{"id":5807,"date":"2021-12-09T20:26:54","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T20:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/nutrition\/the-15-types-of-food-and-their-characteristics\/"},"modified":"2021-12-09T20:26:54","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T20:26:54","slug":"the-15-types-of-food-and-their-characteristics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/nutrition\/the-15-types-of-food-and-their-characteristics\/","title":{"rendered":"The 15 types of food (and their characteristics)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As they say, we are the ones who eat<\/strong>. And although this seems like the typical popular statement that lacks scientific validity, the truth is that the more we progress in human nutrition and the more our knowledge about the role of food in the body advances, the more we realize that this phrase is totally true.<\/p>\n

And it is through the consumption of both solid and liquid foods that we obtain not only the necessary energy so that the more than 30 million million cells that make up our body have the necessary fuel to perform their physiological functions, but also matter to regenerate our tissues and organs.<\/p>\n

And in this context, nutrition is that vital function that allows us to transform food into material and energy that can be used for our physiological functions and morphological characteristics. Therefore, food is, without a doubt, the mainstay of human nutrition. They are substances that, with nutritional properties, after being assimilated and processed, allow our body to maintain its stable vital functions.<\/p>\n

As we well know, not all foods are the same. And thanks to this we have such varied foods that they make eating one of the greatest pleasures in life. But do we know exactly how foods are classified and what food groups exist? If you want to find the answer to this and many other questions, you are in the right place. And it is that in today's article and, of course, from the hand of the most prestigious scientific publications, we are going to analyze the properties of different types of food<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What exactly is a food?<\/h2>\n

A food is all that solid or liquid substance that has nutritional properties and that, when consumed, serves as nutritional support for a living being<\/strong>. Being of animal, vegetable or fungal origin, foods are substances that are ingested and introduced into the digestive system, which will be in charge of processing and degrading these foods into the simplest nutrients contained in them to assimilate them and provide them to the cells of the organism matter and energy to stay alive and functional.<\/p>\n

Each food product provides specific nutrients, which can be carbohydrates, fats or proteins (or a mixture of several), as well as vitamins, minerals, water and even non-nutritive substances, in the sense that they cannot be digested but, like Vegetable fiber does provide benefits at an organic level (in this case, it favors the functioning of digestion since it stimulates the activity of the intestinal flora).<\/p>\n

In this sense, whether it comes from an animal, a plant or a fungus, a food is an organic substance that provides essential nutrients and that can be assimilated and processed by the digestive system<\/strong>, allowing the obtaining of matter and energy for the organs and tissues of the body. And, obviously, the whole world of food is linked not only to the sensitive pleasure of eating, but to all kinds of social, cultural and psychological health aspects.<\/p>\n

Even so, beyond this oversimplified definition, the diversity and variety within foods is immense. Hence, always bearing in mind that each food is unique in terms of nutritional properties, it has been necessary to classify them into different groups to facilitate their study within the Nutritional sciences. And this is precisely what we are going to investigate.<\/p>\n

What food groups are there?<\/h2>\n

As we say, within the enormous diversity of food products, it has been absolutely necessary, in the context of the study of Human Nutrition, to classify foods into different families. And we have done this according to different parameters: their function in the body, their complexity, the foods that predominate in them and their origin. Let us, then, analyze the classes of food according to all these parameters.<\/p>\n

1. Energy foods<\/h3>\n

When it comes to function, food can be energy, builder, or regulator. Energy foods are those whose consumption It mainly gives us energy<\/strong>, having in its composition mostly carbohydrates or fats, the nutrients that provide fuel for our cells.<\/p>\n

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2. Builder foods<\/h3>\n

Builder or plastic foods are those whose main function is not to provide energy, but rather to they provide us with the material that the body needs to renew itself<\/strong>. Thus, they are foods rich in protein and minerals.<\/p>\n

3. Regulatory foods<\/h3>\n

Regulatory foods are those that do not provide energy or matter, but are a source of substances whose consumption makes it possible to have the elements that modulate the body's metabolism<\/strong> and that they exert physiological functions that keep us stable. So, we talk about vitamins and minerals.<\/p>\n

4. Simple foods<\/h3>\n

Simple foods are those that, in their composition, they only have one type of nutrient<\/strong>. It is something unusual, since most of them are complex, but we could include here salt (which only provides minerals) and, if we consider it a food, water.<\/p>\n

5. Complex foods<\/h3>\n

Complex foods are the majority and are those that are made up of several different types of nutrients<\/strong>. For example, fruits provide not only carbohydrates in the form of sugars, but they are also a source of vitamins and mineral salts. Or red meat, which provides both proteins and fats of animal origin.<\/p>\n

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6. Group I foods<\/h3>\n

Depending on the nutrients they provide, the so-called \"food wheel\" has been developed, which distinguishes seven main food groups. Group 1 foods include milk and dairy products<\/strong>. Rich mainly in protein, they are builder foods. They also have an energetic function that depends on the amount of fat they incorporate.<\/p>\n

7. Group II foods<\/h3>\n

Group 2 foods include meat, fish and egg<\/strong>. They continue to have a building function and it is the food group that incorporates the proteins with the greatest biological power, as well as minerals such as iron and vitamins of group B, which are essential for their regulatory function. White meat is healthier than red meat since it has less fat and fish is especially healthy for its supply of omega-3s.<\/p>\n

8. Group III foods<\/h3>\n

Group 3 foods include potatoes, legumes, and nuts<\/strong>. Due to their high content of carbohydrates (and fats, in the case of nuts), they are foods with a mainly energy function, although, due to their contribution of vitamins and proteins of vegetable origin, they are also important in the construction function.<\/p>\n

9. Group IV foods<\/h3>\n

Group 4 foods include greens and vegetables<\/strong>. They practically do not provide carbohydrates, fats or proteins, so they do not have a building or energy function. But, yes, they are a fantastic source of vitamins and minerals, so their function is mainly regulatory. At the same time, many provide fiber, a carbohydrate that stimulates digestion but is not digested, so it does not provide calories.<\/p>\n

10. Group V foods<\/h3>\n

Group 5 foods include fruits<\/strong>. Their regulatory function is similar to those of the previous group, as they are a fantastic source of vitamins. But, in this case, due to its carbohydrate content (in the form of sugars), an important energy function should also be added. They provide carbohydrates in the form of fructose, glucose and sucrose, but their caloric intake is low compared to other groups where these carbohydrates predominate.<\/p>\n

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11. Group VI foods<\/h3>\n

Group 6 foods include cereals, sugar and sweets<\/strong>. Their composition is basically reduced to carbohydrates, so they are caloric foods with a very important energy function.<\/p>\n

Those that we should prioritize are those that provide complex carbohydrates (those that give energy little by little but for a long time), such as bread, pasta, rice, cereals, oats, etc. Those that provide simple carbohydrates (they give energy very quickly but for a short time), such as sweets, cookies, pastries, jam, sugar, flour, etc. they can be consumed, but in moderation. Complex carbohydrates should be the mainstay of our diet and simple carbohydrates should represent less than 10% of the daily caloric intake.<\/p>\n

12. Group VII foods<\/h3>\n

We finish \u201cthe food wheel\u201d with the foods of group 7, where we include fats, oil and butter<\/strong>. They have a mainly energetic function, although also, in the case of healthy fats, a regulatory function. It is important that the diet is rich in unsaturated fats (blue fish, avocado, olive oil, corn, eggs, legumes ...), low in saturated fats (red meat, butter, cream, whole milk, ice cream ...) and the most restricted possible in trans fats (ultra-processed, industrial pastries, cookies, potato chips\u2026). Fats are not bad. They are essential. But you have to eat healthy ones.<\/p>\n

13. Food of animal origin<\/h3>\n

We end with the last parameter, the one that classifies foods according to their origin. Foods of animal origin are all those products that come from a living being of the animal kingdom<\/strong>, something that includes those that are obtained from their anatomical parts (such as meat or fish) and those that, without consumption of morphological parts, are obtained from some part of their life cycle (milk, eggs, honey, etc. ).<\/p>\n

14. Foods of plant origin<\/h3>\n

Plant-based foods are all those products that grow directly from the ground<\/strong>. These are foods that consist of the consumption of morphological parts of organisms from the plant kingdom. This includes fruits, vegetables, vegetables, nuts and, ultimately, all that food that does not come from an animal.<\/p>\n

15. Foods of fungal origin<\/h3>\n

And we end with foods of fungal origin, which consist of all those products intended for human consumption that do not come from an animal or a plant, but from the kingdom of fungi. They are foods that are based on the consumption of the morphological parts of the multicellular fungi of the fungal phylum of the basidiomycetes. In other words: mushrooms. A group of fungi with more than 25,000 species within which there are organisms suitable for human consumption. In fact, there are more than 1,000 species of edible mushrooms<\/strong> and some of them, like the white truffle, are among the most expensive and exclusive foods in the world.<\/p>\n

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