All parts of our bodies – from our muscles and brains, to our hearts and livers – need energy to work properly and that energy comes from the food we eat. Food consists largely of combinations of the three macronutrients, protein, fats and carbohydrates.
A complex journey, that starts when we begin to chew and ends with gut bacteria squeezing out every last usable morsel, breaks it down into microscopic particles that are absorbed by our blood stream and shunted round for use in various bodily functions.
All three macronutrients can be used as fuel for our bodies – and we can even train our inner furnaces to preferentially burn one source more than the other, it’s how high-fat diets such as Atkins work. In order to better understand these concepts, it’s important to have a basic knowledge of protein, fats and carbohydrates, what they do and what the best sources of each are, so welcome to Nutrients 101…