food (translation from german version)