All living things need food to survive. It gives us energy for everything that we do. It also gives the body what it needs to repair muscles, organs and skin. Food helps us fight off dangerous diseases.
It is important to eat a wide range of food in order to stay healthy. Nutrition is the science that deals with food and how the body uses it.
How the body uses food
Food has nutrients in it— substances that give our body many important things that we need. They provide us with energy and also help control the way our body grows.
Before nutrients can go to work food must be broken down so that they can pass into our body. This is called digestion. It starts when we chew the food that we eat. When we swallow it it travels on to the stomach where it is mixed together with water and other fluids. Then the food is passed on to the 
intestine. Nutrients escape through the walls of the intestine into our blood. From there they are carried to all parts of the body.
Most food leaves waste that the body cannot use. Some of it goes to the kidneys and turns into urine. The liver also filters out waste. What is left over passes through the large intestine and leaves our body.
Nutrients
There are six main groups of nutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and water. The energy that food gives us is measured in kilocalories, or one thousand calories. A calorie is the energy that is needed to raise the temperature of water by one degree Celsius.
Sources from: http://www.english-online.at/health_medicine/nutrition/nutrition-how-the-body-uses-food.htm
Words
- ability = power
- according to = as shown by something or someone
- acid = chemical substance that has a pH of less than 7; strong acids can burn your skin
- although = while
- amino acid =one of the substances that combine to form protein
- amount =how much of something
- arise = come up
- artery = one of the tubes that carries blood around in your body
- bean = seed that comes from a climbing plant and which can be cooked as food
- beware = be careful of; watch out
- block = stop ; not let through
- blood pressure = the power with which blood travels through your body
- blood vessel = tube through which blood flows
- break down = here: to make smaller
- building block = the parts that make it possible for something to exist
- cancer = a very dangerous disease in which cells start to grow in an uncontrolled way
- carbon = chemical that is in coal or diamonds
- cell membrane = cell wall that separates the inside from the outside of a cell
- cereal = breakfast food made from wheat or corn; mostly eaten with milk
- chew = to bite food a few times before swallowing it
- complex = complicated
- component = part
- constant = regular, stable
- dairy products = food that is made from cows
- deal with = is about
- deficiency disease = illness in which you do not get enough of a certain kind of food or vitamins
- developing country = poor country of the Third World
- diet = the food that you eat
- disease = illness
- exercise = to do sport and move your body so that you stay healthy
- fatty acid = an acid that the cells in your body need to use food
- fiber = part of the plants that you eat but cannot digest; they move through your body quickly
- fight off = to keep away
- fluid = liquid, juice
- grain products = food from corn, wheat or rice
- growth = in order to grow
- hydrogen = colorless gas that can burn ; if you combine it with oxygen you get water
- illness = disease
- industrialized countries = rich countries of the First World
- inorganic = not from living things
- intestine = the long tube in your body through which food passes after it goes through your stomach
- jam = thick sweet food made from sugar and fruit; you eat it with butter on bread
- jelly = like “jam”
- key = solution, answer
- kidney = one of two organs in your back that takes waste products out of your blood and makes urine
- lack of = not enough
- large intestine = the place where food is changed into waste
- liquid = fluid ; something to drink
- measure = the unit of something
- narrow = not wide
- nutrition = getting the right kind of food for your body
- nutritional value =how good a type of food is for your body
- nutritionist = someone who knows a lot about the right kind of food to eat
- obesity = when someone is so fat that it is unhealthy
- occur = happen
- oxygen = gas that has no color or smell and is in the air that we breathe
- pass = travel
- pea = round green seed that is cooked and eaten as a vegetable
- poultry = meat from birds like chickens, ducks and turkeys
- provide = give
- raise = to make something go up
- reduce = become lower
- repair = fix
- saturated fat = type of fat from meat and milk products; it is not as healthy as fats from vegetables or fish
- science = knowledge about something
- seed = hard object that comes from plants
- serving = portion ; the amount of food that is enough for one person
- sparingly = only very little
- starch = food that has carbohydrates in it and that gives your body energy; rice or potatoes have a lot of starch in them
- store = keep in a place
- stroke = if an artery suddenly breaks or is blocked so that blood cannot go through any more
- substance = material
- survive = to live on
- swallow = to make food go down your throat
- trace element = a chemical element that your body needs only a little of
- urine = the yellow liquid that comes out of your body
- variety = many different kinds of
- various = different
- vegetable oil = oil from plants and vegetables
- waste = material that you cannot use any more
- watery solution = a liquid like water
- waxy = made of wax
- weight = how heavy you are
- wide range = many different types of
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