Abstract
Nutrition is one of mankind’s fundamental needs. He has always been on the lookout for the most suitable foods from both a qualitative and quantitative point of view. With the coming into being of the food industry, the number of food products has progressively increased, and in developed countries, the pace of in-novation is continuously on the rise. On the one hand, such a wide possibility of choice has solved the problem of quantity, but on the other, it does not always prove to be useful in making an optimal choice of food in terms of quality. In the past few years there have been in-depth studies on nutrition in order to understand the effects foodstuffs have on the functioning of the human organism, therefore, the two dietary regimes being food and nutrition, are more and more interrelated. In fact, it is no longer enough to know the characteristics of a foodstuff, but it is necessary to follow the route it sets within our organism so as to be able to free those useful substances, and understand if and in what measure they are used for metabolic scopes. Guidelines on nutrition have progressively evolved with time offering some valid help, while taking into consideration a more and more rapid evolution of nutritional studies. If the freedom an individual has as regards food products is greater and greater, it is also true that each choice is reflected on the state of wellbeing with time.
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- 1.
The discovery of vitamins has been subject matter of a succession of errors, due to the fact that their existence was unknown, and also their importance. For example, the discovery of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is linked to a pathology called scurvy that struck sailors who stayed away from land for long periods of time, eating mainly dried or preserved foods. On the contrary, Vitamin C is present in citrus fruit and green leafy vegetables. Those sailors who were affected by that pathology, showed signs of shaking and jerky movements—from where the name scurvy derives—were kept in quarantine, and therefore, their pathology could only get worse, and even cause death. The problem was solved only by administering small quantities of citrus fruit juice. However, we had to wait for 1753 when the scholar Lind realized that lemon juice seemed to be an effective cure, even if it ignored the reason why the vitamins had not been isolated, and nutrition was considered anchored to macronutrients only.
- 2.
In actual fact, the term food not only refers to human nutrition but also animal nutrition. For an accurate definition, see the following paragraph.
- 3.
The Oxford Dictionary defines the term diet as “the food that you eat and drink regularly” and “a limited variety or amount of food that you eat for medical reasons, or because you want to lose weight”, Oxford Dictionary, available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/learner/diet. An analogous definition is found in Cambridge Dictionaries available at: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/diet.
- 4.
It is curious to remember how the word “alunno” (pupil) also derives from the same food etymology, “alere”, in Latin and the person who was raised and fed in a cultural sense, thanks to the care of his teacher (Gianni 1989).
- 5.
The European Regulation (CE) n. 178/2002 includes water in points where values are to be respected as established in article 6 of the 98/ 83/CE directive, save the requisites in directives 80/778/CEE e 98/83/CE.
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Tarabella, A., Burchi, B. (2016). Diet and Nutritional Requirements. In: Aware Food Choices: Bridging the Gap Between Consumer Knowledge About Nutritional Requirements and Nutritional Information. SpringerBriefs in Food, Health, and Nutrition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23856-2_3
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