Introduction to an Developimg Online Nutrition Course

“To repeat what others have said requires education; To challenge it requires brains”  Mary Pettibone Poole

Nutrition affects every living organism from the time of conception (mitosis) to the time of death (apoptosis). To understand the fundamentals of nutrition one has to explore it from the perspective of a single cell;as a cell is the beginning of life and the end of life as we know it. Life is as simple as a single cell or as complex as a multicellular organism where cells are programmed genetically to coordinate the metabolic processes that sustain the wellness and the health of the organism. As organisms become more complex the metabolic process controlled by the cells becomes more specialized, but there still exists, the stem cell which when properly stimulated can rejuvenate the specialized cell line. 

 Nutrients comsumed and digested supply the carbon skeletons, the nitrogen and the energy to maintain the function of the cell and replace it when it is damaged prematurely or dies naturally. So how can something so simple be so complex and difficult to understand with so few direct answers and many diverse opinions? 

Other questions that arise about nutrition are:

·        If nutrition is so important, why do veterinarians and medical doctors know so little about it?

·        Are veterinarians and medical doctors the ones who should be advising us on our nutrition?

The basic answer “Who controls the nutrition of a cell controls the cell” thus has control over its genetic expression, its metabolism, its life and death.

I am not a cellular biologist, but a veterinary nutritionist and I have taken over 40 years to come to this realization. One could say I have developed biases’ over those years,  I prefer to call them preferences based on aquired knowledge and experiences. Through this course and other experiences, I hope to continue to expand my horizon as well as yours when it comes to nutrition

I am nearing the end of my journey; this course I hope will be the beginning of yours into the fascinating yet complex interaction between nutrition and life.

“Education ...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading” G.M.Trevelyan British Historian