Low Carb?

Why all the low carb diets? aren't carbohydrates suppossed to be our main energy source? and how do you find protein rich foods without all the extra fat and choresterol?

There are plenty of low-fat protein sources, but yes, low-carbing is a waste of time.

like what foods? I wish CC has  a way to filter foods in the database for certain grades or foods wich in certain nutrients.

You don't really need filters.  Protein breaks down into two main areas..... animal and vegetable.  Animal being meat, seafood, dairy products and eggs.  Vegetable proteins being things like pulses/legumes, nuts, seeds and derivatives thereof (tofu for example)

Animal proteins usually come with cholesterol and fat as standard.... but this is obviously not a bad thing since we need some fats in a healthy balanced diet.   Vegetable proteins do not contain cholesterol but will often contain lots of fat e.g. nuts & seeds. 

In general try not to eat 'nutrients'.  A healthy diet is so much more than a bunch of nutrients - if it wasn't we could all pop a few vitamin pills and expect to live to 100.  Instead try to enjoy a good balance of different foods with as much variety as possible.  Base your meals around lots of vegetables, fruit, grains and use other wholefoods in moderate amounts to add flavour or texture.  Avoid heavily processed foods since these tend to be lacking in nutrition.

Yes Fantasy, you are CORRECT! Carbohydrates are converted into glucose which is vital for our brains and everyday body functions.

You can always trim the fat off meat or just buy lean meats to reduce the saturated fat intake.

Keep in mind that mono and polyunsaturated fats are great for you.

You should be getting between 45-65% of your calories from carbs, 20-35% from fat, and 12-20% should come from protein. :) Just keep your diet moderate, adequate, balanced, and varied and you will be fine. ;)

I'm not quite sure what gijane is trying to suggest here, as a healthy diet is absolutely about nutrients (both macro and micro).  Indeed, the very definition of proper diet is maintaining the appropriate balance of the essential nutrients.   Further, very few foods actually provide nutrients in the proportions that are preferred by our bodies, which is why a varied diet is important.  The 'challenge' is making sure that the variety in your diet actually corresponds, at least approximately, with the distribution of nutrients needed by your body.  

So, given that your body needs nutrients, of which food is the only source, and foods do not all have the same balance of nutrients, maintaining an overall balanced diet can very plausibly entail attention to which nutrients are found in which foods.  I kind of assume that gijane knows this and simply does it intuitively and assumes that others can, too.  This is probably true for a lot of people.  However, I can also see the value of a tool that helps educate people on the relative concentrations of various essential nutrients in various whole foods.

Nutritiondata.com has a couple features that you might like:

Nutrient search: http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/nutrient-s earch

Caloric ratio search: http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/caloric-ra tio-search

I'm saying that people who try to eat 'nutrients' rather than 'food' can often go very badly wrong.    For example, someone could drink a glass of orange juice every day, get their RDA of Vitamin C  and think 'job done'.   When, in reality, it's important to get a range of different fruits so that they're getting not only the Vitamin C but also a wide range of other nutrients, fibre, minerals.   Someone who eats 'nutrients' is also putty in the hands of the food manufacturers and likely to be influenced by health messages on packaging .... 'low in saturated fat' or 'rich in Omega-3'.

So rather than encouraging people to eat 'nutrients' and to get over-concerned with their macro/micro nutrient ratios I would always suggest they aim to eat plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit and grains supplemented with meat, fish, dairy, nuts, oils etc.... the occasional cake or chocolate...   and enjoy different flavours & textures.   Otherwise, eating can become a very dry, soulless process involving food pyramids, charts and pocket calculators.