Diets-Metabolism   [back to the Category]

The various food categories   [read the french version]

Author :   Dr Paule Nathan

The various food categories

You must be able to select the foods necessary for the good working of the organism in order to be able to achieve a balanced diet and to put the best of menus together. Balance is typified by the harmonious intake of the various nutrients that we have looked at. This intake must be such that the body's nutritional requirements are satisfied.

Most foods are made up of several nutrients: yoghurt is a lipo-proteinic food as it contains proteins and lipids (fats), bread is a carbo-proteinic food as it contains glucides (carbohydrates) and proteins, pulses are proteinic-carbohydrate foods as they contain proteins and carbohydrates. A food classification has been produced to simplify matters. It classifies food according to the predominant nutrient: hence, yoghurt is classified as a dairy product, a proteinic, calcium rich food; bread, with starchy foods and cereals in carbohydrate foods; pulses, in carbohydrate foods.


There are 7 such food groups which correspond to the international classification:
Proteins are designated by groups 1 and 2
Proteins participate in the development of the architecture that forms our body and in the replacement of used proteins: they are therefore "builder" foods.

Group 1 includes dairy products: milk, yoghurt, cheese, etc.
These foods provide mainly animal proteins and calcium, variable amounts of fats, vitamins A, B and D

Group 2, protein foods: meat, fish, eggs, seafood, pulses
They provide animal proteins, variable amounts of fats, iron, phosphorous, vitamins A and D. Pulses provide vegetable proteins which have the advantage of a low fat content.
Fats are group 3
Their role is essentially to provide energy; vegetable fats are also involved in the structure of the nervous system, nerves and membranes. They provide the fat-soluble vitamins, namely A, D, E, and K

Group 3 is made up of fats or oils: animal fats (butter, cream),vegetable fats (oil, vegetable fat, margarine, oil nuts, avocado)
Carbohydrates are groups 4, 5 and 6
These are totally different, energy-giving foods which provide, predominantly, carbohydrates.

_ group 4; bread, starchy foods, cereals and pulses (rice, wheat and its by-products, potatoes, sweet chestnuts, pulses, and leguminous seeds)

They provide complex carbohydrates which are released progressively through to the following meal and, also, vegetable proteins, some contain iron, magnesium and B complex vitamins

_ group 5; green vegetables and fruit are essential because of their vitamins, minerals and fibre content.
Fruit juices can be included in this category.
Pulses, cereals, starchy foods, dried fruit and oil nuts are excluded from this category. This explains why it is called "green vegetables", even if some are white like endives or orange like carrots. This category can be separated into raw fruit and vegetables and cooked fruit and vegetables. We emphasize this point to encourage regular consumption of cooked vegetables. Cooking, in fact, makes fibres tender and we can eat much more of a food when it is cooked. For example, we would only eat one raw endive per person, and yet, it is very easy to eat 5 or 6 cooked endives. Moreover, cooked fibre is more tender and helps to maintain regular bowel movement and fight constipation. Raw fibre is more of an irritant to the digestive tract and causes bloating, colitis, and even constipation, if eaten to excess, or, in cases of intestinal weakness. A lot of bloating is caused by over-consumption of raw fruit and vegetables during the summer.

_ group 6; sugar and sweet products: sugar, jam, honey, sweets, chocolate, sweetened drinks

_ group 7: mainly water, stock, herbal teas, tea, coffee, alcoholic beverages


This international classification is the most well known; nevertheless, some foods have an ambivalent classification:
- pulses can belong to the protein food family because of their high protein content or to carbohydrate foods because of their high starch content. We would be inclined to classify them in the protein food category in order to encourage their consumption and diversify the protein intake as animal protein consumption is often linked to an excessive saturated fat intake. Consumption of pulses, subject to decline, should be encouraged as they also provide good amounts of fibre, vitamins, magnesium and trace elements.

_ Oil nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, peanuts, soya, are rich in proteins, and also, rich in fats, they are, therefore, classified as fats because we can exploit their high essential fatty acid content. They are, however, foods with high calorific values: 1 packet of peanuts is equal to a complete meal comprising, a drink, green vegetables, bread, cheese and fruit. The avocado, with its high fat content, is not classified in the fruit category, but in that of fats.

- ham, especially if the fat has been removed, can be left with the proteins, on the other hand, cold cooked meats must be classified in the fats category; the same goes for dairy products, they are protein foods but, I prefer to classify cheese with the fats if not, watch out for your fat intake. We see more and more people confusing proteins with sausage or cheese, resulting in very unbalanced meals, and yet, these people believe that these combinations, cheese-salad and sausage-salad, make for light meals. Cheese consumption is one of the main sources of unbalanced diets and weight gain. It is currently very common to eat a so-called light evening meal of cheese-salad or egg-salad. A meal that is completely unbalanced because of its excessive fat content, and, you can bet that the scales show an increase in weight!

_ Sweetened drinks, with excessive sugar contents, are classified as carbohydrates: they are not, therefore part of the drink group; the same goes for milk which is not considered to be a drink but part of the dairy product group.