What is the difference between food and nutrient?

Often we tend to believe that the terms food and nutrient are synonymous, and they have been popularly used in this way. However, at the nutritional level, they have different meanings; do you want to clarify the picture to speak more correctly? Here we explain the difference between food and nutrient.

Steps to follow:

1. Nutritionally speaking, food and nutrient are not the same. The food is the set of products that living things we eat and drink for energy, function properly and be alive. It is about all those substances that we receive to nourish ourselves.

2. Instead, nutrients are part of food. It is the compound that is used by our cells and metabolized by the body to take all the contributions it offers to our body. Nutrients are essential to perform all our vital functions properly, as they become the calories necessary for the body to function properly.

3.But nutrients are not only present in food. Nutrients are also called all those chemical compounds or elements that are necessary for the organism of any living being to function well. Not all nutrients are obtained from food; some of them can come, for example, from vitamin complexes.

4.For living beings such as plants, nutrients are elements such as water, oxygen or minerals, while for us they would be vitamins such as A , those of the B complex , C , among others, and minerals such as calcium or iron .

5.An important aspect that you must take into account when differentiating between food and nutrient is that although nutrients are contained in food, not everything we eat or drink has nutrients. Some foods such as sweets, pastries or soft drinks lack nutrients for our body.