A fat is a waxy, oily substance and is essential for good health.
Fat has double the amount of calories and so poses a problem to
individuals who find it difficult to exercise.
If you break down a fat you break it down into something called a
fatty acid and glycerol.
Proteins are made up of chains of amino acids and are necessary
for your body to build enzymes, antibodies and haemoglobin.
When you eat protein, your body breaks the protein down into
amino acids and then tries to re-assemble them into other
configurations to make other needed proteins for use around the
body.
Carbohydrates, fats and protein can all be broken down into
smaller units.
Each one of those macronutrients can be sub-divided. In the case
of proteins, proteins are made up of amino acids. Not all proteins
have the eight essential amino acids that the body needs. If you
are consuming protein and you miss out the essential ones for
long periods of time, you are putting yourself at risk of becoming
malnourished. In some cultures around the world where food
isn’t so plentiful, children can become malnourished and develop
diseases such as Kwashiorkor. The children have the distended
tummies, however the rest of their bodies are fine, this
unfortunately is caused by a protein deficiency.
Scientists can actually measure the quality of nutrients that
people are getting. People will volunteer to be involved in a
clinical feeding trial and they will hook these people up to all
kinds of measuring devices to measure everything from body
temperature to how much moisture they exhale.
They weigh and eliminate brine in their feces and record
everything they can about these patients. They will feed these
people a controlled diet – controlling the amount of protein
consumed. They can measure how much is excreted, how much
weight a person gains and basically they can determine how
much of that protein is utilized by the body.
When they do that they can determine the quality of the protein
and the amino acids that makes up the protein. They can
determine how well the body absorbs protein and assign a
number value to the protein as to how well it is absorbed.
Some proteins are absorbed extremely well, an example would be
egg albumin, which is a protein found in the white of an egg
rather than the yolk. The egg white protein has an extremely
high biological availability and all of the essential amino acids in
the right balance.
Gelatin though has many of the essential amino acids however
does not have an amino acid called tryptophan and because it is
lacking - it isn’t considered a complete form of protein. If it is
combined with other sources of protein it is okay.
The bottom line is if you are looking at carbohydrates, fat or
protein, it is important to look at the composition of them. You
can read the declarations of the food labels. Often snack foods
will contain inefficient protein, or protein that does not contain all
the essential amino acids.
It is important to know that all carbohydrates, fat and proteins
are made up of these building blocks and it is important to know
to have a balance of all of these building blocks for good health.
