Nutritive and Non-Nutritive Components of Diet

5.3 Nutritive and Non-Nutritive Components of Diet

Food is a basic requirement of every individual: it helps develop the body, supplies energy for physical work, and supports growth and development. The foods we eat contain a large number of nutrients that the body needs in a balanced diet. Some of these are nutritive components — the carbohydrates, fats and proteins that carry nutritional value — while other components of the diet have no nutritional value at all. The sections that follow look at these non-nutritive com …