Bern, Switzerland

Food, Nutrition and Health

Master's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: agriculture, forestry and fishery, veterinary
University website: www.bfh.ch
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
Health
Health is the ability of a biological system to acquire, convert, allocate, distribute, and utilize energy with maximum efficiency. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined human health in a broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition has been subject to controversy, in particular as lacking operational value, the ambiguity in developing cohesive health strategies and because of the problem created by use of the word "complete", which makes it practically impossible to achieve. Other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction.
Nutrition
Nutrition is the science that interprets the interaction of nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism. It includes food intake, absorption, assimilation, biosynthesis, catabolism, and excretion.
Health
Healthy does not mean "healthful." Healthy is a condition, healthful is a property. Vegetables aren't healthy, they're dead. No food is healthy. Unless you have an eggplant that's doing push-ups. Push-ups are healthful.
George Carlin, Brain Droppings (1998), p. 120
Health
You must all advance by taking good care of your health. Only by taking good care of your health, you can gain success. The fact is that if your health is not good, how can you do your service? Taking care of your health is as important as any of the other duties of your life. It is your duty towards your body. If your body does not work, how will you function and advance?
Haidakhan Babaji, The Teachings of Babaji, 9 January 1984.
Food
What is sufficient for health is not enough for pleasure. And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the needful care of the body that still calls for food or whether it is the sensual snare of desire still wanting to be served. In this uncertainty my unhappy soul rejoices, and uses it to prepare an excuse as a defense. It is glad that it is not clear as to what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure.
Augustine, Confessions, as translated by A. Outler, Book 10, Chapter 31, p. 197
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