Concept

In the modern world people are accustomed to hearing a great deal about nutrients and nutrition. Words such as
protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals, and fats are a regular part of daily life, yet few people who talk about
these nutrients really know what they are. In fact, these are the basic building blocks of nutrition, whereby animal
life is sustained. Whereas plants can get their energy directly from the Sun and the atmosphere, animals (including
humans) depend on other organisms to provide them with nutrition. These other organisms include plants, which
generate carbohydrates as a result of photosynthesis, as well as other animals that eat plants and thereby build
proteins and fats. Plants also may contain proteins and fats, and both plants and animals contain vitamins and
minerals. These nutrients, consumed in the proper forms and proportions, sustain life and prevent the miseries of
malnutrition—a condition that can involve either under nourishment or over nourishment.

How It Works

Nutrients and Nutrition

In order to live, animals must consume nutrients, of which there are five major classes: carbohydrates,
proteins, lipids or fats, vitamins, and minerals. In addition to these constituents, of course, animal life requires
other materials for its sustenance-water, oxygen, and fiber, which aids in the digestive processing of foods-but
these components usually are not regarded as nutrients.

Nutrition itself is the series of processes by which an organism takes in nutrients and makes use of them for its
survival, growth, and development. The term nutrition also can refer to the study of nutrients, their consumption,
and their processing in the bodies of organisms. Here the general term organism has been used, but for the most
part the present essay is concerned with animal nutrition, or at least the nutrition of primary consumers (animals
that eat plants) and secondary consumers (animals that eat other animals).

Autotrophs and Their Nutrients

By contrast, plants and a few other types of organism are autotrophs, or primary producers in the food web.
Autotroph means "self-feeder," and these organisms are distinguished by the fact that they do not depend on other
organisms as a source of energy. Instead, plants obtain energy from the Sun and carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, and from these materials they build the large organic molecules that they need to survive.

Though plants are the most obvious example of an autotroph, they are not the only ones. In the deep oceans, far
from any plant life, primary consumers depend on phytoplankton, which are microscopic organisms that encompass
a range of bacteria and algae. Nonplant autotrophs may use means different from those employed by plants in
generating their own food. For example, there are certain nonplant autotrophic organisms that live in the deep
oceans near hydrothermal vents, which are cracks in the ocean floor caused by volcanic activity. These organisms,
unlike most autotrophs, do not need sunlight to survive. Instead, they build their own nutrients in a sunless world,
using sulfur compounds found near the vents.

Chemical Elements and Nutrition

An element is a chemical substance made of only one kind of atom, whereas in a compound, atoms of more than
one element are chemically bonded to one another. Unlike compounds, elements cannot be broken chemically into
other substances. There are approximately 90 elements that occur in nature, and many of these elements—but not
nearly all—are important to nutrition.

Elements in the Human Body and Biogeochemical Cycles

Even when we rule out obviously harmful elements, such as lead or uranium, there are still numerous chemical
elements that play a part in the nutrition of living things. This can be illustrated by a glance at the abundance of
various chemical elements in the human body, which include oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Oxygen alone
accounts for a whopping 65% of the human body's mass, and carbon (18%), hydrogen (10%), and oxygen together
make up 93% of the mass in the human body.
A great deal of oxygen and hydrogen, of course, is found in that most useful of all chemical compounds, water. In
this vein, it should be noted that all the elements that take part in biogeochemical cycles, which are essential to
the functioning of Earth, appear in relatively large proportions within the human body. These elements are
hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. (For more about biogeo-chemical cycles and the
elements involved in them, including their proportion within the human body's mass, see The Biosphere.)

Carbon is present in all living things, and its presence in certain forms is key to distinguishing organic
from inorganic substances. Contrary to popular belief, organic substances are not just living things, their parts,
and their products. Something that has never been living still can be considered organic, provided that it contains
compounds that include carbon. (The only exceptions would be carbonates and carbon oxides, two groups of
carbon-based compounds that are excluded from the ranks of organic substances.) As we shall see, carbon, along
with oxygen and hydrogen, plays a key role in nutrition.

Most of the remaining 7% of the body's mass is composed of ten other elements. Among these elements are the
other three involved in biogeochemical cycles, whose names are italicized: nitrogen (3%), calcium
(1.4%), phosphorus (1.0%), magnesium (0.50%), potassium (0.34%), sulfur (0.26%), sodium
(0.14%), chlorine (0.14%), iron (0.004%), and zinc (0.003%). Note that many of these elements are found in vitamin
and mineral supplements that people might take on a daily basis to augment the essential nutrients in their
bodies. There are exceptions, however, such as sodium, of which most people already ingest too much in the form
of salt.

Trace Elements

Generally speaking, it is safe to assume that any element that appears naturally in the human body is healthful as
a nutritional component. This rule of thumb goes only so far, however: chlorine, for instance, is poisonous in large
quantities, whereas in the very small proportions found in the human body, it can be essential to health and well-
being. It is certainly possible to ingest some elements in unhealthy quantities, a fact that is particularly true of
trace elements.

Copper is an example of a trace element, so named because only traces of them are present in the human body. In
tiny quantities, copper is beneficial to human health, but if that small amount is exceeded, the effects can run the
gamut from sneezing to diarrhea. In the proper proportions, however, trace elements are essential: without
enough iodine, for instance, goiter, a large swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck area, can develop. Chromium
helps the body metabolize sugars, which is why people concerned with losing weight or toning their bodies through
exercise may take a chromium supplement. Even arsenic, which is lethal in large quantities, is a trace element in
the human body, and medicines for treating such illnesses as "sleeping sickness" contain tiny amounts of arsenic.
Other trace elements include cobalt, fluorine, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, silicon, and vanadium.

Real-Life Applications

Nutrients

If you glance at the side of a cereal box, or virtually any other food product manufactured in the United States,
chances are that you will see a table listing proportions of nutrients per serving. This is the "Nutrition Facts" label,
which replaced the old "Nutrition Information Per Serving" label in the early 1990s. Both forms of information label
were administered by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with the newer labeling format being
far more extensive in terms of the information it provides.

Usually these tables show the amount of nutrients both in terms of mass (usually rendered in metric components,
such as grams or milligrams) and as a proportion of recommended daily value according to the FDA. These listings
must include information about some components such as calories, fat, sodium, sugars, certain vitamins, and so
on. In addition to these mandatory listings, labels may contain information that the manufacturer chooses to
provide concerning other food components, such as potassium or insoluble fiber.

Today, even fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, which is probably not the first name that comes to mind
when one thinks of healthy eating, provide extensive nutritional information to customers. Additionally, makers of
fast food or supermarket "junk food" such as potato chips have introduced offerings that represent a nod to
nutritional concerns. These include products that are fat-or sodium-free, or are otherwise geared toward greater
health consciousness.

Clearly, diet is a significant concern to Americans, the most well-fed group of people that has ever existed, and
terms from the Nutrition Facts label—proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, and vitamins—are household words,
known to almost everyone but understood by only a few. In much of the remainder of this essay, we explore these
concepts, discussing what they mean in very basic scientific terms, as well as in terms of their significance in the
diets of humans and other animals.