Explaining the terms: food, diet, meals and snacks, nutrients
Food:
Food is a nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink in order to carry on life and growth. Food has been categorised as carbohydrates, including fibre, protein, fat and vitamins and minerals. Food allows us to keep on living. For example bread contains carbohydrate, meat contains protein, milk contains fat but it depends what milk you take, fruit and vegetables both contain vitamin and minerals. Examples of non food are tea, it has no nutritional value.
Diet:
Diet means the different food types that have been eaten regularly by a person. It doesn’t always mean losing weight. A diet means everything a person has eaten throughout the day. In the UK people might eat 3 meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can also have special diets such as losing weight which means you are reducing your fat on your body. Being more careful with sugar because you are diabetic or because you are anaemic you will need to eat food with iron such as red meat and green vegetables.
Meals and snacks:
A snack is a portion of food which is smaller than a meal. Snacks are eaten between meals. Snacks designed to be small, quick and enjoyable. For example you have snack and jacks it doesn’t contain fat or fruits such as bananas or apples.
You eat a meal 3 times a day which are breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is reasonable amount of food in a day.
Nutrients: The process by which people take in food and use it for growth and repair. Examples of nutrients are: protein which you can find in fish, fat which you can find in milk, carbohydrate which you can find in bread or pasta and minerals which you can find in spinach.
Malnourished and undernourished:
Malnutrition is a serious condition that comes when a person’s diet does not have enough nutrients to meet the expectations of their body. This can affect the growth, your physical health, mood and behaviour. Being