Nutrition 101 for the dunderheaded and wilfully ignorant

Post #1: Defining Terms

For most of my life I have followed a seafood diet. As in, if you see food, then eat it. I have also been known to say, “Why waste your calorie budget on protein and carbohydrates when you spend it on fat and alcohol?” I like to characterise this approach as “dunderheaded”, otherwise known as “wilfully ignorant”. Generally speaking, it’s a pretty bad way to think about food and not an excellent guide to food related behaviour. That said, occasional deployment of this strategy can result in intense culinary pleasure…

Anyway, I’ve become more interested in nutrition. Partly because I’m now supposed to be able to speak confidently about it (to be accurate - I’m specifically trained to help people conform their diet to the Australian Dietary Guidelines). And partly because I’m genuinely interested in basic chemistry and biology. And when I say “basic”, I mean getting to know how it all *really* works (as opposed to just pretending to know how it works). Like being able to explain to someone what an amino acid actually IS. As in, possessing the wherewithal to pontificate about what the “amino” bit in amino acid stands for, and having an answer to the question, “why are proteins made of acid?”

This desire has coincided with teaching my daughters basic chemistry (we are homeschooling our kids). It’s a fellow traveller with my ludicrously unrealistic ambition to master inferential statistics to a level where I can deftly comprehend and critique research papers in biomedical science. These are stones I’m chipping away at over time in the vain hope of achieving mastery in the waaaaaaay distant future in a galaxy far far away.

OK, I have the preliminary witticisms out of my system so let’s get down to business. In this blog post, I’m going to do my best to give you a layman’s summary of some basic nutritional info. My goal is to define some common and important terms to a level where you actually may end up possessing some sort of under-the-hood understanding of what people are talking about when they’re referring to these dietary matters.

The focus of this blog post is on macronutrients and micronutrients.

I’ll start with the big picture and then zoom in a little.

What are macronutrients and micronutrients?

<start nerd joke>

Macro-nutrients are a source of digital nourishment for VBA programmed software products

<end nerd joke>

Macro = big 

Nutrient = … nutrient

Micro = teeny / little

Nutrient = … nutrient

Macronutrients are nutrients the body needs in relatively large quantities to produce energy and do other important stuff to maintain homeostasis, aka “steady state” - which is a relatively constant or balanced state within your body (e.g. regulating core body temperature - not too hot, not too cool). There are three major subtypes of macronutrients: carbohydrates, lipids and protein.

Micronutrients are needed in relatively small quantities to do a bunch of critical things. An example of a micronutrient is calcium, which is a mineral (one of the major subtypes of micronutrients) and is needed for development and maintenance of the skeleton and for heart and muscle function (as a minimum).

Tell me more about macronutrients. 

Here’s a little about about the major sub-types of macronutrients.

Carbohydrates:

• Made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms

• Purpose: mostly energy production but also other important stuff

• Carbo = carbon, hydrate = H2O (carbon plus water, hydrated carbon or … carbohydrates !)

• If it ends in “-ose” it’s probably a carbohydrate (well, a simple carbohydrate)

• Mostly obtained through plants, with a notable exception being lactose which comes from milk and other dairy products

• Carbohydrates can be ‘simple’ or ‘complex’. Aka simple sugars or complex sugars.

Proteins:

• Principally made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen but also contain sulphur, phosphorous, iron and iodine atoms

• Purpose: Regulation of body processes, cellular transport, muscle contraction, provision of structure and energy

• Obtained from plant and animal sources

• Proteins are formed by chains of amino acids (acid = proton donor, amino refers to amine which is a molecule made from nitrogen and hydrogen)

• Protein molecules can be very large, relatively speaking… (they can be HEAPS bigger than simple sugars for instance… which are really, really small)

Lipids:

• Like carbohydrates, these are made of mostly carbon, hydrogen and oxygen but some lipids also have other elements, e.g. nitrogen

• They have a lower oxygen to carbon ratio than carbohydrates

• Purpose: provide cushioning / protection and a little cuddliness, form the cell membrane, provide energy, and other important stuff

• Obtained from plant and animal sources

Tell me more about micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).

Vitamins are a major sub-type of micronutrients. They are organic substances (carbon-based). Minerals are the other major sub-type and are, on the other hand, inorganic. Therefore, you should not consume any minerals because they’re not organic! <disclaimer: that was a (bad) joke>.

Vitamins and minerals do all sorts of amazing and important stuff. In the language of the covid19 pandemic era, they are “essential workers”. (As an aside, when you hear “essential” in reference to vitamins, i.e. “essential vitamins”, this means vitamins that the body cannot produce from other components and therefore must obtain directly from food and drink).

How do energy systems work?

One of the functions of all the macronutrients is to provide an energy source. So…

This is the bit where I pretend to know how energy systems work… Jokes aside, this is pretty complex stuff and feels a little bit like black magic when you dig down deep. We use the word “energy” all the time, but very few of us know much about it, really. So, I know enough to do my job, and am interested in learning more, but I only have so much time…

You may have heard of ATP. Yes, the association of tennis professionals. But there’s another important ATP - adenosine triphosphate. This is the molecule which is the backbone of human energy systems. Cells run off ATP like your car runs off petrol. The way energy is unleashed from this molecule is that it goes from adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to adenosine biphosphate (ADP). Tri to bi = three to two. In other words, one of the three phosphates groups breaks off from this molecule, releasing energy in the process.

***I don’t properly understand the chemistry involved here. It’s actually really complicated and, who knows, maybe all the people that say they know are bluffing.

Energy is released when ATP becomes ADP, and energy (from food) is used to make ADP back into ATP.

Well, there you have it. That’s my attempt of defining some basic nutritional terms for you. I hope it been informative, entertaining and has contained more basic chemistry information than you were expecting or hoping for!