Nutrientelligence

Today I will be introducing micronutrients. The format will be similar to the post I did previously on their bigger and better known, but not necessarily more important (despite their undoubted belief that they are - bloody self centred macros) friends - macronutrients .   So, micronutrients, where do we even start with these little guys. First off lets just underline their importance. Micronutrients - can be defined as 'chemical elements or substances required in trace amounts for the normal growth and development of living organisms'. They are more commonly, and potentially more accurately, known as vitamins and minerals, they are essential for health in a multitude of ways, and compared to macros they are typically consumed in much smaller quantities. Underconsumption of micros leads to malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency which can contribute to a plethora of negative health impacts and chronic disease - as well as death in the longer term. The WHO estimates that mo...

I thought I would write a short personal piece about something which happened in my own life and one of the key reasons I have come to eat the way I eat. This had a major contribution to me becoming even more dialled in to the importance of diet for overall health and well being. Also, hopefully this post may be helpful for anyone else struggling with a similar condition should they happen to stumble upon it. In 2015 I was 25 years old and living in Bristol completing a Master's degree in Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health (somewhat ironically as you will see). It was from around this time, and for around 4 years until I finally figured it out, that I was getting very intense burning rashes on my hands. These rashes would be in oddly specific places on the back of my hands and between my fingers. The rashes were itchy, when I say itchy I mean torturously itchy - so itchy that I used to run them under burning hot water to feel what was a euphoric sensation, like the best...

What are seed oils? Oils are lipids (fats) which are liquid at room temperature. Fats are lipids (fats???) which are solid at room temperature - that's right the language here is difficult as lipids are colloquially known as fats and thus fats are fats is a silly sentence that also somehow makes sense. For fats think butter, lard, etc. For oils think olive oil, sunflower oil etc. Fats (lipids that are solid at room temperature) contain a higher proportion of saturated fatty acids than oils (liquid at room temperature) which makes fats more stable, this being the reason that they are not liquid at room temperature. The reverse is therefore necessarily true about oils - they have a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids thus are less stable and contain less single bonds (are less saturated with Hydrogen) and they are as such liquid at room temperature... Did anyone manage to read that paragraph without their head exploding? Maybe I could have written it better, oh well... Seed ...

I intend for this to be a fairly basic but informative post regarding macronutrients- what they are and what bits of information about each of them are useful to know so that this can be applied practically to one's diet and saved in your nutrition knowledge bank as a tool for making future food choices and plans. Roughly speaking all food can be broken down into constituent macro- (from Greek makros "long, large") and micro- (from Greek smikros "small, little, petty, trivial, slight"... seems slightly harsh) nutrients. This post will focus on the macronutrients.  As I am sure most people are abundantly aware foods are made up of Carbohydrates, Fats and Proteins, these are the 3 macronutrients, the big dogs so to speak. The nutrients big (macro) enough and bold enough to make it on to the back of every food packet across the land, and sea. "But what about fibre?" I hear you ask, well technically not a macronutrient and I will discuss that later, vitami...

Unaware as I may be regarding when or how it first started, what I do know is that I have had a stronger than your average interest in diet and nutrition since I was fairly young. I was never particularly overweight, always verging more on the scrawny side throughout my childhood and teenage years. I struggled a lot with self-image and was always overly self-aware and self-conscious, particularly as a teenager and especially through college and University. When trying to think back to a more nutrition naive mind- one not filled almost to the brim with information, opinions, facts, "facts", evidence, beliefs, contradictions, dogma, teachings, musings, and pure nonsense, the time I could best think to was when I first started University. I would've been 18 at the time, and I was a relatively intelligent guy, not sure about switched on, but as I said had always been fairly interested in being healthy and aware that diet was a key function of this (again no idea from where th...