For Smarter Nutrition (10)

Holistic Nutrition
Holistic nutrition focuses on conscious eating to promote a healthy body and a sound mind and to strengthen the immune system in preventing and fighting disease. This article lists the guidelines for healthy and conscious eating, such as foods to eat, foods to avoid and other holistic nutrition considerations. It also offers explanations on why a variety of nutrient-dense foods such as whole grains, locally grown fruits and vegetables, organic foods, essential fatty acids and foods in their natural state must be consumed regularly, and why an excess of processed sugar, salt, trans fats, food additives and GMOs must not be part of the diet.

Calcium and Milk from the Harvard School of Public Health
Is milk your only option for making sure that you get enough calcium in your diet? Not so, according to two schools of thought. The pro-milk side believes that three glasses of milk a day will prevent osteoporosis, which leads to more than 1.5 million fractures and 300,000 broken hips. The other side believes that consuming a lot of milk and dairy products will have little effect on the rate. This article doesn’t take any particular side, but explains what is currently known about the use of calcium in the body. It covers what calcium is, where calcium comes from and what osteoporosis is.

The Food and Nutrition Information Centers
This is thethe Food and Nutrition Information Center, brought to you by the United States Department of Agriculture. Topic sections include dietary guidance, lifecycle nutrition, diet and health, surveys, reports and research, food composition, food safety, dietary supplements, food labeling, nutrition assistance programs, professional and career resources, and FAQ. You’ll find spotlight articles on healthy eating habits for teens, kids, infants, toddlers and adults. Information about how to keep a healthy lifestyle is include including nutritional data about hundreds of foods all available with the click of your mouse. Topics range from A to Z, and users can look at dietary guidelines and calorie content in their favorite foods.

The Nitty Gitty on Fiber
This page talks about fiber and says that it's not as simple as the food and bowel supplement manufacturers make it out to be. There are a great many types of fiber, each with different effects in the body. For example, no plant fiber is digested by the small bowel, but reaches the colon unchanged. Keeping it as simple as possible, there are two broad catgories of fiber: soluble and insoluble. All plants have both kinds, but the percentage of each varies. Insoluable fiber does not dissolve in water is is not acted on by colon bacteria, i.e., it is noty metabolized. Wheat and corn are about 90 percent insoluble fiber; oats about 50 percent. Ingesting these fibers are beneficial for bowel regularity and reducing the risk of colon polyps. Soluble fiber does dissolve in water and is often used as a food source by colon bacterial. Two categories of soluble fiber are psyllium and prebiotics. Psyllium contains mucilage, which increases stool bulk and reduces cholesterol. Prebiotics are used as a food source by certain beneficial colon bacterials, which create many health benefits.

Dietary Nutrition: What You Should Know
This is the homepage of the American Dietetic Association, which provides information on optimal nutrition, health and well-being. It includes sections on advocacy and profession, professional development, and offers a tip of the day, and a monthly feature. Visitors can find a nutrition professional, and also head to the food and nutritional information site, which features information about nutrition on various foods. Nutrition fact sheets and a nutritional reading list, as well as a food pyramid guide, are also offered.

Nutrition Facts and Calorie Counter: A Healthy Combo
Here’s a neat place online where you can analyze any food, compare foods and find out the nutritional content in food. You can also estimate your daily nutritional needs, track your daily food consumption, improve your recipes and even generate custom nutritional fact labels. There is also a free newsletter, and a side bar with the nutritional information from various national chain restaurants, such as Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Burger King.