Food Sources

by : Melly Latifah

Food plays an important role in human life. It is needed by everyone for healthy life : doing the activities, supporting the growth, and maintaining the health. The individual food adequation determine individual nutritional status; without adequate food, people can’t maintain their nutritional status. Furthermore, individual nutrition status determine individual healthy life. So, people must eat food adequatly for healthy life.

We can find the food from many sources. The main sources of food are plants and animals, but we can devide it into ten categories, namely : Sereals, tubers, nuts, vegetables, fruits, fishs, meats, eggs, milk and it’s products, fats and oils. Each food has important role in our body.

Sereals - such as rice, corn, wheat, etc. - and tubers - such as cassava, sweet potato, potato, etc. - are important food sources of human energy. The main role of that foods in our body are produce energy, so that we can do many activities, such as walking, running, working, etc.

Nuts, such as peanuts, soybeans, cashew, peas, etc.; fishs, meats; eggs; also milk and it’s products are main food sources of human protein requirement. They produce proteins in our body for supporting our growth and maintaining our health.

Fats and oils are important food sources of human fat requirement. People need fat for producting energy and some kinds of fatty acid that we need for synthesizing protein.

Milk and it’s products - such as butter, cheese, yogurt and ice cream - are important food sources of protein and fat. Milk is a good food for children that they have been in growing period.

Vegetables and fruits are important food sources of human also because they supply our vitamins and minerals requirement. We need vitamins – such as A, B, C, D, E, K, etc. – and minerals – such as Ferrum, Calcium Yodium, Magnesium, etc.- for regulating our body metabolism. For example, without vitamin K, our body cannot produce membrans that we need for blood clotting; without Calcium, our body cannot form bones.

Base on the description above, we have known that we need energy and many kind of nutrition (proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals) for healthy life. We can find energy and nutrition not only from one kind of food, but from various sources, so that, we need various food for healthy life.