Good nutrition and good food
Up to this point we have made no judgments about what is good food and what is bad food. As good scientists, we have simply collected data. At this point we need to analyze the data. In order to do this analysis properly, the students will need a few tools. These tools will consist of the currently accepted nutritional basis of what constitutes a good diet. One of the key pieces of information that students will need is the amount of each nutrient that the human body needs. Most modern Health and Biology books contain a section on the human body and its nutritional needs. If you need more updated information, the FDA has a decent section on nutrition on its website. However, as I did for traditional foods, I am including the basics of nutritional science here.
The human body needs five basic types of nutrients: fat, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals, and water. Fat, like most of the nutrients, comes in a number of varieties. It is digested in the upper regions of the intestinal tract and is used by the body as a source of energy. Carbohydrates can be sugars, starches, or fiber. As sugars or starches, carbohydrates can be a source of energy. However, in most indigenous American diets, carbohydrates contain large amounts of fiber. Fiber is not digested by the human body and it tends to slow down the absorption of the starchy or sugary carbohydrates that comes in the food packages with it. This means that in traditional Native American diets the starches and a few sugars that are eaten are absorbed slowly by the body. Proteins are the building blocks of life. They are made from amino acids. The human body uses numerous amino acids. Given the right ingredients, the human body can manufacture many of the amino acids we need, but there are a few that we can not make. The amino acids that we can not make, we must eat. Meat will contain all of the amino acids that we need. Vegetables will generally contain some of the amino acids that we need. This is what makes the corn and beans combination so important; together they contain all of the amino acids that the human body can not manufactures. Incidentally, avocados contain all of the amino acids that humans need. Humans need small amounts of vitamins and minerals to make certain body parts function. For example, muscles can not contract without calcium and sodium. The diets studied in this curriculum unit tend to have adequate supplies of vitamins and minerals. However, in some inland diets, like the Aztec diet, salt becomes an important commodity. Aside from salt, most of the vitamins and minerals are found in adequate amounts in the foods that are being eaten. This may not be true in the modern teenage diet, however, and it should be addressed with students. Water is the last nutrient. Most Mesoamerican and South American cultures did not drink water, at least not by itself. In these cases water was obtained from one of the corn or chocolate drinks or from the foods, like juicy fruits, that were eaten. Water is essential for human body functions and makes up almost 80% of the human body. Again, this is an area where the modern teenage diet is probably deficient because of the amount of salt and diuretics being consumed.
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