Nutrition For Dummies

**About This Book**

Nutrition For Dummies, 4th Edition, doesn’t aim to send you back to the classroom,
sit you down, and make you take notes about what to put on the table
every day from now until you’re 104 years old. You’re reading a reference
book, so you don’t have to memorize anything — when you want more info,
just jump in anywhere to look it up.
Instead, this book means to give you the information you need to make wise
food choices — which always means choices that please the palate and soul,
as well as the body. Some of what you’ll read here is really, really basic:
definitions of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and — can
you believe this? — plain old water. You’ll also read tips about how to put
together a nutritious shopping list and how to use food to make meals so
good you can’t wait to eat them.
For those who know absolutely nothing about nutrition except that it deals
with food, this book is a starting point. For those who know more than a little
about nutrition, this book is a refresher course to bring you up to speed on
what has happened since the last time you checked out a calorie chart.

For those who want to know absolutely everything, this 4th edition of Nutrition
for Dummies book is UP TO DATE, with hot new info from the 2005 revisions
of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, new recommended daily allowances
for all the nutrients a healthy body needs, plus all the twisty “this is good for
you” and “this is really, really rotten” bits and pieces of food info that nutrition
scientists have come up with since, well, the last edition.

**Contents at a Glance**

Introduction .................................................................1
Part I: The Basic Facts about Nutrition ..........................7
Chapter 1: What’s Nutrition, Anyway?.............................................................................9
Chapter 2: Digestion: The 24-Hour Food Factory.........................................................19
Chapter 3: Calories: The Energizers...............................................................................29
Chapter 4: How Much Nutrition Do You Need? ............................................................45
Chapter 5: A Supplemental Story ...................................................................................55
Part II: What You Get from Food..................................67
Chapter 6: Powerful Protein............................................................................................69
Chapter 7: The Lowdown on Fat and Cholesterol........................................................81
Chapter 8: Carbohydrates: A Complex Story................................................................97
Chapter 9: Alcohol: Another Form of Grape and Grain .............................................113
Chapter 10: Vigorous Vitamins .....................................................................................125
Chapter 11: Mighty Minerals.........................................................................................149
Chapter 12: Phabulous Phytochemicals......................................................................169
Chapter 13: Water Works...............................................................................................175
Part III: Healthy Eating ............................................185
Chapter 14: Why You Eat When You Eat......................................................................187
Chapter 15: Why You Like the Foods You Like ...........................................................197
Chapter 16: What Is a Healthful Diet? ..........................................................................209
Chapter 17: Making Wise Food Choices ......................................................................221
Chapter 18: Eating Smart When Eating Out ................................................................237
Part IV: Food Processing ...........................................247
Chapter 19: What Is Food Processing? ........................................................................249
Chapter 20: Cooking and Nutrition ..............................................................................261
Chapter 21: What Happens When Food Is Frozen, Canned, Dried, or Zapped.......279
Chapter 22: Better Eating through Chemistry ............................................................289

Part V: Food and Medicine ........................................299
Chapter 23: When Food Gives You Hives ....................................................................301
Chapter 24: Food and Mood..........................................................................................309
Chapter 25: Food and Drug Interactions .....................................................................317
Chapter 26: Using Food as Medicine............................................................................325
Part VI: The Part of Tens ...........................................335
Chapter 27: Ten Nutrition Web Sites............................................................................337
Chapter 28: Ten (Well, Okay, Twelve) Superstar Foods.............................................345
Chapter 29: Ten Easy Ways to Cut Calories ................................................................355
Index .......................................................................359