IMBALANCE AND DIETARY INTERRELATIONSHIPS IN NUTRITION

One might define, as the optimum goal of the nutritional biochemist, the development of a diet which supplies all nutrients in respect to kind and amount and in proper state of combination for all physiologic processes from conception to the death of the organism. In addition, the adequate diet must contain a minimum of injurious (toxic) tactors. Such a diet would indeed be balanced, and any important deviation downward from the proper amount of a nutrient would lead to one well known kind of imbalance, reflected as. deficiency disease. Since much has been written concerning this kind of imbalance, it will be considered here only incidentally. It is primarily when and where a variety and abundance of foodstuffs are available that one can apply the criteria of a balanced diet as far as knowledge permits. Any situation, whether due to economic, political, geographic or climatic reasons, which limits the food