Carefully planned nutrition must provide an energy balance and a nutrient balance. The nutrients are:

• Proteins - essential to growth and repair of muscle and other body tissues.
• Fats - one source of energy and important in relation to fat soluble vitamins.
• Carbohydrates - our main source of energy.
• Minerals - those inorganic elements occurring in the body and which are critical to its normal functions.
• Vitamins - water and fat-soluble groups play important roles in many chemical processes in the body.
• Water - essential to normal body function - as a vehicle for carrying other nutrients and because 60% of the human body is water.
• Roughage - the fibrous indigestible portion of our diet essential to health of the digestive system