Micronutrients consist of three food groups:
Vitamins – are responsible for normal growth, provide proper metabolism, ensure good health and protect against certain diseases. Found in fruits such as oranges, pears and mangos.
Minerals - provide structure in forming bones and teeth and help maintain normal heart rhythm, muscle contractility, neural conductivity, and acid-base balance. Found in foods such as dried fruits, like raisins, leafy green vegetables, like broccoli.
Fibre - essential for healthy bowel function. When fibre passes through the bowel it absorbs a lot of water, so it increases the bulk of the waste matter. This also makes the waste softer and increases the speed and ease with which it passes through the bowel. Found in food plant based foods will contain fibre; lettuce, broccoli.
Nutritional requirements
Nutrients are not taken in the same amount, as this can have affect on your health. The amount of nutrients you need is called nutritional requirements. This may depend on age, sex and how physical you are.
Essential and nonessential
Carbohydrate – For a trained individual you will need 65-75% carbohydrate. For an untrained individual you will need 55-60% carbohydrate. This means for an average woman will need 250g per day and an average male will need 300g per day.
Fats – For a trained individual you will need 15-20% fats. For an untrained individual you will need 25-30% fats. This will equal 70g per day for an untrained female. For an average man will need 90g per day.
Protein – Depending on the individuals sport they may require high or lower amount of protein, for example a weightlifter compared to a marathon will need a greater amount of protein to repair and growth of muscles. So for a trained individual will need 15-25% depending on there sport. An untrained individual will need 10%. This will equal 35g per day of protein for an average female. An average male will need 40g per day.
Common terminology
Recommended daily allowance (RDA) – refers to the amount of each nutrient that a person should consume per day in order to remain .
Estimated average requirements (EAR) - this is the average amount of energy or a nutrient needed by a group of people. They may require more or less than the EAR.
Safe intake (Si) – this is the amount judged to be enough for almost everyone, but below a level that could have effect to your health.
Optimum level – Optimum level takes in accounts people’s lifestyle such as smoking, stress and alcohol. To determine an individuals optimum nutrient intake there will have to go through test and there blood and urine will be analysed.
Sport nutrient P2
The digestive system is made up of hollow organs joined in a long, twisting tube from the mouth to the anus, that help the body break down and absorb food.
Structure of digestive system
We start the journey at the buccal cavity. Your teeth starts breaking the food down by chewing, the salivary glands help by producing saliva, to help your teeth make food soft and easier to swallow. Once you have swallowed it travels down the oesophagus.
The oesophagus is a pipe about 10 inches long, it doesn't just drop right into your stomach. Instead muscles in the walls of the oesophagus move in and squeeze the food through the oesophagus and into your stomach.
In the stomach food spend 2-3 hours mixing with acids. The acids break the food down into smaller pieces so the body can use it. When the food is runny like porridge the stomach gradually releases to the small intestine.
The small intestine job is to breakdown the food so your body can absorb all the nutrients it needs from food vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. The small intestine can not break down the food by itself so it gets help from the pancreas, the liver and gallbladder. They help out by sending different juices to the small intestine. This process takes about 3 hours for the food to become watery and thin. Once watery and thin the villi which are lining the small intestine absorb the chemicals that we need from the food and passes to the blood. The food that the body doesn’t need is passed to the large intestine.
The large intestine is last part of the journey. On its way it goes into the colon, the part of the large intestine where most of the water that is left in the liquid mix is absorbed into the blood. As the water leaves the mix, the waste that's left gets harder and harder until it becomes a solid. When this solid waste reaches the end of the large intestine, it's been there for anywhere from 10 hours up to several days.
Function of the digestive system
Digestion – the digestion is the foods journey, it consist of buccal cavity, oesophagus, stomach, duodenum, pancreas, liver, gall bladder, small intestine and large intestine. All these organs help the body to absorb all the nutrients in to your body.
Absorption – the absorption happens in the small intestine Lining, this is called villi. These absorb the chemicals that we need from the food into the body and pass through the wall of the small intestine and into the blood.
Excretion – is the removal of the waste products that your body doesn’t need it happens in the large intestine.
