Nutrition Handbook: Part 2 - The Definition of Food and Not-Food

Food is what someone eats and drinks in their diet that is required for health, wellness, and well-being, including beverages, meals, snacks, salt, and dietary supplements.

The body will have feelings of hunger when the body desires nutrition to function, recover, develop, and grow. Hunger is satisfied by eating food and drinking water and beverages.

Food as medicine is used to purposefully assist in healing the body which oftentimes is when someone includes herbs into their diet to support certain parts of the body to increase in health.

Drugs are not food and not required for health, but instead drugs treat, manage, prevent, and cure diseases and conditions that have been diagnosed. Drugs have no nutrition and do not satisfy hunger; drugs substitute and replace bodily functions and do not work with the the body for healthy inherent functioning, developing, growing, and healing. Using food wrongly as drugs to treat, manage, prevent and cure disease is known as medical quackery.

A plant, animal, or mineral is toxic because consumption will directly interfere with the function of any part of the body which leads to a decrease in overall health. Although toxic plants may be or have been eaten at one time by people, they are not considered food since their toxic effects outweigh any health benefits that the toxic plant may have.

Intoxicating plants will make someone fill euphoric, but this does not make such plants a form of food, since the intoxicating effects outweigh any health benefits that the plant may have. Even though someone may think they feel better, intoxicating plants are a deception that impairs a persons ability to identify sensations and signals of the body, such as hunger and thirst.