Archive for Nutrition
Going nuts
Posted by: | Comments“Many people have avoided nuts because of their high fat content, but the fat in nuts, including peanuts, is mainly unsaturated, and walnuts in particular are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. Controlled feeding studies show that nuts improve blood cholesterol ratios, and epidemiological studies indicate that they lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Also, people who eat nuts are actually less likely to be obese; perhaps because nuts are more satisfying to the appetite, eating them seems to have the effect of significantly reducing the intake of other foods.”
- Walter C. Willett and Meir J. Stampfer, professors of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Kitchari (Ayurveda) recipe
Posted by: | CommentsPrep time: 30 minutes
Servings: 3
1 cup basmati rice
½ cup mung beans (whole, soaked overnight)
6 cups boiling water
¼ teaspoon turmeric
1 pinch asafoetida (a spice also called hing—available at Indian groceries)
1 cup chopped vegetables, such as zucchini, carrots, cauliflower, or anything you choose (optional)
1 teaspoon ground cumin, coriander, or any other spices you choose (optional
1. Combine the rice with the mung beans and wash twice.
2. Place rice and beans into boiling water, adding the turmeric and asafoetida.
3. Cook over medium heat until the water is mostly absorbed.
4. Add one more cup of lukewarm water, vegetables, and optional spices if you’re using them. The final dish should be a stew with a very moist and soft consistency.
From: Ayurveda for Women: A Guide to Vitality and Health
(Healing Art Press, 2000), by Dr. Robert E. Svoboda
A slice of life
Posted by: | CommentsEnriched White Bread Ingredients:
Enriched wheat flour [flour, barley malt, ferrous sulfate (iron), B vitamins (niacin, thiamine mononitrate (B1), riboflavin (B2), folic acid)], water, high-fructose corn syrup, butter. Contains 2% or less of: salt, whey, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, yeast, soy flour, wheat gluten, ethoxylated mono and diglycerides, mono and diglycerides, calcium sulfate, nonfat milk, soy fiber, natural and artificial flavors, dicalcium phosphate, nium phosphate, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, alpha amylase, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, monocalcium phosphate, cellulose gum, guar gum, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), calcium carbonate, enzymes, vinegar, calcium propionate (to retain freshness).
1 slice: Calories: 80; Total Fat: 1 g; Protein: 2 g; Total Carbohydrate: 14 g; Fiber: 0 g; Sodium: 200 mg.
Whole-Wheat Bread Ingredients:
Organic whole wheat flour, water, honey, wheat gluten, pressed canola oil, sea salt, yeast, ascorbic acid.
1 slice: Calories: 101; Total Fat: 0.8 g; Protein: 5.4 g; Total Carbohydrate: 21.8 g; Fiber: 3.3 g; Sodium: 138.1 mg.
You decide.
Basic food stats: why we’re overweight
Posted by: | Comments57 percent of most Americans’ calories come from only three foods: refined grains, vegetable oils and added sugar. (They are called by many names: donut, slice of bread, pizza, pretzel, cookie, cake – all basically made from these three components plus color and flavoring.)
73 percent of Americans were deficient in zinc, 65 percent didn’t get enough calcium, 56 percent were low on vitamin A, 54 percent were below recommended levels of B6, 39 percent were iron deficient…
Flour, Oil, Sugar, and Salt — The Four Toxic Avengers.
Protein per 100 calories of selected foods
Posted by: | Commentsbroccoli: protein 8.3 g; carb 19.5 g; fat 1.1 g; fiber 7.6 g
mustard greens: protein 10.4 g; carb 18.9 g; fat 0.8 g; fiber 12.7 g
tenderloin steak: protein 6.6 g; carb 0 g; fat: 8.0 g; fiber 0 g
chicken (white meat): protein 20.4 g; carb 0 g; fat 1.4g; fiber 0 g
salmon (sockeye): protein 12.7 g; carb 0 g; fat 5.1 g; fiber 0 g
If you play with the math, these are the amounts of food you need to eat of each food to get 10 grams of protein: kale 303 g, broccoli 357 g, steak 55 g, chicken 43 g.
You can get adequate protein with green vegetables alone, except that you need to eat a lot of it. There are a lot more micronutrients per calorie (i.e., vitamins, minerals, antioxidants) in vegetable than in animal sources.
Perhaps the often-heard need for more animal protein as one ages (from a protein/bioavailability standpoint) is really a function of how much volume (of greens) our digestive system can take as we age. There is no doubt one can take in the necessary amount of protein via vegetables, although some may personally argue that they can’t just handle that amount of food volume. (However, if you add nuts and seeds to the equation, then you solve the “volume” problem, since these are compact sources of high quality proteins and fat.)
I personally think the mix (vegetable vs animal source of protein) has to be determined on an individual basis. Some experts have advocated that the percent of calories contributed by animal sources should be in the ten percent range, as a maximum.
In real time, optimal nutrition becomes very difficult not because we don’t know what to eat, but rather because we have the social, emotional, and behavioral ball of wax that prevent us from sticking to an ideal diet.
The family that eats together, eats better.
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the American Dietetic Association:
“Researchers (from the University of Minnesota) found that eating family meals together during adolescence resulted in adults who ate more fruit, dark-green and orange vegetables and key nutrients, and drank less soft drinks. Frequency of family meals predicted females would eat breakfast as adults. For both sexes, frequency of family meals as adolescents predicted eating dinner more frequently as adults, placing a higher priority on structured meals and a higher priority on social eating.
For women, eating together as a family more often during adolescence meant significantly higher daily intakes as s of calcium, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B6 and fiber. Among males, eating as a family more during adolescence predicted higher intakes of calcium, magnesium, potassium and fiber as adults.
‘Results of this study suggest that having more family meals during adolescence is associated with improved diet quality during young adulthood,’ the researchers say. Food and nutrition professionals should encourage families to share meals as often as practically possible.”
How to Avoid Unhealthy Foods that Seem Good For You
Posted by: | CommentsOxidative stress and overconsumption
Posted by: | CommentsThe theory of oxidative stress as the cause of aging and other diseases (developed by Dr. Denham Harmon in 1954) has received considerable support in the last five decades of medical research. Free radicals, the products of food combustion in our bodies, are the culprits of most of the diseases that cause premature death .
Oxidative stress is mainly the result of eating a diet that is too high in calories and too low in antioxidants. In most cases it is made worse because of the “anti-nutrients” that are inevitably part of the typical American diet: sugar, sodas, junk and processed food, saturated fat, processed meat, and mercury-contaminated fish.
Nutritional deficiencies and sugar imbalance (due to insulin resistance) worsen the oxidative stress of caloric overconsumption. It becomes quite clear that the “nutritional abuse” we pile on ourselves is in itself a multifactorial (and systemic) issue.
This is a big ball of wax, wrapped in a layers of ever-increasing misinformation about what foods are supposed to be good for us. (And I’m not even including here the profound “medicalization” of the idea of health.)
There are no simple answers. Effective solutions must include correct, science-based nutritional knowledge. More importantly, we need to develop the ability to understand and manage the change process within ourselves (”eating better and exercising more”). We need adopt a vigilant attitude against the social norm of unconscious, recreational eating.
Everyone’s swimming against the tide…
Not all weight loss “expert” advice is good
Posted by: | CommentsOne glaringly tricky example in the current diet lore is “eating many small meals throughout the day.” One reason this advice works is that the (sub-par) quality of the food one ingests necessitates this frequency of eating.
If one was eating very nutritionally dense food, two to three times eating per day will typically be enough. Blood sugar variation (which the “6-meal a day approach” is trying to fix) is caused by a nutritionally poor, highly processed diet that is low in phytonutrients. If one was eating right in the first place, you wouldn’t have to eat six to eight small meals a day! All this does is increase metabolic rate (and therefore increase free radical formation), which in and of itself is not a health sustaining phenomenon. It just makes you age faster.
Why diets fail
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to Dr. Michael Dansinger of the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, a typical diet helps people lose an average of 6 percent of their weight, typically 10 to 15 pounds (5 to 7 kg), and most people put it all back on after five years. Weight loss drugs are similarly ineffective in the long run.
The approach most people use, i.e., managing the macronutrient percentage and/or caloric level, is an incomplete and unsustainable strategy for the most part. Tweaking carbs vs fat vs protein percentages is not addressing the core problem.
People need to create a lifestyle that sustains eating behavior from a “micronutrient” (or a “nutritional density”) perspective. When this is accomplished (more effectively, through a combination of self-monitoring, social support, and continued study and application of palatable recipes that are nutrient rich), the appropriate macronutrient and caloric levels follow.
What is particularly troublesome is that of course most “diets” will fail. How can they not? Most of them do not utilize correct scientific nutritional findings, much less manage the eating behavior in the context of sound cognitive-behavioral principles. Most people are not aware of the stages of change model (Prochaska), and its applicability to changing nutritional habits. Neither are they familiar with the very practical work done by Daniel Kirschenbaum regarding the ‘key truths” about lifelong weight management. Lastly, they have been mostly misled by the plethora of scientifically misleading approaches that in time has already acquired the patina of truth, but are blatantly wrong…
