B1: You are what you eat notes:

2.23: Understand that a balanced diet should include appropriate proportions of carbohydrate, protein, lipid, vitamins, minerals, water and dietary fibre.

Nutrition: Nutrients supply your body with energy and the substances that it needs to grow and to stay healthy. These include fats carbohydrates and proteins. Carbohydrates and fats are used as fuel to keep the body going. When you exercise, you burn carbohydrates first, and then fat. Protein is used to build new parts of the body as well as build old parts. Vitamins and minerals als play a role in keeping your body healthy. Calcium builds strong bones and Vitamin E is good for the skin. There are many other vitamins and minerals such as iron, magnesium, zinc, vitamin B, etc. As you can see, grains are the most important food source for providing energy as they contain lots of carbohydrates which your body can easily convert to energy. Vegetables are a good source of vitamins and minerals. Fruits are rich in vitamins and fibre. Fats contain more calories than any other nutrient. A balanced diet is one that includes foods from each of these food groups every day.

2.24: Recall sources and describe functions of carbohydrate, protein, lipid (fats and oils), vitamins A, C and D, and the mineral ions calcium and iron, water and dietary fibre as component’s of the diet.

Fats (lipids): Fat is a very important part of our diet as it carries more energy than any other nutrient. Nutrients (like fat) are substances in food that our body uses in energy and proper cell function. Fats are made up of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. When your body digests fats, it breaks down into 2 substances: Fatty acids and glycerol. Glycerol is used to make glucose, the main form of fuel in your body. Your body uses the energy from carbohydrates and fats to maintain body temperature, contract muscles and to construct and repair tissues. Muscles use fatty acids as a source of energy. However, too much fat isn't good for you. Consuming too much fats gives your body more glucose than it needs. If you don't do too much exercise, the body is unable to burn the glucose (through physical activity) and insetad, sits there in your stomach. When that happens, excess glucose in your blood gets converted into body fat.

Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates are nutrients. These are substances which your body uses for energy and proper cell function. Your body uses carbohydrates to store and transport energy. There are 2 types of carbohydrates: Simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Sugars are simple carbohydrates because they are the simplest carbohydrate molecules. Glucose is the simplest form of sugar. It is the most important 'fuel' in both plants and animals. Candy and other sweets contain sucrose, which is basically table sugar. Fructose comes from food and lactose comes from milk. Complex carbohydrates go into 2 groups. 1 is the starches which are 'chains' of sugars. Foods like bread, pasta, corn and potato all contain starch. The other…