Introduction 3

Foolish Assumptions
Every book is written with a particular reader in mind, and this one is no dif-
ferent. As I wrote this book, I made the following basic assumptions about
who you are and why you plunked down your hard-earned cash for an entire
volume about nutrition:

⻬ You didn’t study nutrition in high school or college and now you’ve dis-
covered that you have a better shot a staying healthy if you know how
to put together well-balanced, nutritious meals.
⻬ You’re confused by conflicting advice on vitamins and minerals, protein,
fats and carbs. In other words, you need a reliable road map through the
nutrient maze.
⻬ You want basic information, but you don’t want to become an expert in
nutrition or spend hours digging your way through medical textbooks
and journals.

How This Book Is Organized

The following is a brief summary of each part in Nutrition For Dummies, 4th
Edition. You can use this guide as a fast way to check out what you want to
read first. One really nice thing about this book is that you don’t have to
start with Chapter 1 and read straight through to the end. Au contraire, as
the French like to say when they mean “on the contrary.” You can dive in
absolutely anywhere and still come up with tons of tasty information about
how food helps your body work.

Part I: The Basic Facts about Nutrition

Chapter 1 defines nutrition and its effects on your body. This chapter also
tells you how to read a nutrition study and how to judge the value of nutri-
tion information in newspapers, magazines, and on TV. Chapter 2 is a really
clear guide to how your digestive system works to transform food and bever-
ages into the nutrients you need to sustain a healthy body. Chapter 3 concen-
trates on calories, the energy factor in food and beverages. Chapter 4 tells
you how much of each nutrient you need to stay in tiptop form. Chapter 5
details some of the rules on dietary supplements — the pills, powders, and
potions that add nutritional punch to your regular diet.
4 Nutrition For Dummies, 4th Edition

Part II: What You Get from Food

Chapter 6 gives you the facts about protein: where you get it and what it does
in your body. Chapter 7 does the same job for dietary fat, while Chapter 8
explains carbohydrates: sugars, starches, and that indigestible but totally
vital substance in carbohydrate foods — ta-da! — dietary fiber. Chapter 9
outlines the risks and, yes, some newly proven benefits of alcohol beverages.

Chapter 10 is about vitamins, the substances in food that trigger so many vital
chemical reactions in your body. Chapter 11 is about minerals, substances
that often work in tandem with vitamins. Chapter 12 explains phytochemicals,
newly important substances in food. Chapter 13 is about water, the essential
liquid that comprises as much as 70 percent of your body weight. This chap-
ter also describes the functions of electrolytes, special minerals that maintain
your fluid balance (the correct amount of water inside and outside your body
cells).

Part III: Healthy Eating

Chapter 14 is about hunger (the need for food) and appetite (the desire for
food). Balancing these two eating factors makes maintaining a healthful
weight possible for you. Chapter 15 on the other hand, is about food prefer-
ence: why you like some foods and really, really hate others. (Broccoli,
anyone?) Chapter 16 tells you how to assemble a healthful diet. It’s based
on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans created by the U.S. Departments of
Agriculture and Health and Human Services, plus some recent updates from
the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, so you know it’s
good for you. Chapter 17 explains how to use nutritional guidelines to plan
nutritious, appetizing meals at home. Chapter 18 shows you how to take the
guidelines out to dinner so that you can judge the value of foods in all kinds
of restaurants, from the posh white-tablecloth ones to fast-food havens.

Part IV: Food Processing

Chapter 19 asks and answers this simple question: What is food processing?
Chapter 20 shows you how cooking affects the way food looks and tastes, as
well as its nutritional value. Chapter 21 does the same for freezing, canning,
drying, and irradiating techniques. Chapter 22 gives you the lowdown on
chemicals used to keep food fresh.
 Introduction 5
Part V: Food and Medicine
Chapter 23 explains why some food gives some people hives and presents
strategies for identifying and avoiding the food to which you may be allergic.
Chapter 24 is about how eating or drinking certain foods and beverages may
affect your mood — a hot topic these days with nutrition researchers.
Chapter 25 tells you how foods may interact with medical drugs — an impor-
tant subject for anyone who ever has taken, now takes, or ever plans to take
medicine. Chapter 26 tells you how some foods may actually act as preven-
tive medicine or relieve the symptoms of certain illnesses ranging from the
horrible-but-not-really-serious common cold to the Big Two: heart disease
and cancer.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Could there even be a For Dummies book without The Part of Tens? Not a
chance. This part (Chapters 27, 28, and 29) provides ten great nutritional
Web site addresses, lists ten common foods with near-magical status, and
last — but definitely not least — lays out ten easy ways to cut calories
from food.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are a handy For Dummies way to catch your attention as you slide your
eyes down the page. The icons come in several varieties, each with its own
special meaning:

Nutrition is full of stuff that “everybody knows.” This masked marvel clues
you in to the real facts when (as often happens) everybody’s wrong!

This little guy looks smart because he’s marking the place where you find def-
initions of the words used by nutrition experts.

The Official Word icon says, “Look here for scientific studies, statistics, defini-
tions, and recommendations used to create standard nutrition policy.”