The foods you eat are actually fuel and building materials for your body. As a result, your health depends on the kinds of food you eat. These foods go to the nerve cells, bone cells, muscle cells, and all the other cells of the body. These types of cells, however, need different kinds of foods. You must, therefore, eat foods that give the most benefit to all the cells of your body.
The study of nutrition reveals how the body uses food in growth, development, and repair. An understanding of nutrition also shows how foods with low nutritional value can be harmful to human health. In the last 50 years, nutritionists, or scientists who study nutrition, have mode many advances. For example, they have discovered the sources and functions of many substances.
In addition to eating nutritious foods in proper amounts, good health involves the ability to resist sickness, cope with stresses, and exercise without tiring easily. Maintaining the proper weight and getting adequate rest and sleep are also necessary for good health.
Proteins
Every living plant or animal cell contains proteins. Proteins help build and repair tissues. They also aid in the making of enzymes, some hormones, and antibodies. If other nutrients are not available, proteins can be used to provide energy.
Proteins are large molecules that contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and several other elements. Each protein molecules is made up of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The kind and number of amino acids very from one protein to another. About eight amino acids must be in the diet of almost all animals. These are called essential amino acids. Those amino acids that can be synthesized in the body without being present in food are called nonessential amino acids.
Some foods supply not only the essential amino acids, but also other substances that can be used to make the nonessential amino acids. These foods, such as soybeans, milk, eggs, fish, and lean meat, are called complete protein foods. Foods that supply only some of the amino acids needed in a balanced diet are called incomplete protein foods. Rice, potatoes, and corn are examples of in complete protein foods.
Vitamins
Each of the four basic food groups contains organic substances called vitamins. The body cannot make vitamins, and no single food contains all the vitamins that the body needs. As a result, the body must get its vitamins from a variety of foods.
Needed only in very small amount, vitamins perform many complex functions. They help to regulate the body processes, promote growth, and aid in the general upkeep of the body. When the body does not have enough of a certain vitamin, the condition is called a vitamin-deficiency disease.
Vitamins are divided into two major groups. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are called the fat-soluble vitamins. These vitamins can be stored in the fatty tissues of the body. Vitamins that dissolve in water, called water-soluble, are not stored in the body. As a result, the body uses only as much of them as it needs, and it excess in the urine. The water-soluble group includes vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins, such as riboflavin.
Minerals
The body needs about 14 minerals, or in organic substances. These substances usually take the form of elements or salts. As in the case of vitamins, no single food provides all the needed minerals.
In Indonesia
Traditional activities on the auspicious day include feasting on buffalo meat rendang and other delicacies exchanged among neighbors and served at home.
Dressed in finery, children deliver food dishes and preparations of citrus fruit and flowers to both sides of the family.
In the afternoon, men go the river to cleanse themselves physically and spiritually, using the lime preparations. The women bathe at home, or elsewhere on the river, separated from the men.
The mandi balimau herb and citrus preparations are believed to be the cleaning agents people used before soap was common.
Purifying oneself physically and spiritually, so as to be able to fast sincerely and with the hope of being pardoned for past wrongdoings, is the essence of the ritual bath.
Cleansing oneself may involve special visits made to acquaintances to ask forgiveness for offenses.
In the coastal areas of Sumbar, the ritual is known as petang magang, which implies restraint from any activity that may taint the fast. It is an appropriate time to settle family feuds and grudges.
However, the noble values of the bath seem to have been forgotten and it is feared the event may eventually become an ordinary trip to the river.
Rivers in the province were jam-packed this year with holiday revelers; no dividers separating men from women were seen. If not spiritual, the mood was spirited, with music festivals, tug-of-war games and motorbike races to enjoy.
At the riverbank event under Siak I bridge, Rusli said mandi balimau had “enlivened the Ramadhan atmosphere in Padang” and had the potential to “foster bonds of friendship” and “promote Sumbar tourism program.”
He reminded listeners the mandi balimau message was to cleanse oneself in order to perform the fast with devotion.
The communal bath already appears on the religious tourist attraction calendars of a number of local administrations in Padang. But criticism is widespread.
“The mandi balimau ritual has diverged far from its true meaning.
“It is nothing more than an extravagance,” said Lubuk Minturun district elder Syamsuar Nur Datuk Mangkuto.
“It is nothing more than an extravagance,” said Lubuk Minturun district elder Syamsuar Nur Datuk Mangkuto.
According to Syamsuar, mandi balimau has become no different from a secular mandi bersama, in which men and women bathe together.
“This has considerably deviated from Islamic teachings and the Malay tradition.
“It’s about time the government step in to restore its true meaning,” he said.
A similar response came from the head of the Sumbar chapter of the Indonesian Ulama Council, Mahdini MA, who said that Ramadhan was a time when sins are pardoned and blessings for good deeds are multiplied.
It might be greeted with merriment, he allowed, “provided that it is not greeted in an extravagant manner.” Mahdini MA said, “Don’t greet Ramadhan by doing things that can lead to immoral acts.”
In Islam it is common for ritual bathing to precede acts of devotion, he said.
