USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (R.13)

The Importance of Nutrition

Our days go by, proceeding in a pattern without presenting ample opportunity for new decisions concerning our nutrition. We tend to choose meals on the spur of the moment, often based on what's easy or available.

If the diet has been previously engineered, there is not ample time to reconsider the routine of daily food preparation or selection.

Each food choice we make during the course of a day will influence health for better or worse. These choices, when repeated over years and decades may have major consequences for overall health.

To maintain a certain level of nutritional savvy, occasionally the strategy of choosing our diet and methods of food preparation should be rethought. Dietary goals should be re-evaluated based on changing tastes and the nutritional knowledge which has been made available by recent studies and current scientific data.

These pages attempt to provide a well rounded sampling of currently available information for those who wish to have sufficient knowledge to be able to make intelligent decisions concerning nutrition on a daily basis, even when time is short.

FDA Nutritional Information:

• Guidance on How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Panel on Food Labels
• USDA Dietary Guide for Americans 2000
• Fruits and Vegetables: Eating Your Way to 5 A Day
• Bulking Up Fiber's Healthful Reputation
• A Consumer's Guide to Fats
• Taking the Fat Out of Food
• Healthful Snacks for the Chip-and-Dip Crowd
• Candy: How Sweet It Is!
• Women and Nutrition, a Menu of Special Needs
• Healthy Pregnancy, Healthy Baby
• Keeping Cholesterol Under Control
• More People Trying Vegetarian Diets
• Staking a Claim to Good Health