Direction for usage of everyday food products. (part 1)

You come to a grocery store and see a great variety of food products. The question is how to make a right choice. Look for a label with the content of ingredients and calories. Here is an example of what you can see:

NUTRITION INFORMATION
Average quantity per 100 g
Proteins – 11,0 g
Fats – 6,8 g
Carbohydrates – 74,8 g
Energy value – 404,0 kj

Ingredients: wheat flour, water, margarine, yeast, cheese powder, vegetable oil, emulsifier (E481, E482, E461), malt, sugar, salt. As a consumer you want to know what these emulsifiers, malts, yeasts and unknown Es mean for the health. Here you can find answers to the questions of nourishment from the point of view of chemistry. Answers that are very easy to understand without any chemical formulas or scientific explanations. You will learn how to choose the right proportion between fats and carbohydrates, what fats and carbohydrates bring health and vice versa, what mean letters and numbers in nutrition information and many other things connected with healthy nourishment.

Why do we eat?
What do we need food for?
The answer is simple – we eat for living!

To support living or a sustaining activity –human has to work non - stop, because even while sleeping, he still works and fulfills many complicated operations, breathes for example. To support this activity we need energy.

And where do we get it from? Right you are, from food!

A living being grows for the whole of his life, even when his size remains constant. The fact is that our cells are regenerated, being replaced by new ones. Some liver or blood cells live for a few days only. Food – that is the source of their regeneration. Thus, we eat for living.

It is urgent to know at least the main basis of nutritious physiology, so as to do no harm to the organism.

Let us get a general idea of what happens to food from the biochemical point of view.

Every living being, including both an unicellular organism and a human one eats non - stop since its birth up to its death. By consumption and excretion they are divided into two types: vegetables and animals. Under the sun influence vegetables synthesize carbohydrates from carbonic acid and water and excrete oxygen. Moreover, vegetables synthesize both fats and proteins. Vegetables so as animals consume organic matters, but its basic components - proteins, fats, carbohydrates are not of the same type in different types of organisms. Therefore, the property of vegetable and animal fat can be different, so its influence on the health can also be different.

Let us have a look at properties of food basic components and their sources.

PROTEINS

Proteins are the basis of life on our planet. It means that every living being, both vegetables and animals contain proteins. Vegetables are very poor with proteins and you will not find them in nutrition information of fruit and berries. But vegetables like nuts, beans, soya, peas, wheat, potatoes are very rich in proteins (Tab. 1).

TABLE 1

Analytical constituents’ %

Product    Content, %
    Proteins    Fats    Carbohydrates
Peanuts    22-30    48    13
Soya    34,9    17,3    13,5
Peas, beans    20,5    2,0    54,3
Potatoes    2,0    0,4    16,9
Wheat flour    10,3    1,1    70,8
Buckwheat    10,8    3,2    65,2

Animal organisms differ from vegetable ones because all animal cells contain proteins and proteins are synthesized in their organisms as long as they live. How do they do that? They synthesize proteins from amino acids. Where can we find proteins?

Meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, cottage cheese and many other food products are rich in them (Tab. 2).

TABLE 2

Analytical constituent’s %

Product    Content, %
    Proteins    Fats    Carbohydrates
Meat (pork)    14,3    33,3    0,9
Fish (herring)    19,1    12,1    -
Milk    2,8    3,2    4,7
Cottage cheese    18,0    0,6    2,8
Dutch cheese    26    26,8    -
Eggs    12,7    11,5    -

Sometimes you can hear that meat is not a very good food for our health and that to be a vegetarian is much better. Is that true?

Proteins can be of different types according to its origin and content. That is why amino acids also can be of different types – the first ones are generated by the organism itself and the second ones – are not. Amino acids, not synthesized by an organism, are called indispensable. Their presence in blood is necessary because proteins can not be synthesized without them .This process is a very fast one, it lasts not more then 1 or 2 minutes. In case one of the amino acids is late for joining a ribosome, proteins are not synthesized and the amino acid that is not used is oxidized. It is not good for health if not to say – bad. Because of amino acid oxidation, toxic matters appear and poison the body. These matters are very dangerous for health. In ancient China there was an execution when the criminals were fed only with meat, mostly beef. In several weeks they died in torment.

To sum up, the daily ration should include 100 g. of proteins with indispensable amino acids in a proper correlation. Meat, milk, eggs, soya, buckwheat contain such proteins, called native.

All young people, especially kids, should eat these products every day, because protein is the only source of indispensable amino acids. Proteins are not synthesized without them and as a result we stop growing and stop developing.

FATS

You can hardly ever find a person who knows nothing about bad fats. These fats are everywhere – in bottles, cans, plastic boxes and tubes, they destroy our health and body. We try to decrease fat content in many food products, especially dairy ones, buy lean fish, meat, milk, dress salads not with mayonnaise, sour cream or oil but with a non – fat yogurt. But what do we need fats for?

They play a very important role in the organism.
-Fats generate fuel for the heart and its muscle. Imagine, if you get less than 50 g. of fat per 24 hours, your heart works as an engine without fuel.
-Such vitamins as A, E, D, carotene can not be digested without fats, the only solvent for them.
-Fats (lipids) are a part of nerve tissue (brain tissue contains the maximum of lipids) and each cellular membrane contains fat and protein.
Then what is the reason for our fat dislike?

There are different kinds of fats as well as proteins and it depends on a kind of acid they contain. The acids are generated when the process of digestion starts, after that they try to soak into blood. Solid (saturated) fats contain solid acids that plug blood vessels and this leads to atherosclerosis.

You should really avoid the fats of beef, margarine, and artificial butter!
But liquid fats (oils) contain liquid (unsaturated) acids that do not plug blood vessels.

About fifteen years ago unsaturated liquid acids that dissolve atherosclerotic plagues and even heal were found. But you will not find them in the drug store! Go to a grocery and ask for tuna, herring or mackerel and the fatter will be the better.

Such fish contains so popular now Omega - 3 acid, that treats and cures.
As it is not generated by the organism itself, you can get it with food, with some special food.

The effect of these acids for the health increases when they go with vegetable oils, such as – sunflower seed oil or olive oil. But as the process of oxidation is very fast to them, they can become even dangerous and cause cancer if you do not observe usage and storage instruction .Otherwise all the Omega - 3 effect is ruined. So you are not to keep it under the sunlight and in a warm place. It can also be ruined while cooking – do not fry it for a long time and do not use a high temperature. Remember that fish and oil (better of a cold pressure) should be fresh.

So, we continue our discussion about fats.

There is the only one solid fat – lard that contains unsaturated acid – arachidonic acid. This acid is not synthesized in organism, but it helps the muscles to contract, that is very important for a living being organism to stay healthy.

The table bellow helps us to compare some of food products from the point of view of fat and acid content, where good acid means - unsaturated and bad – saturated (Tab. 3).

TABLE 3

Saturated and unsaturated acids content in different fats

Product    Fat content, %    Acids content, %
        Bad    Good
Butter    78-83    39    14,6
Margarine    82    61,2    22,8
Chicken fat    100    31    21,6
Olive oil    99    11,1    10,45
Sunflower seed oil    99    10,8    63
Salted pork fat    100    38    11,8
Mutton    16,3    51,9    4,75
Cottage cheese (fatty)    18    52,4    10,1
Mayonnaise    67    12,5    61,8
Peanuts    48    16    32
Walnuts    63    11    73
Trout    2    29    40
Herring    12,1    25,8    20,8

Vegetable products not only contain good acids but are also cholesterol free. Some of this products contain oleic acid that is the basic component of a human fat, so it is relative to us. A high content of this acid is in such food products as: olive oil (78,5%), herring (53,4 %), peanut (52 %), salted pork fat (50 %), butter(46,4 %), mutton (44 %), cottage cheese (37,5 %). This acid prevents from cancer.

Dear ladies, attention, please! Unsaturated acids are antioxidants, this means that they prevent from decomposition of cell membranes and that helps to avoid wrinkles and sunburns. The fats with high content of unsaturated acids are widely used in cosmetic production. Summing up. It is healthy to dress herring with vegetable oil, it is healthy to eat natural butter or pork fat. But mind – all the food stuff is fresh and natural!

CARBOHYDRATES

Carbohydrates also seem dangerous to many of us. But are they?

Carbohydrates are divided into sugars and the rest. Sugars are sweet and soluble carbonates. Take ordinary sugar for example. Sometimes it is called a white death. There is even a special blood sugar test, but it is glucose that is in blood, not sugar. Its level should be constant and if it is lower, you feel weak, can lose consciousness and after that coma comes. But if it is higher, it is also not good because it can be a symptom of a diabetes mellitus. Glucose is the source of energy for brain, some tissues and organs. Brain needs 120 g. of glucose per 24 hours. No food product contains glucose, the exception is some fruit and berries (Tab. 4).

TABLE 4

Glucose and fructose content in some food products

Type of fruits and berries    Content, %
    Glucose    Fructose
Apples    2,5-5,5    6,5-11,8
Pear    1,0-3,7    6,0-9.7
Apricot    0,1-3,4    0,1-3,4
Plum    1,5-5,2    1,0-7,0
Cherry    3,8-5,2    3,3-4,4
Grapes    7,2-9,0    7,2-9,0
Watermelon    2,4    4,3

Where do we get glucose from? We get it from other carbohydrates. For example sugar and water form glucose and fructose. Fructose is digested slower then glucose and is not so bad for diabetics. Honey that is a sweet mixture of glucose and fructose is medical. Sugar is not healthy, especially if you consume more than 50 g. per 24 hours. The fact is that sucrose almost immediately dissimilates to fructose and glucose, and they soak into blood. If you drink a cup of tea with sugar (10 g.), you get 5 g. glucose into your blood at once. And the norm is 6 g. as a whole. It is insulin that regulates the level of glucose in blood. Insulin is generated by pancreas and the excess of sweet food exhausts it, leading to a disease. Photosynthesis is a generation of glucose in green parts of vegetables. Then glucose turns into cellulose and starch. Bread, pasta, nuts, seeds, tubers contain starch. For a sprout that is going to appear, starch is a source of energy. Potatoes spend its starch energy on sprouting in spring. Here is the table that shows you the starch content in some food products, even if there is no word «starch» in the nutrition information.

TABLE 5

Starch content in some products

Product    Starch content, %
Rice    62-68
Corn    65-75
Wheat    57-75
Potato    12-24

Starch is a basic source of glucose in our organism. For that purpose it should react with water. The reaction goes quite slow and little doses of glucose soak slowly into blood .When you boil starch food products it means you help the organism to digest or hydrolyze, or modify it. Raw starch is not dissolved in cold water. Modified, hydrolyzed but not genetically altered starch can be found in many food products and there is no reason to avoid it. And it is not only brain that needs carbohydrate energy, but proteins and fats can’t be digested without it. There should be the balance of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Low carbohydrate diet leads to imbalance that can badly influence the health. But we will talk about it later. When you exclude starch it means that you also exclude cellulose. They are both generated in vegetables from glucose, having the same origin they differ in structure.

Cellulose is not digested in organism, but like cotton (that is pure cellulose) it absorbs bad matters in organism. It acts like a sponge, massaging the digestive tract and stimulating digestive process. So, restricting yourself in carbohydrates, you start suffering from constipation and other disorders. Vegetables, that are carbohydrates, contain a lot of dietary fibers. Dietary fibers – cellulose and pectines play an important role in physiology of nutrition. Daily need in dietary fibers is about 25 g. Long ago, fibers, being digested not fully, or not at all, were excluded from food products and even were called lumber matters. But it led to gastrointestinal and cardiovascular diseases.

Why? Cellulose and pectines have a fibrous structure. And fibers irritate digestive tract, stimulating its work and besides they are perfect absorbents of bad metabolic products and cholesterol. Reduction of cholesterol in blood helps to avoid cardiovascular diseases and gallstones, and pectines have a very strong cleaning property (Tab. 6). Raw and green vegetables are rich in pectine and cellulose and while cooking, pectine is released and fruit and vegetables become soft. Some pectines turn into galantine (jelly), that is the basis for marmalade, pastilles and apple marshmallow. So the most healthy sweets are marmalades, pastilles and marshmallows with natural apple pectine.

TABLE 6

Pectine content in fruit and vegetables

Vegetables/fruits    Pectines content, %
Apricots    3,9-8,6
Quinces    5,3-9,6
Eggplants    5,2-8,7
Pears    3,5-4,2
Strawberries    3,3-7,9
Carrots    3,3-7,9
Cucumbers    5,9-9,4
Peppers    6,0-8,7
Tomatoes    2,0-4,1
Red currants    5,9-10,6
Black currants    5,5-12,6
Pumpkins    2,6-9,3
Apples    4,4-7,5

Vegetables and fruit, especially apples, if fresh, contain more active pectin, as well as vitamins.

VITAMINS

Vitamins are organic matters and in little doses of 0,001 – 75 mg. are vital for a living being. If we do not get these doses daily, sooner or later we fall ill.

No matter what organ is affected, the disease is called – hypovitaminosis (hypo means «too little»). Lack of vitamins leads to such diseases as pellagra, beri – beri, scurvy, malignant anemia, etc. Lack of vitamin A leads to osteoporosis, bones fragility. This is not the reason to go to a drug store, buy and eat a great number of vitamins of all colors. Because the other dangerous disease is hypervitaminosis (hyper means « too much»). There are cases of serious vitamin A and D poisoning.

All vitamins are marked with Latin letters – A, B, C, D. Nowadays vitamins are named by their chemical compound: B1 – thiamin, B2 – riboflavin, C – ascorbic acid. Vitamin function is not generation of energy, they take part in ferments (biological catalysts) creation and are the basis for many of them. No vitamins – no ferments – no life.

The main source of vitamins is food. All vitamins can be divided into two big groups:
- water soluble (B, C, P, PP),
-fat soluble (A, D, E, K).

Hypervitaminosis is caused by fat – soluble vitamins that can be stored up in organism. As for water – soluble vitamins – they are washed away quickly, so their doses are not so strict as fat – soluble and can be higher (Tab. 7).Vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Vitamin C helps to keep tooth, bones, muscles, blood vessels healthy, it promotes growth and recovery of tissues. Vitamin C is the only vitamin that takes part in synthesis of protein’s collagen, makes blood vessels elastic, prevents atherosclerosis. It helps to support immunity within flu epidemics.
TABLE 7

Daily nutrition of some vitamins

Vitamins    Daily dose, mg
C    60-100
PP    15-25
E    8-15
A    0,5-2,5
D    0,0025-0,01

Daily nutrition of vitamin C is 60 - 100mg

Source of vitamin C: fresh vegetables, fruit, greens, sauerkraut, citrus plants, berries. Vitamin C is water – soluble, antioxidant, but itself it can be oxidized and destroyed while cooking and dissolves in the sun. If you put vegetables into cold water while cooking, vitamin C would be destroyed, so put vegetables into boiling water .When cooking salads you should remember that spring onions and cucumbers are very rich in ferment that hastens the process of vitamin C oxidation, so add greens to the salad just before eating.    

While cooking, use enamel or glass saucepans, because metal and copper hastens vitamin C destruction. Food should be prepared, using a low heat. Household soda also hastens vitamin C destruction.

Vitamin A (retinol) provides eyesight, influences on protein metabolism, growth, bones forming, takes part in carbohydrate metabolism, improves immunity. Cream, butter, liver, eggs, yolk contain vitamin A. You need 1,5 – 2,5 mg. vitamin A daily. Vitamin A is generated from carotene when you take it together with fat. One carotene molecule generates 2 vitamin A molecules. Carotene is of a vegetable origin. Yellow and green vegetables contain it (carrot, greens, pumpkin). Everyday consumption of vegetables, containing carotene, can decrease risk of cancer to 50 %. It is good to dress salads of yellow and green vegetables with oil, sour cream and mayonnaise. Daily nutrition of carotene is 3 - 5 mg. Vegetable food with carotene is much better for organism then meat food with vitamin A. A stewed carotene can be active for a long time and gives the dishes a nice color. Vitamin A is unstable, is oxidized quickly, so such products should be stored in dark places and cut only before cooking. Vitamin A is especially unstable when acids are added to food, so to save it, food acids shouldn’t be added. From a non – cut carrot you get 5% of carotene, grated gives 20 %, and if sour cream or oil is added – 60%.

Thus, food products can provide us with natural vitamins. We should only store, cook and consume it in a proper way. Other vitamins will be discussed in the section of natural food products.

Tags: amino acid protein diet - Efim Frenkel.
Fats, starch food stuff, carbohydrates - Eugenia Frenkel.