Food and Nutrition: Nutrients, Balanced Diet and Meal Planning Across Life Stages
Food and Nutrition carries the heaviest marks in the paper: nutrient functions, sources, deficiency diseases, the balanced diet and meal planning for different ages.
The five-food-group framework
- Cereals, millets and roots - energy, B vitamins, some protein.
- Pulses, nuts and oilseeds - protein, B vitamins, fat.
- Milk and flesh foods - complete protein, calcium, vitamin A, B12.
- Green leafy and other vegetables - carotene, iron, folic acid, fibre.
- Fruits and fats - vitamin C, fat, energy.
Nutrient functions and deficiency
- Carbohydrate and fat supply energy (4 and 9 kcal per gram).
- Protein builds and repairs (4 kcal per gram); deficiency causes kwashiorkor (oedema, after weaning) and marasmus (wasting, under one year).
- Vitamin A - night blindness; C - scurvy; D - rickets; thiamine - beriberi; niacin - pellagra; iodine - goitre; iron - anaemia; calcium - weak bones.
- Water and roughage supply no energy but are essential.
Balanced diet and meal planning
A balanced diet supplies all nutrients in the required proportion with enough fibre and water. Planning rules: meet nutrient needs first, stay within budget, use seasonal and local foods, provide variety in colour, texture and flavour, ensure satiety and digestibility, and respect family likes and dislikes.
Life stages
Infants: breast milk alone to six months, then complementary feeds. Adolescents: more protein, iron, calcium and zinc. Pregnancy and lactation: about 350 extra kcal in pregnancy and 500-600 during lactation, plus protein, iron, folic acid and calcium. Elderly: lower energy, high fibre, adequate calcium, less salt and saturated fat.
Worked example
A low-cost balanced lunch for a 15-year-old boy: four rotis, dal, seasonal vegetable, curd, salad and a guava. Reasoning: cereal plus pulse gives complementary amino acids; curd supplies calcium and B12; guava gives vitamin C, which improves iron absorption from dal; salad gives fibre. Cost stays low because every item is seasonal.
Traps
Fat is a nutrient, not a mistake; a balanced diet is not necessarily expensive; more food is not balanced food; kwashiorkor and marasmus are protein-energy malnutrition, not vitamin deficiencies.