The Food Focus concept begins with an understanding of the Food Pyramid. Understanding why the Food Pyramid makes the recommendations it does requires an understanding of the energy value of foods.

In order to survive, a human needs energy. This energy is acquired from the foods that we eat. In order to have enough energy to complete our daily tasks, we need to consume enough food to equal our energy requirements. A calorie is the energy value of food. Foods that have more calories provide more energy, foods with fewer calories provide less energy. CHO, fat and protein are called the "energy nutrients" because they are the only nutrients that provide energy directly to the human body. Your body obtains energy by the breakdown and utilization of these three nutrients. Each of the foods that we eat, have some combination of the energy nutrients. Some foods, like an apple, contain mostly CHO. Other foods, like a hamburger patty, contain mostly fat. Milk contains some of each of the three energy nutrients. The energy value of each food depends on how much CHO, fat and protein it contains. This information can be easily obtained using the information provided on most food labels.

One of the reasons that CHOs are healthier than fats, is because they contain fewer calories. If you consumed an equal amount of fat, protein and CHO, one gram for example, you would receive less than half as many calories from the CHO or protein than you would from fat. Or, another way of looking at it, you could eat more than twice the amount of either CHO or protein than of fat, and still receive the same amount of calories. This is important information for those who are trying to lose weight or simply maintain a healthy weight. If you choose more of your foods from CHO sources (as suggested by the Food Pyramid), you can actually eat more food without risking eating too many calories. On the other hand, you do not have to eat much fat to equal quite a few calories because fat calories accumulate more than twice as fast.