Personal Nutrition Analysis

Nutrition should be an important part of everyone’s lives. It is the process of obtaining the food necessary for health and growth, meaning everyone in the world needs to pay attention to their personal nutrition, in order to live their best possible lives. Good nutrition contains the proper amounts of the six food groups: grains, fruits, vegetables, meat and beans, dairy, and oil; each and every day. First and foremost, there is the grains food group. Any food made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley or another cereal grain is a grain product. There are two subgroups to grains- whole grains and refined grains; at least half of all grains consumed should be whole grains, if not more. Dietary fiber, several B vitamins, iron, and magnesium

Any fruit or 100% fruit juice fits into this category, including canned, fresh, dried, or frozen fruits. Fruits provide many under-consumed nutrients, including potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin C, and folate (folic acid). These nutrients help maintain a healthy blood pressure, keep cholesterol down, and boost healing and growth. My personal goal for daily fruit intake is two cups, which I find it very easy to meet. This was often the only category I would be able to meet my goal for when tracking my food. Improving my diet in this food group would involve getting my fruit from reducing the amount of fruit juice that I drink, instead swapping it out for a variety of fresh

This includes vegetables and vegetable juice of all types, separating the different types into five subgroups: dark-green vegetables, starchy vegetables, red and orange vegetables, beans and peas, and other vegetables. Vegetables provide vitamins A and C, folate, dietary fiber, and potassium. None have any cholesterol, and vegetables overall reduce the risk for heart disease and certain cancers. For my individual diet, I am supposed to eat three cups of vegetables a day. This is a goal that I sometimes meet, but most of the time do not. To improve my vegetable consumption, I should include them as snacks or within meals, in order to increase the amount of vegetables that I eat overall. Equally as important as the others is the meat and beans food group. The foods in this division provide protein to the body. In addition to this protein meat and beans provide B vitamins, vitamin E, iron, zinc, and magnesium, which help build bones, muscles, skin, cartilage, and blood. In my own daily meal plan I am set to eat six ounces of protein foods a day. I generally do not reach this goal. I could fix this by eating more meat, seafood, poultry, nuts, seeds, beans, or peas. Increasing the amount of protein foods that I eat would also help my body build enzymes, hormones, and