Final answer:
Nutritional therapy uses specific nutritional variations to support health, relying on practices like eating nutrient-rich foods, balanced Caloric intake, and considering both contemporary sustainable agriculture and evolutionary dietary patterns.
Step-by-step explanation:
Nutritional therapy is the use of specific nutritional variations to build good health and wellness. Adopting healthy eating habits and obtaining sufficient exercise are fundamental to this practice. Nutritional therapy emphasizes the importance of food choices in maintaining good nutrition, which involves the consumption of nutrient-rich foods and the right amount of Calories to promote energy balance and support the body's growth, metabolism, and repair.
Contemporary practices in agriculture, such as sustainable farming methods, typically produce higher food yields, reduce fertilizer costs, build healthier soils, and steer clear of genetically modified plants. This mirrors the trend in dietary approaches that advocate for whole foods, such as the Mediterranean diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and olive oil, and the paleo diet which includes lean meats, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, mimicking early human diets.
Furthermore, the concept of functional foods has come to the forefront of nutritional therapy, with the aim of not only meeting basic nutritional needs but also providing health benefits, such as disease prevention or management. It is important to understand the evolutionary health principle and recognize that a diet similar to that of Homo sapiens in their natural habitat is essential to avoid nutritional deficiencies. This means including a variety of fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, and some cooked lean meat in one's diet.