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← 🫀 Human body · usually met in Std 5-10

Nutrition

Carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, fibre and water — what each is for, and why a balanced plate beats any single food.

A plate with a cereal, a pulse and vegetables
Nick Gray · CC BY-SA 2.0 ↗ · where it came from ↗

Carbohydrates are the body's readiest fuel. Proteins supply the amino acids used to build and repair tissue. Fats store energy densely, insulate, and carry some vitamins. Vitamins and minerals are needed in small amounts but do jobs nothing else can — iron in haemoglobin, calcium in bone, iodine in thyroid hormones. Fibre keeps the gut working, and water is involved in nearly every process in the body.

A deficiency disease is what happens when one of these is missing for long enough: scurvy from too little vitamin C, rickets from too little vitamin D, goitre from too little iodine, anaemia from too little iron. Most traditional Indian meal patterns — a cereal with a pulse, some vegetables, something sour, a little fat — happen to cover the bases well, which is why they survived.

Worth knowing

  • Combining a cereal with a pulse, as in rice and dal or roti and rajma, gives a better amino acid balance than either alone.
  • Vitamin C is destroyed by prolonged heating, so some raw or lightly cooked food is worth keeping on the plate.
  • Salt iodisation is one of the cheapest public health measures ever adopted, and it largely ended goitre where it was used.

Want to see it moving? Search YouTube for “Nutrition” ↗ — we send you to the search rather than to one video, because a link to one video eventually rots.

See also

🫀 Digestion🫀 The heart and circulation🫀 Sleep

🧭 Do not take our word for it

This entry was written for Star Student in our own words — it is a summary, not a source. Here is where the people who actually hold these facts keep them. Go and check.

Your own textbook ↗Balbharati publishes the textbooks free to read online. Your chapter is the thing to check first — an encyclopedia is a summary, and the syllabus is the syllabus. World Health Organization ↗Health facts stated carefully, and updated when the evidence changes.

Last gone through: 1 October 2026 · How these entries are written

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