Traditionally, the study of nutrition has been based on a reductionist approach, reducing a food down to constituent nutrients and then investigating the effects of these nutrients, either singly or together, on metabolism and metabolic outcomes. However, nutrients per se are not consumed by a person, but rather are consumed in the form of foods. Because of this the complex food matrix itself influences nutritional outcomes, which can often not be fully explained on the basis of the effects of “the sum of the nutrients” alone. Nutrient additivity effects, nutrient interactions, effects of food components other than the classical nutrients, effects of the food matrix for both single foods and combinations of foods consumed as meals on the kinetics of nutrient digestion and subsequent metabolism and metabolic outcomes are discussed. It is concluded that a paradigm shift in human nutrition is needed, with more consideration being given to the holistic effects of specific foods and mixtures of foods constitutes meals and diets.
My Take:
Unfortunately, only the abstract is currently available as it is a current publication. However, that gives me a little more space to play.
This holistic concept is not new to nutrition, looking at the whole food was all we understood for thousands of years. It wasn’t until the invention of the microscope in the 1600s and subsequent development of biochemistry as a scientific discipline two centuries later that led to this reductionist view of life.
By the 1920’s, a dentist named Dr. Royal Lee was decrying the decline of our food quality. He purchased land in Wisconsin and began growing crops to produce a food supplement. In 1929, he produced and marketed ‘Catalyn’, a whole food supplement comprised of local grown crops. His ingredients were alfalfa, barley grass, beets, Brussels sprouts, buckwheat, kale, kidney beans oats, pea vine and Spanish black radish.
