Step into The Matrix. Why there’s more to food than a list of nutrients
A longer version of this post appears on ZOE’s blog.
Classic 90s movie The Matrix gave us a vision of a post-apocalyptic world where food no longer exists. Instead, people survived on nutritional slop consisting of synthetic nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
This futuristic idea is echoed in the real world today, with an ever-growing focus on using the precise proportions of specific nutrients such as fat, protein and carbohydrates — often referred to as macronutrients or macros — to work out whether a food is good for us or not.
In the past, nutritional research has tended to concentrate on reductionist relationships between the nutrients in food and our health. Now, the focus is shifting to looking at the health effects of whole foods.
After all, we don’t eat solo nutrients (or synthetic nutritional slop). We eat food.
And, as we explore in much more depth in our recent blog post, food is far more than the sum of its parts.
The answer is in the (food) matrix
The ‘food matrix’ describes how the physical and chemical properties of whole foods affect how our bodies break down and use the nutrients locked up inside them, and what this means for our nutrition and health.
Our food contains plenty more compounds than simple nutritional labelling might suggest. There are complex structures built from water, fiber, nutrients, flavor molecules, vitamins, minerals and myriad other molecules that make up the food matrix.
Food matrices, like foods, take many different forms. There are liquids (like orange juice), gels (grape jelly), emulsions (mayo), fibrous materials (fruits and vegetables), crystals (sugar), porous structures (marshmallows) and much more.
These properties create the tastes and textures that make foods pleasurable to eat, but they also change the nutritional properties.
From poop to nuts
The impact of the food matrix was neatly shown in a study from USDA scientists, published in 2012, who investigated exactly how much energy people extracted from eating almonds, compared with the standard nutritional information that would be listed on a package of nuts.
How did they do it? By feeding people different amounts of almonds and then measuring the energy content (fats, carbohydrates and proteins) in their urine and poop, all in the name of science.
According to conventional nutritional labelling, almonds should contain around 170 calories per 28 gram serving.
But the researchers found that people typically extracted around 129 calories per serving — nearly a quarter fewer calories than would be expected just from looking at the label.
So simply looking at the nutrient list on a food label won’t tell you the full picture about how your body will respond to it.
Messing with the matrix
When you eat whole foods like fruit, vegetables and grains, your body has to work had to release nutrients by breaking up the structures inside them, such as cell walls.
This means that nutrients are released more slowly or to a lesser degree — as is the case for whole almonds coarse-grain oatmeal — helping you to feel satisfied for longer, controlling blood sugar, reducing overall calorie intake and keeping your gut healthy.
The more we process our food before eating it, the more we mess up the matrix.
Chewing, cooking and other types of food processing all change the composition of our foods, altering how our bodies digest, absorb and respond to them.
In some cases this is essential.
We would struggle to get enough nourishment (or enjoyment!) from a cupful of dry rice, so we need to soak and cook it before eating. And many types of raw beans contain a toxic chemical called phytohaemagglutinin, which can only be inactivated by cooking.
But lots of processing also makes nutrients more digestible, so larger amounts of fat and sugar are taken up into our blood than would be accessible from less processed food with the same nutritional composition.
What if I told you… we all respond differently to food
There’s one more twist to this story.
The amount of nutrition you get from a particular meal depends not only on the physical and chemical makeup of the foods you eat, but also on your body.
Our PREDICT study has shown that we are all unique and that even identical twins can respond to food differently. So there’s no one right way to eat: it’s only by understanding your personal nutritional response that you can find the right foods for your body.
That’s why we’re leading the world’s largest ongoing scientific nutritional research project to understand personal responses to food, to help everyone make healthier choices about the foods that fit them best.
In the words of The Matrix’s lead character Morpheus, “We’re trying to free your mind, Neo. But we can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”
Want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes? Sign up to our early access mailing list to be the first to know how you can find the foods your body loves.
