Diploma in nutrition, food science

and menu planning

Body basics
Summary Notes
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Contents

3 Introduction

What is a registered dietitian?

The importance of good nutrition

5 Plate model

6 Structure and function of your

GIT (Gastrointestinal tract)

The mouth

7 Swallowing

The stomach

8 Intestines

10 Auxiliary organs

Pancreas

Liver

11 Large intestine/colon

12 Microbiota

Conclusion

References

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Introduction
Good nutrition is a fundamental building block for good health. If it were as easy as just waking up one morning
and deciding to ‘just eat healthy’, we wouldn’t be faced with many of the health challenges that many of us deal
with daily. Knowledge is truly power when it comes to nutrition and unfortunately there is a vast amount of
misinformation available to the public. In our nutrition, food science and menu planning course, I aim to teach
you the basics of nutrition with the end goal of being able to apply nutrition principles to your everyday life and
think critically about what you decide to eat. By the end of this course, I want you to have the skills to plan your
own menu for optimal health, whether it is for yourself or if you are doing this for your family because at the end
of the day, everyone can benefit from better nutrition.

What is a registered dietitian?

At this point, you may be wondering what a registered dietitian is? Well, a registered dietitian is a professional
person who translates the science of food, nutrition, and dietetics into easy-to-understand messages in the
service of people―whether this is advice to the individual or to the public at large. Dietitians are medical
professionals who advise both the healthy and sick, at all stages of the life cycle. Dietitians all have a university
bachelor’s degree (and many of us have studied further to get a master’s or even doctorate degrees) and are
registered with their local healthcare professional’s board. We have studied both the theoretical and practical
aspects of nutrition and are qualified to practice medical nutrition therapy. This course will not make you a
dietitian, but it will give you an amazing nutrition education foundation on which you can continue to build and
empower yourself through knowledge. Please take some time to look in your starter pack for a handy document
that outlines the difference between all the various nutrition professionals to learn more and remember that the
facts and concepts that I explain in this course are for heathy individuals and do not constitute medical advice. For
individual recommendation, please consult your medical doctor or dietitian. (Up.ac.za, 2019)

Objectives:
• Why good nutrition is important for each one of us
• Plate model
• Structure and function of the GIT

Objective 1: The importance of good nutrition

Firstly, food and water are essential to life. Without them, you will literally die. Correct nutrition means not only having
enough food, but the right kinds of food as well. This being said, we don’t just want to LIVE, we want to live our best life!

The correct nutrition can be the difference between feeling great and feeling mediocre. I honestly believe that there are
people walking around, thinking they feel okay, but it’s because they are unaware of how good their bodies are designed
to feel.

The food you choose to eat on a regular basis, will either heal or harm you and many of us are in the fortunate position
that we have the choice of what to put inside our bodies.

Throughout this course I will teach you how to eat to feel amazing and live a long and healthy life!

An outdated way of thinking about nutrition was to demonise:

● A certain food (i.e. butter)

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● A food group (i.e. dairy)

● A nutrient (i.e. carbohydrates)

But we now know that this was not the right way to think about food.

We eat food every day in combination with other foods on a regular basis, not in isolation and certainly not as single
nutrients. Therefore, it is called our ‘eating pattern’. By demonising foods, you may cause yourself to spiral into a negative
diet- binge cycle occurs.

• Start a new diet

• Feel deprived
• Food cravings and urge to eat
• Binge
• Feeling ‘out of control’ and guilty
• Want to feel in control again

The diet binge cycle leads to:

● Yo-yo dieting & poor relationship with food

● Diet mentality with distorted hunger and satiety cues
● Health deteriorates and you may lack important nutrients (Pennutrition, 2018)

In addition to this, we need to think about nutrition not only in relation to weight, but in relation to health and wellbeing.
There are many factors that need to be considered when making nutrition choices. Some of these factors were highlighted
by the Association for Dietetics in South Africa in one of their Dietitian’s Week campaigns. (adsa.org.za, 2017) These factors
include but are not limited to:

Image 1: What is your dietitian thinking (ADSA)

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Nutrition is not simple and nutrition answers are never black and white. There are many factors to consider and what is
applicable to one, may not be applicable to another.

Research has shown time and time again, that our eating patterns (no single foods, food groups or nutrients) have an
interactive, synergistic, and potentially cumulative relationship.

They are good predictors of optimal health and are also related to a reduction of risk for certain diseases and can even
prevent early death. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

So, don’t over emphasise or feel guilty for small indiscretions in your diet- focus on the big picture, try your best to eat
healthy foods most of the time and that way and don’t stress about the unhealthy choices you may make some of the
time. Single foods, food groups and single nutrients are all pieces of a bigger puzzle known as your eating pattern.

Healthy eating patterns help to reduce our risk for chronic disease. Chronic diseases are responsible for almost 70% of
deaths worldwide These chronic diseases include but are not limited to heart disease/ stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain
cancers. The rise in these diseases has been attributed to 4 main factors: Tobacco use, the harmful use of alcohol, physical
inactivity, and an unhealthy diet. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

These are all modifiable factors. This means that it is something we have the power to change to improve our health.

Objective 2: Plate model

Image 2: Food-guide.canada.ca, 2019

The reason I want to introduce this to you is because this is exactly what I teach to my patients. Essentially the basics of
healthy eating can be distilled into a basic plate model.

First and foremost a healthy diet contains vegetables.

• When it comes to vegetables, the key is to include a variety of different types, colours, and cooking methods.
• The types of vegetables you will choose to eat will also depend on your personal preference, the availability
in your region and often your culture.

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• Try your best to fill up at least half your plate with vegetables at each meal and remember my motto- ‘If in
doubt, eat more vegetables’.

Don’t sweat the small stuff (remember the bigger picture relating to eating patterns), all vegetables are healthful (so there
is not one that is ‘better’ and one that is ‘worse’). More times than I care to count, people ask me if butternut is ‘good’ or if
carrots are ‘fattening’. I want you to rather think about it this way, do you think there are hundreds and thousands of
people walking around overweight and obese because they ate too much butternut or carrots? Most definitely not! Weight
gain is multifactorial and the types of vegetables we consume will most likely have a minimal impact on our weight, but
consuming a variety of vegetables, regularly can have a maximal and positive impact on our health.

Next up, fill a quarter of your plate with wholegrain, high fibre starches and the other quarter of your plate is filled with
lean and plant based protein foods and lastly, make your drink of choice water (most of the time), or other unsweetened
beverages. (food-guide.canada.ca, 2019)

Objective 3: Structure and function of your GIT

(Gastrointestinal tract)

Inside each one of us are several systems work in harmony to each other to keep us alive.

• We have the digestive system (this is known as the GIT).

• Circulatory system (which is made up of our heart and all our blood vessels),
• Central nervous system (which includes our brain and all our nerves),
• Skeletal system (which includes all our bones, tendon’s, ligaments, and cartilage) and
• Muscular system (which includes our muscles)

Each system is made up of:

• Several organs
• Organs are made up of tissues
• Tissues are made up of cells

We can say that cells are the building blocks of everything in your body. There are many different types of cells, and each
one of them has a different function. But what is amazing, is that is almost every one of us, these cells work together and
that is what keeps us alive and healthy. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

The mouth
You may notice when you think about food, smell it, or see it that your stomach grumbles or your mouth fills with saliva.
These are all normal reactions to food; your body is getting ready for digestion. Once you put the food in your mouth,
mechanical digestion begins with you chewing your food (for interest’s sake, another word for chewing is mastication).
The physical act of chewing your food breaks it down into smaller pieces (making it safer and easier for you to swallow). In
your mouth, the food is moved around by your tongue and mixed with your saliva. There are 3 main salivary glands: The
parotid, sublingual and submandibular.

Some of these medical terms can be difficult but understanding them is easier if you split up the words. For example, sub
means under and lingual relates to the word language. We use our tongue to help us form words (relating the tongue with
language).

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So, sub lingual means under your tongue.

The same goes for the word sub-mandibular. Once again, sub means under and your mandible is your lower jaw, so sub-
mandibular is under your lower jaw.

Your body makes up to 1.5 litres of saliva every day and this saliva helps to make the food particles softer (preparing it for
swallowing) and also contains a small amount of a digestive enzymes that helps to chemically break down some of your
food into smaller components.

Did you know: The concept of the tongue map is a myth! It was previously thought that the tongue was mapped out into
different taste ‘regions’, but as the science of taste evolved, we now know that various taste receptors are quite evenly
distributed across the tongue. This means that you can observe these tastes anywhere on your tongue.

Finally, after all that tasting and chewing, when you swallow, the oesophagus (which is in your throat) then transports the
food from your mouth to the stomach with the motion of a big wave, this wave motion is called peristalsis. (Mahan &
Raymond, 2017)

Swallowing
When you swallow, the food that you will first be pushed against your hard palate by your tongue- At this point, all of this is
happening consciously (so you are aware of this).

Image 3: The anatomy of the throat

Once you swallow, you’ll no longer be aware of the food because the muscles in your oesophagus are not under your
conscious control. Everything that happens from here downwards will happen without you having to think about it.

Your soft palate then draws upwards to close off your sinuses and then your larynx pulls upwards to cover your airway and
pulls your oesophagus open to allow the food to move towards the stomach. The chewed-up food (which is now known as
a bolus of food) travels down the oesophagus into the stomach. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

The stomach
On arrival at the stomach, the mechanically digested bolus travels through the lower oesophageal sphincter which acts as
a gatekeeper to the stomach and if it is working properly, it allows the swallowed contents into the stomach at a constant
rate while preventing the stomach acid from creeping up into your throat.

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Imagine this sphincter as an elastic band. The band should only relax when food is coming down the oesophagus.
Sometimes this band (or sphincter) can malfunction and cause reflux), check out module 3 of the Professional Diploma in
Nutrition to learn more about this.

Image 4: Anatomy of the stomach

Your stomach contains acidic fluid which further helps to chemically break down the swallowed food. The acid in your
stomach consists mainly of hydrochloric acid (HCl), sodium chloride (salt) and potassium chloride. The stomach acid is
incredibly acidic and has a pH of between 1 and 3. The lower the number on the pH scale, the stronger the acid. The acid
and salt continue digestion by starting to breakdown proteins. The acid together with some digestive enzymes (which we
will discuss shortly) help to break down the food into even smaller components. The partially digested food now moves
from the stomach towards the small intestine through another sphincter called the pyloric sphincter. This sphincter is also
like a rubber band and allows partially digested food to slowly move out of the stomach into the small intestine where it
will be absorbed. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

So, up until now the food has experienced mostly mechanical and a little chemical digestion. However, the food is still not
small enough to be absorbed by your body. Going forward your food will pass from the stomach to the small intestine. This
is where much of the final digestion and the absorption will take place.

Intestines
Your intestines (small and large) are folded neatly into your abdomen. We have just learned that the partially digested
food moves from stomach to the small intestine through the pyloric sphincter, but did you know that all this movement
ciuan cause a sound?

When your stomach grumbles, there are two main reasons…

1. It could be a sign that your body is hungry and is asking you for food OR

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2. It could be a sign of your body digesting what you have eaten

In the medical world calls this sound borborygmus.

(Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

The small intestine

The small intestine (plus some auxiliary organs that we will discuss shortly) continue to break down your food and will also
start absorbing it. Don’t be fooled by its name, it is by no means small! It is longer than your large intestine but gets its
name due to its smaller width (in comparison to the large intestine).

Image 5: Anatomy of the intestines

The small intestine is broken into 3 main parts- The duodenum, jejunum, and the ileum.

Most of the final digesting and absorbing takes place in the first 2 parts of the small intestine.

One of the reasons why the small intestine is so efficient at its job in absorbing 90-97% of your food, is that it
has a massive surface area. End to end your small intestine plus your large intestine’s will be about 30 feet (or
9m) long. If we were to open it up and examine the lining (or mucosa) we would discover hundreds and
thousands of tiny finger like-projections called villi. Then to increase the surface area even more, on each villi
are many microvilli. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

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It is all these villi and microvilli that make this massive surface area possible. If we were to unravel the
intestines, villi and microvilli, the surface area would be roughly 345 square feet (or 32m squared), which is
about the same size as a badminton court! Remember, the food you eat needs to be broken down into their
smallest components because eventually all these nutrients need to be absorbed through these tiny structures
and deposited in your blood.

The smallest components of food

Imagine a house. If we break down the house, we will first be left with a few walls and if we carry on breaking
down the house, we will be left with its smallest components, the bricks. We can say that the bricks are the
building blocks of the house. Only when the whole house is broken down into the individual bricks can you
transport these bricks to where you need them in your truck. Now in terms of food, the whole food we eat is
represented by the house. The walls are the partially broken digested foods and the bricks are the smallest
components of the food which are then absorbed into the body and transported by your blood (or the truck) to
your cells.

Other organs in your body assist with the breakdown of your food into its smallest components These are
known as your auxiliary organs.

Auxiliary organs
Pancreas
Your pancreas (which lives right next to the first part of your small intestine/ duodenum) has two main
functions:

1. Secrete an important hormone known as insulin

2. Secretes powerful pancreatic enzymes

Enzymes help our bodies to breakdown larger substrates into smaller products. Interestingly, enzymes are not
only created in the pancreas, they are secreted in various organs.

If you are lacking certain enzymes, you may suffer from health problem. For examples, if you don’t produce
enough lactase (which is the enzyme that digests lactose) you may be lactose intolerant. A quick tip to help you
spot an enzyme easily is that it’s suffix (or the end part of the word) almost always ends in -ase. (Mahan &
Raymond, 2017)

Liver
The next important auxiliary organ we need to discuss is your liver. Firstly, it houses your gall bladder which is a
small greenish structure which holds bile that is created by the liver. Bile is very bitter substance that will work
together with your enzymes to continue to break down your food, specifically fats. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

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Image 6: Anatomy of the liver

Your liver is an especially important organ that performs over 500 tasks. It is the biggest internal organ,
weighing in at a whopping 3.3 pounds (or 1.5kg) and it can regenerate itself. Only 10-20% of functioning liver is
needed for you to stay alive (but without it you will die in 24 hours). Not only does it make bile, but it is your
main detoxification organ (together with your kidneys, lungs, and skin). The liver can store nutrients (like fat
soluble vitamins), transform harmful substances into less harmful substances and excretes whatever the body
no longer wants. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

Large intestine/ colon

Once most of your food has been absorbed, what is left travels to the large intestine/ colon.

The terms large intestine and colon are interchangeable and are essentially different words for the same organ.
What remains when we get to the large intestine is mainly undigested fibre and some fluid. Some of the fibre
remains undigested because unlike ruminant animals (like cow’s), humans do not contain the enzyme to break
down certain plant fibres. Don’t worry, these undigested fibres will still serve a purpose. Before we get into
that, let’s look at the anatomy of the large intestine (please refer to image 5), which is the final part of your
digestive journey.

The large intestine consisting of the ascending colon, transverse colon, and descending colon. This then leads
to the rectum and then the anus (after which the food is excreted). When the remnants from the small intestine
enter the large intestine, it is still relatively fluid. That is because one of the major functions of your large
intestine is to re-absorb excess fluid. (Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

Secrete vs excrete:

SECRETE: the movement of material from one point to another in the body. Thus, your pancreas secretes
digestive enzymes (as they remain in your body to perform a task).

EXCRETE: the removal of material from a living thing. Thus, you excrete substances that you no longer need.

(Mahan & Raymond, 2017)

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Microbiota:
Your large intestine is also home to microbiota. Your microbiota is the name given to the bacteria that live in
your gut. Fascinating that there are 10 times more bacterial cells in your gut and on your skin than there are
human cells in your body.

Remember the undigested fibre? It acts as food for the good bacteria in your gut (the bacteria ferment the fibre
and thus help break it down and extract more nutrients). It is important that we have enough fibre in our diet
because not only does it feed the good bacteria (thus ensuring their survival) but during the breakdown of the
fibre by the bacteria, beneficial substances called short chain fatty acids are created which nourish your gut.

What comes out the other end is whatever fibre is left together with dead bacteria as well as any substances
your body doesn’t need any more like cholesterol and other fats, inorganic substances, and a tiny bit of
proteins.

The smelliness of your stool is impacted by many factors, including your diet, any medication you may be
taking and regularity of stool output.

There will always be a ratio of good bacteria to bad bacteria in the gut. When the bad guys take hold and
proliferate and grow, we call this imbalance dysbiosis. And this can ultimately lead to health problems. (Mahan
& Raymond, 2017)

Conclusion
And with that we wrap up lesson 1 which was geared to help you understand your body better. Now that you
know the ins and outs of your GIT, we can start learning more about the nutrients that we consume daily. Your
next lesson will cover carbohydrates, remember that each lesson in module 1 is a building block towards your
Nutrition foundation.

References
• Food-guide.canada.ca. (2019). Canada's Food Guide. [online] Available at: https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/
[Accessed 16 Aug. 2019].
• GIPHY. (2019). Ray GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY. [online] Available at:
https://media.giphy.com/media/NvSZi4ZX6Y5zi/giphy.gif [Accessed 16 Aug. 2019].
• Mahan, L. and Raymond, J. (2017). Krause’s food and the nutrition care process.
• Up.ac.za. (2019). Human Nutrition - BDietetics. [online] Available at: https://www.up.ac.za/school-of-health-
care-sciences/article/1818703/human-nutrition [Accessed 13 Aug. 2019].
• World Health Organization. (2019). Noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors. [online] Available at:
https://www.who.int/ncds/en/ [Accessed 16 Aug. 2019].

Diploma in Nutrition, food science and menu planning