Chapter 8 – Nutrition

This week’s chapter on Nutrition was pretty fitting since I have been trying to focus a lot more on my nutrition, given that we are all now, for the most part, staying in our homes. I have been learning different healthy alternatives for foods and also just learning more about what I should be putting into my body. Learning nutrition is something I believe is important for everyone and will only benefit people to learn how to eat and treat their bodies. Nutrition allows us to learn what our body truly needs and the relationship it has on our psychological function. As much as I would like to believe I knew a lot about nutrition the truth is that this chapter allowed me to learn a lot about nutrition that I never knew about.

I have never heard about incomplete proteins and complete proteins until reading this chapter. I had learned that incomplete proteins are from plant sources since they are lacking amino acids, while complete proteins that provide all the necessary amino acids. Since a lot of my diet is more plant-based this was something that caught my attention and was alarming. As I read more on this I found out those who have a plant-based diet as long as they are incorporating leafy vegetables and broccoli will provide all the necessary amino acids that your body needs.

As I continued reading this chapter I found myself sticking notes to each page on just things I learned that I wanted to highlight on and explore further to help with my nutrition and keeping a healthy lifestyle. One section I wanted to take my time learning about was carbohydrates. I feel that carbs always get a bad reputation and most people are afraid of consuming carbs. I wanted to just learn for myself how to have carbs in your diet in a healthy way and what that means. I was happy to learn that whole grains is the better option to go but also learned how important it is to have a diet that is high in fiber. These are things I will make sure to factor in when planning meals for the week and allowing my body to have all the healthy nutrients possible to be as healthy as I can be.