What does it actually mean for something to be nutritious?

It means it contains stuff the body can use. It’s basically a marketing term used to make something sound healthy without having todo all the expensive science to prove its actually healthy

After reading the first response I got curious. So I looked it up in the dictionary. There is was; a definition of the word. Not at all related to marketing, just a straightforward meaning for the word “nutritious”.

Nutritious means things in the food that aren’t just calories, like vitamins and minerals. For example, sugar is only calories. You have to add something like raisins, which have iron in them, to make it nutritious.

@Trillian The definition was the first sentence. “It means it contains stuff the body can use.” Fat is nutrient. Sugar is nutrient. Cholesterol is a nutrient. Something that contains fat and sugar and cholesterol is nutritious. The thing is when you people see it on a packet of food they think that it must be healthy and good for them and have added vitamins and minerals and stuff. Therefore the word nutritious is used as marketing term to make something sound healthy. I really don’t see whats so complicated about that.

Contains things that the body needs to continue functioning at homeostatic levels.

When I use the word nutritious I mean vitamins and minerals, but I agree with @trillian that basically, technically, everything in the food that the body utilizes is a nutrient.