Diet

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 17:56:28 +0100

Diet is anything we take into our mouth and we are successful in swallowing. whether it is poisonous or not. Diet in nutrition, is the sum of food a person or other organism consumes.
Diet in short, refers to food.

According to world health organization (WHO), every individual is advised to do three things on a daily basis.

Rest
Exercise
Diet

REST

We are advised to rest or sleep for at least eight hours at night and one hour as siesta during the day. But today, many people do not meet up with this requirements because they are too busy with work that they do hardly rest. If you do this on a daily basis, it contributes ten percent to good health. Benefits of rest are:

It improves mental alertness
it calms the nerves and prevents hyper activeness
Aids digestion and proper metabolism of energy

EXERCISE

Exercise is another important factor if we want good health. This does not mean intense olympic-level training. It includes climbing of stairs, jogging, bicycling, skipping, press-up, even dancing is a form of exercise. If you do this on a daily basis, it also contributes ten percent to good health. Benefits of exercise are:

It helps the blood to circulate properly
It increases energy
it helps the joints to be flexible
it helps one to grow and look younger
it stimulates proper functioning of the heart , kidney and brain.

DIET

The third requirement is diet. Diet is very important because it contributes eighty percent to good health. When we are talking of diet, I think you already know what diet is according to my definition above. but we do not mean just any food. According to W.H.O, we are to eat Balanced Diet.

What is a Balanced Diet?

A Balanced Diet is a diet that contains all the food nutrients in the right proportion. These nutrients are referred to as "The Chains of Life". They are six (6) in number. These are:

Carbohydrate
Fats & Oil
Protein
Minerals
Vitamins
Water

Read More on these six nutrients here

There is a pyramid given to us which shows how we are supposed to eat on a daily basis. Below is the image.

FOOD PYRAMID/WELLNESS PYRAMID

FAT & CARBOHYDRATE
Eat little because it is dangerous to health.

PROTEIN
Eat little because it has high cholesterol which is dangerous to health

FRUITS & VEGETABLES
Eat more, it contains vitamins and minerals essential to good health. this helps to prevent sickness and diseases.

WHOLE GRAINS
Eat more, it contains lipids and sterols which feed the cells and make them vibrant.

Do you think you eat this way everyday?

The human body contains about 70 Trillion cells. Scientists have discovered that by the time we are 25 - 50 years old, we lose about 10,000 cells on a daily basis. By the time we reach 50 years, and above, we would have lost about 50 million cells and that's the reason why we end up in the sick zone. For this not to happen to us, we need to feed our cells with lipids and sterols which can only be found in whole grains.

That is why whole grains are very important in our daily diet because it takes fifty percent of our daily diet according to the pyramid above.

WHOLE GRAINS

These are cereal grains that contain cereal germ, endosperm, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. See image of Whole Grain below:

Image: courtesy of wikipedia

Examples of common whole grain are:

    Wheat
    Oat
    Barley - Hulled and Dehulled (not Pearl)
    Maize
    Brown rice
    Farro
    Spelt
    Emmer
    Einkorn
    Kamut
    Rye
    Millet
    Quinoa
    Amaranth
    Triticale
    Teff
    Sprouted Grains
    Buckwheat

The truth is that we can chew and swallow whole grains, but we cannot digest them. because they come with the hard cover which only animals can digest. Today we eat lots of rice, millet and wheat, but all of these are refined foods. They have been processed and the brown cover has been removed. We only eat the ENDOSPERM (see image above) The imported rice we eat has been parboiled for preservation. Most people in western africa take millet in form of the food we know as pap (called ogi by the yoruba race in Western Nigeria). But in the process of making this ogi (pap), the millet has been grinded, soaked in water and the shaft sieved out. The funny thing is that these sieved shaft is thrown out to goats to feed on. The vital nutrients have been thrown away. We need these whole grains but cannot get them. directly from food.

Why do we need whole grains?

Whole Grains contain lipids and sterols.

What are lipids?

Lipids are molecules that contain hydrocarbons and make up the building blocks of the structure and function of living cells. Examples of lipids include fats, oils, waxes, certain vitamins, hormones and most of the non-protein membrane of cells.

What are lipids soluble in?

Lipids are not soluble in water. They are non-polar and are thus soluble in nonpolar environments like in choloroform but not soluble in polar environments like water.

What do lipids consist of?

Lipids have mainly hydrocarbons in their composition and are highly reduced forms of carbon. When metabolized, lipids are oxidized to release large amounts of energy and thus are useful to living organisms.

Where do lipids come from?

Lipids are molecules that can be extracted from plants and animals using nonpolar solvents such as ether, chloroform and acetone. Fats (and the fatty acids from which they are made) belong to this group as do other steroids, phospholipids forming cell membrane components etc.

What are sterols?

Sterols are a group of fat-like substances which occur naturally in the animal and plant kingdom. The most well known animal sterol is cholesterol, the most frequently occurring plant sterols are ß-sitosterol, campesterol and stigmasterol. They have a similar structure to cholesterol. Their basis molecular framework contains a double bond. If this double bond is hydrolysed, saturated plant stanols are formed from the unsaturated plant sterols. Synonyms for plant sterols are phytosterols.

As I have said earlier, The human body is made up of cells about 73 trillion. Our cells are surrounded by special membranes that allow nutrients to get in and waste to get out. if these cellular membranes are starved of vital nutrients (lipids and sterols), they become inflexible and can not perform these critical functions. Wholegrain lipids and sterols allow your cell membranes to become their flexible best, making it easier for nutrients to get in and waste to get out.

HUMAN CELL

Since we cannot get the right lipids and sterols to feed our cells, we need to supplement. The best source of lipids and sterols are: Wheat germ, rice bran and soybeans. With the help of science and nature, the necessary lipids and sterols have been extracted from these three rich sources and capsulated as supplements in what we know as:

TRE-EN-EN

Energises your entire body by helping your cells function more efficiently.

Promotes efficient nutrient utilisation for overall growth and development.

Usage

Take 1-3 capsules daily with meals.

Tre-en-en is the the world's first whole food phytonutrient supplement providing the goodness of wholegrain lipids and sterols in a convenient supplement form. This helps your cells function more efficiently which may result in more energy and vitality.

LISTEN TO THE HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Harvard school of public health nutrition experts highlight the importance of plant-sourced oils (including lipids and sterols) as critical components of the grains layer of USDA healthy pyramid, which appropriately symbolises the importance of wholegrains as the foundation of good nutrition.