NUTRIENTS VERSUS FOOD GROUPS

Read this if you want to clarify the difference between nutrients and food groups.

Essential nutrients are compounds that the body can’t make or can’t make in sufficient quantity. These nutrients must come from food, and they’re vital for disease prevention, growth, and good health. There ares six groups of essential nutrients: protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and water. (Sometimes we say 5 groups plus water).

We put food that have the same main nutrients together, making food groups. We are going to see five basic groups, that contain lots of different foods: Carbohydrates and fibre, Fruit and vegetables, Proteins and iron, Dairy products and Fats. 

We can represent them in different ways (food pyramid, food plate) to show how many of each we should eat. You can find more food groups if the classification is more precise.