Preface
Diet, nutrition, and people's lives are closely related, and reasonable nutrition is the foundation of health. With the development of China's social economy and the improvement of people's living standards, people have increasingly valued nutrition and health. Scientific eating, reasonable nutrition, and promoting health have become basic social needs. However, currently, Chinese residents have limited knowledge of nutrition, and there is a severe shortage of nutrition professionals. To widely popularize nutritional knowledge, improve the overall nutritional quality of the population, and cultivate professional nutritional technicians has become an urgent need in our society.
The Chinese Nutrition Society, as a professional academic institution for nutrition in China, has significant advantages in its discipline and expert resources. It is therefore its responsibility to cultivate professional talent in the field of nutrition for society. To promote the development of the country's professional nutritional technical teams and meet the societal demand for professional nutritional talent, the Chinese Nutrition Society has initiated nationwide training and certification programs for nutritionists.
"The Training Manual for Chinese Nutritionists" is a dedicated textbook for those participating in the training, and also serves as a reference manual for individuals working in the fields of nutrition and food science. The content includes eight sections: Basic Nutrition, Food Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Population Nutrition, Public Nutrition, Nutritional Deficiency and Excess, Disease Nutrition, Nutritional Fortification and Health Foods, as well as Food Processing and Cooking.
This textbook was compiled and reviewed by dozens of experts from related fields across the nation, ensuring strong scientific rigor. Considering the practical needs of nutritional work in China, sections on nutritional fortification, health foods, food processing, and cooking have been added. The content is richer and more comprehensive than general textbooks on nutrition and food hygiene, making it highly practical.
This textbook was written according to the needs of training nutritionists, suitable for readers with a college degree or higher. For assistant nutritionist training, selected parts of the textbook will be taught and read. Therefore, we have also prepared teaching and examination outlines for both nutritionists and assistant nutritionists, specifying the exact requirements for different levels of training, helping instructors and students grasp the key points of teaching and learning.
Due to the relatively rushed compilation time and limited expertise of the authors, flaws and errors are inevitable. Especially since this textbook has not yet been tested in practice, many shortcomings will surely be discovered during actual training. We hope that all instructors and students will kindly provide feedback to help this textbook gradually improve.
Compiled by
July 20th, 2005
First Chapter: Basic Nutrition
The term "nutrition" has been commonly used, but its precise definition may not be accurately understood. In Chinese, "ying" means to seek, and "yang" refers to nourishing life or maintaining health. Together, they should mean seeking nourishment for life. More precisely, nutrition can be defined as the process by which the body acquires food, digests, absorbs, and metabolizes it, using beneficial substances from food to construct tissue organs, satisfy physiological functions, and meet the needs of physical activity. The study of nutritional issues in humans and other organisms is called nutrition science.
In the process of life activities, humans need to continuously acquire food from the external environment, obtaining nutrients required for life activities. These nutrients are referred to as "nutrients" in nutrition science.
The nutrients required by the human body include five major categories: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, minerals, and vitamins. Among these, nutrients that cannot be synthesized within the body and must be obtained from food are called essential nutrients. These include nine amino acids: isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, valine, histidine; two fatty acids: linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid; carbohydrates; seven macronutrient elements: potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, chlorine; eight trace elements: iron, iodine, zinc, selenium, copper, chromium, molybdenum, cobalt; fourteen vitamins: vitamin A, D, E, K, B1, B2, B6, C, niacin, pantothenic acid, folic acid, B12, choline, biotin; plus water, totaling over forty types.
Among these, carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins are needed in large quantities and occupy a significant proportion of the diet, known as macronutrients; while minerals and vitamins are needed in smaller amounts and thus occupy a smaller proportion of the diet, known as micronutrients. Among the minerals, seven that are present in larger amounts in the body are called macronutrient elements, and eight that are present in smaller amounts are called trace elements.
These nutrients serve three primary functions in the body: providing energy required for life, labor, and cellular function; supplying building materials for constructing and repairing bodily tissues; and providing regulatory substances to adjust the body’s physiological functions. Given these three roles, nutrients are fundamental to health, serving as the material basis for good health.
To guide residents towards proper nutrition and balanced diets, many countries have established Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs). RDAs are essentially reference values proposed to prevent deficiency diseases, without considering the prevention of chronic diseases or the risks of excess. As such, in recent years, countries like the United States and Europe have introduced dietary nutrient recommendations...