Cellulose

In principle, cellulose seems to be a rare compound when talking about nutrition, if we take into account that most mammals, including humans, cannot decompose it and take advantage of its nutritional value.

Being one of the most present elements in plant life, it has awakened in many lovers of nutrition, a special interest in it and what it could bring us at the dietary level. Thus, more and more studies have been carried out to evaluate the most convenient ways to obtain some benefit from it.

To learn more about this peculiar compound, we invite you to enter the following guide, where we will review the basic concepts that distinguish it and its usefulness in the field of healthy eating.

What is cellulose?

Cellulose is a molecule composed of three main elements: oxygen, carbon and hydrogen. As we said at the beginning, it can be found in practically any element of plant life, being stored in the walls of these.

The human body is incapable of decomposing it, so its nutritional contribution is null for the organism. This means that ingesting cellulose will not provide you with any nutrients or calories that your body can use to perform its natural functions.

Usefulness

At this point it is normal that you wonder what use cellulose can have if it does not provide any nutritional value and our body is not able to break it down.

The truth is that it would not be useful at all if it were not for its great value as dietary fiber, which makes it a very important additive when preparing a diet focused on weight loss. As it does not provide calories, it is not fattening, and as fiber it helps to satiate hunger very easily, due to its great volume and ease of digestion.

Therefore, the use of cellulose is merely as an additive. It is added to different products and foods to increase the volume of this and generate a feeling of satiety, which helps us not to have to eat larger amounts of food to satisfy hunger, because regardless of the amount of fiber you eat, this will not bring you any calories, so you can not get fat eating cellulose but if you can satisfy your appetite.

Warning

There are several warnings about the abuse of this type of additives, not only cellulose but fibers in general. Well used it can be of great utility at the time of losing weight, but the abuse of this one can generate a nutritional deficit for our body, since when not having any nutritional value, it can satiate our appetite but not contribute to the compounds that our organism needs to stay healthy.

If you are planning to follow any type of diet, which enhances the use of these additives, try to have professional assistance so that your meals have the proper nutritional balance that will allow you to stay healthy. There are many cases of people who significantly increase the consumption of fiber in their meals in order not to gain weight and neglect to maintain a highly nutritious diet, which translates in the long term into a nutritional deficit that can cause serious health problems.

Cellulose as a simple compound to obtain can be very useful and low cost, the most important thing is that you have the necessary information that allows you to distinguish between the characteristics and nutritional functions of a type of element like this, and another that is focused on the balance of nutrients demanded by the body.