nutritive

Nutritive is an adjective describing something that provides nourishment or nutrition. In general usage, it refers to substances or foods that supply energy and essential nutrients needed for growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Nutritive value is a measure of a food’s ability to meet dietary requirements, typically reflected in its content of macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), and other components such as fiber and water.

In nutrition science, nutritive substances deliver energy or essential nutrients, while non-nutritive substances contribute flavor, texture, or other properties but offer little or no nutritional value. The term also appears in botany and anatomy to describe tissues or fluids that supply nutrients, such as nutritive tissue within seeds or the vascular systems that nourish plant and animal cells.

Historically, nutritive was used to distinguish nourishing from non-nourishing components within biological processes. In modern usage, the noun form is rare; nutritive is almost exclusively an adjective, and terms like nutritious are more common in everyday language. The concept of nutritive value remains central to dietary guidelines, food labeling, and discussions of balanced intake of energy, macronutrients, micronutrients, and fiber.

See also nutrition, nutrients, dietary guidelines, energy density, fortified foods.