1. What Constitutes Nutrition (Definitions And Concepts)

Conventional attitudes regard nutrition as being almost exclusively involved with foods and feeding, but this is only one facet of the nutritional scene (albeit an important one). At the outset it is prudent to define what nutrition is and, in view of the many misconceptions, what nutrition is not.

1.1 Nutrition Is the Sum of All Processes That Promote Growth and Function

Nutrition does not mean food only. Nutrition is the sum of all the processes that supply, develop and sustain an organism's faculties and functions at the optimal level of existence. In short, nutrition is the total of all that supplies life's needs. It embraces all requirements for perfect health and supplying these requirements constitutes nutrition.

1.2 Nutrition Is Modified By the Entire Spectrum of Life Conditions and Activities

The sum of nutritional processes adds up to our health quotient; that is, our state of health equals the total of the nutritional processes that created it.

Anything that modifies nutrition or the processes of supply and usage also modifies health. Everything we get involved in or do in all spheres of life affects in some way our nutritive disposition, either for the better, for the worse or equivalently.

With respect to foods and feeding, we have specific adaptations for acquiring and processing particular foods to meet our nutritive needs. Anything that changes in the whole process affects our nutrition and, consequently, our health.

Because of its importance, we re-emphasize: Nutrition is largely dependent upon our health and, likewise, our health is dependent on nutrition.

1.3 Nutrition Involves the Processes of Growth, Development, Supply and Invigoration

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton has defined nutrition as follows:

Perfect nutrition is dependent on perfect organs, perfect functions and normal health. Each is dependent upon and grows out of the other. All processes and functions are interdependent and interact harmoniously for mutual well-being. They cannot be taken apart and categorized. Every aspect of life is but a part of a unified whole.
This idea of interdependence and interaction leads to the principle that the appropriate way to recover and develop strength and vigor is through the activities and processes that give rise to growth. We recover arid develop strength and vigor in the same way that we keep well, in the same way that a babe grows into vigor and adulthood. The powers and forces that brought us into being, that sustain us in existence, that cause us to grow through all the phases of life to manhood and womanhood, are sufficient to restore us if health becomes impaired.