Understanding Macronutrients
This module introduces the four macronutrient topics: protein, carbohydrate, fat and fibre. You learn each one's role in the body, its energy value and its main sources, without hype.
In this module
- You can explain the core jobs of the four macronutrient topics in the body
- You know the energy values per gram (protein and carbohydrate about 4 kcal, fat about 9 kcal)
- You can name the main food sources of each macronutrient
- You understand that no macronutrient is good or bad on its own; what matters is the whole and the balance
What this module teaches
Popular nutrition debates usually begin by declaring one macronutrient guilty: fat in one era, carbohydrate in another. This module takes a different path. It explains, one by one, the jobs each macronutrient does in the body, the energy it carries, and the foods it is found in; it attaches no good-or-bad labels. By the end of the module, you will genuinely understand what the protein, carbohydrate and fat lines on a food label are telling you.
The logical order of the lessons
The module opens with protein, because the building-block idea provides good ground for understanding the other nutrients. It then moves to carbohydrate, the body's primary energy source. The third lesson covers fats, the nutrient that carries the densest energy and attracts the most misunderstanding. The module finishes with fibre, which is technically a type of carbohydrate but earns its own lesson because it is not digested. Thanks to this order, every lesson rests on concepts established in the one before it.
Lessons
- CarbohydratesCarbohydrate is the body's most readily used energy source, and the most debated nutrient of recent years. This lesson introduces carbohydrate without blame and
- FatsFat carries the densest energy and attracts the most misunderstanding of any macronutrient. This lesson explains fat's jobs, types and sources without fearmonge
- FibreFibre is a type of carbohydrate that reaches the large intestine undigested; low in energy, large in effect. This lesson covers fibre's types, jobs and sources.
- ProteinProtein is the body's building material: the raw ingredient of many structures, from muscles to enzymes, immune cells to hair. This lesson covers protein's jobs