Explain the Nutritional Factors that affecting food choice?

Food choices made based on sound principles of nutrition will be conducive to good health while carelessness about nutrition can contribute towards many of the today's most prevalent chronic degenerative diseases of later life, such as heart diseases. Remember, we don't consume nutrients as such, but as meals/dishes made up of foodstuffs containing the nutrients in various amounts. Knowledge of food groups will help one to formulate a healthy diet. The various foods in a food group are similar in a general chemical (nutrient) composition, and hence contribute almost similar types of nutrients to the diet, although not always in the same proportion.

At this point, it is worthwhile to learn about the evolution of the concept of Food groups. In the 1940s, nutritionists began translating RDA into more practical terms so that people with no special training in nutrition could still estimate whether their nutritional needs were being met. A seven-food-group plan was one of the early formats. Daily food choices had to include food from each food group. This plan was simplified into five- food-groups. By the mid-1950s, a four-food-group plan was established that included milk group, meat group, fruit-vegetable group and bread and cereal group. In 1979, the names of the groups were revised, and a fifth group containing fats, sweets and alcoholic beverages was added as a part of the "Hassle-free Daily Food Guide". Caution needs to be urged in consuming this last group, though it can supply essential fatty acids and vitamin E.