Читать книгу Nutrition For Dummies - Carol Ann Rinzler - Страница 68

All food provides calories. All calories provide energy. But some foods are said to give you empty calories. This term has nothing to do with the energy the calorie provides. It simply describes a food whose protein, fat, and carb calories come “naked” without the additional nutrients such, as dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals, that improve the nutrition value of the foods on your plate.

The best-known empty-calorie foods are table sugar and ethanol (the kind of alcohol found in beer, wine, and spirits). On their own, sugar and ethanol give you energy — but no nutrients. (See Chapter 8 for more about sugar and Chapter 9 for more about alcohol.)

Of course, sugar and alcohol are often found in foods that do provide other nutrients. For example, sugar is found in bread, and alcohol is found in beer — two very different foods that both provide calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, sodium, and B vitamins.

In the United States, some people are malnourished because they can’t afford enough food to get the nutrients they need. The school lunch program started by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 and expanded by almost every president, Republican and Democrat, since then has been a largely successful attempt to prevent malnutrition among poor schoolchildren.

Some Americans live in “food deserts,” places where fresh produce and healthier options are just not available — or available but at really high prices.

Many other Americans who can afford enough food are malnourished because they simply don’t know how to choose a diet that gives them nutrients as well as calories. For these people, eating too many foods with empty calories may cause significant health problems, such as weak bones, bleeding gums, skin rashes, mental depression, and preventable birth defects. Too many empty calories may also lead to obesity, an epidemic in current American society and, increasingly, around the world, which I outline in Chapter 4.