Getting the best out of your food

Have you given thought of what you eat and the combination of foods you chow down everyday? Well, according to this article, you should.

A balanced diet is the key to a happier, healthier life, so the mantra goes.

Experts advise us to eat more fruit and veg; boost protein and fibre intake; make sure we get the optimum levels of vitamins and minerals.

But what actually happens to these nutrients once they are inside the body?

Food scientists, working in an area called bioavailability, are trying to answer this question in a bid to discover how people can get the very best out of what they eat.

Toni Steer, a nutritionist at the Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Research Centre in Cambridgeshire, said: "The idea that we absorb everything we eat just isn't true.

"While you may have a certain amount of a nutrient within a food, what is actually absorbed may be less.

"Bioavailabity means how much of that nutrient within a food is usefully absorbed."

But, she says, bioavailability is not set in stone, and researchers are working to find ways of manipulating the levels of nutrients that can be absorbed by the body.

"If people are meeting dietary requirements, all of the nutrients they need are probably being absorbed.

"But for people who suffer vitamin or mineral deficiencies, or for those in developing countries where nutrition is poor, research into bioavailability can be very useful."

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