Increase the iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, & fiber in your diet. . .
Many people are deficient in important minerals like calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium because they aren’t getting enough of these minerals in the foods they eat. Focusing your diet on whole, unprocessed foods is a good way to get more of these minerals, as food processing tends to remove fiber and important vitamins and minerals. For example, in terms of carbohydrates, whole grains contain more vitamins, minerals, and fiber than their refined counterparts.
When it comes to fats, obtaining fats from whole plant foods rather than solid fats (butter, margarine) or refined oils is considerably more nutritious. I’ve illustrated this in the table below. Oils are generally a healthier choice than butter or margarine because they contain healthier fats. But the extraction and refining process to produce oils eliminates fiber, protein, and minerals. When it makes sense, substitute nut and seed butters for oils in your cooking, and you’ll benefit from more nutrients.
Smart Baking Swaps
Some types of fat are obvious ingredients for certain foods, like oils in salad dressings (but a good whole-food substitution here is to try an avocado-based dressing, that will provide fat with more nutrients; mayonnaise is another place where avocados sub wonderfully). Bake goods provide more opportunities to substitute all or part of the fat with nut or seed butters. Here are a few examples.
GREAT GRANOLA. I used this trick in my 3-ingredient granola recipe. Most granola’s contain quite a bit of oil, which adds plenty of calories with few nutrients: swapping the oil for a nut or seed butter increases the nutrition substantially (and improves the flavour!).
This granola gets a nutrient and flavour boost by using peanut butter instead of oil (almond butter or sesame butter are equally delicious!)
BARS AND COOKIES. You can also try this out in bar and cookie recipes. Many health-conscious cooks are now using coconut oil (the “healthy” oil du jour), because they think it’s a nutritious choice (read more about coconut oil here). In reality, coconut oil adds plenty of calories with questionable health benefits, and no vitamins, protein, fiber, or minerals. It makes sense if coconut oil benefits the flavour or texture of your baked good, but you can do better if you’re trying to improve the nutrition! The recipes below use a nut butter, which gives great flavour, while adding protein, fiber, and minerals.
PIE CRUSTS. Another place you can use nuts for fat instead of oils, butter, or lard is in a pie crust. The recipe pictured below, healthful walnuts provide the fat for the simple crust.
So you see, it’s possible to improve the flavour and nutrition of baked goods by substituting nuts for oils or other fats. Give it a try!
This week, read about nutrition for travel and jet lag, health benefits of nuts, clarifying nutrition claims about milk, nutrition headlines and click bait, flavonoids in foods, reducing household food waste, parallels of dietary fads and religion, and more.
Nuts, peanuts linked to reduced risk of death from cancer, other diseases. Another study adds the the mounting evidence of the health benefits of nuts and peanuts (peanuts are technically “legumes”). This study found that eating about 15 grams of nuts a day (1/2 handful or about 2 tbsp. chopped nuts) reduced the risk of early death and numerous diseases, including cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease. Eating more than 15 grams of nuts/day didn’t lead to further reductions in risk.
Plain peanut butter (no added salt, sugars, or fats) is best for health
Peanut butter consumption didn’t influence mortality or disease risk. Researchers speculate that this could be because most popular peanut butters contains salt, vegetable oil, and trans fatty acids, which may counteract the healthy benefits of peanuts (a good argument for choosing “natural” peanut butter!). (International Journal of Epidemiology, June 2015)
Nutrition for travel and jet-lag. If you’re traveling across time zones this summer, set yourself up for feeling good at your destination with these tips. (Jill Parnell, No Baloney).
Got Milked: evidence-based or underlying bias?The book “Got Milked” received a lot of press, and might leave you wondering about the health impact of consuming milk. Although milk is not a necessary dietary staple or essential for a healthy diet, consuming milk is not harmful for most people. PEN (Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition) experts look at the science behind the claims in the book. (PEN Nutrition).
He wrote the satirical piece to show how someone building a case why a certain food is harmful for you can align nutrition research to suit their agenda by cherry picking studies that are in line with their thinking. He discovered that many people didn’t make it past the headline. (Tim Crowe, Thinking Nutrition).
For endurance athletes, high-carb diets beat low-carb diets every time. Sports dietitian Nancy Clark reports on research on carbohydrates and activity from the American College of Sports Medicine conference. The amount of carbohydrate needed varies depending on the length and intensity of activity. Although some endurance athletes are experimenting with low carbohydrate diets, the research clearly shows that carbohydrates are important for quality performances in high performance athletes. (Halhigdon.com)
“From Paleo to vegan to raw, nutrition gurus package their advice as sound, settled science. It doesn’t matter whether meat is blamed for colon cancer or grains are called out as fattening poison — there’s no shortage of citations and technical terms (tertiary amines, gliadin, ketogenesis) to back up the claims.
But as a scholar of religion, it’s become increasingly clear to me that when it comes to fad diets, science is often just a veneer. Peel it away and you find timeless myths and superstitions, used to reinforce narratives of good and evil that give meaning to people’s lives and the illusion of control over their well-being.”
This is a fascinating article, and certainly sheds light on why diet fads are so popular. (NPR Health).
Inflammatory claims about inflammation.Inflammation is a popular buzzword in health and nutrition these days. Many claim that inflammation causes a long list of maladies, and might be eliminated through diet and behavior changes. Inflammation is not the cause of diseases, but a complex phenomenon in disease progression. This article does a nice job clarifying the role inflammation in disease, explaining that unhealthy habits set the stage for disease and inflammatory processes. As Jeff Schweitzer explains: “We need to get our priorities straight. Forget inflammation and pay attention to what matters: eat healthy, eat little and exercise if you want to reduce the chance of suffering from the many diseases associated with bad diet.” (Jeff Schweitzer, Huffington Post)
Fears, not facts, support G.M.O.-free food. If you are confused about the safety of GMO foods, this is a good column to read. Although this is a complex issue, science literacy is important to consider. New York Times health columnist Jane Brody writes “a review of the pros and cons of G.M.O.s strongly suggests that the issue reflects a poor public understanding of the science behind them.” (Jane Brody, New York Times)
Flavonoids in your foods, Here’s where to get them. Flavonoids are plentiful in many plant foods. These compounds are being studied for their cancer-preventive and disease-fighting properties. A new study in Australian women found that a high flavonoid intake reduced mortality risk over the 5-year study, and also lowered cancer and heart disease risk compared to a low flavonoid intake. Although women in the study consumed most of their flavonoids from black tea, the AICR speculates that eating more and a variety of other types of flavonoid-containing foods (blueberries, cherries, and red cabbage, parsley or oregano) would also be protective. (AICR, reporting on Am J Clin Nutr April 2015)
Household Food Waste and What to Do About It. A new study from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab shows that improving your buying, preparing, and food storing behaviors can limit food waste. The study found that the top causes of food waste are buying too much, preparing in abundance, unwillingness to consume leftovers, and improper food storage.
Healthy Recipes
I’ve been cooking, and my recipe collection is growing!
Here is a light, refreshing, and healthy dessert that is deceptively rich tasting. It’s also a great way to use up bananas when you have too many ripen at once. Just slice them up and freeze – if you don’t use them for this sorbet, they’ll make your smoothies extra creamy.
Adding yogurt to this sorbet lends some creaminess to the dessert, while providing protein and calcium. Technically this dessert should be called a “sherbet” because it contains dairy, but since fruit is the main ingredient I prefer calling it a sorbet.
Ingredients
2 medium bananas (very ripe), frozen
1 cup frozen mango chunks
½ cup Greek yogurt (I used nonfat plain, any variety will do)
3 tbsp. maple syrup (or other sweetener)
Juice of 1 lime
Directions
Peel bananas and cut each into 3-4 pieces. Freeze bananas for at least 8 hours.
Shortly before serving, place the frozen bananas in the bowl of your food processor.
Add the frozen mango, maple syrup, and lime juice.
Process until smooth. Stop the processor as needed to break up large chunks of frozen fruit. Try not to overprocess (you want the sorbet to be the consistency of a soft-serve ice cream or frozen yogurt). If too thick, add a little milk or juice, but be careful not to add too much liquid, which will make the recipe more like a “smoothie” than a sorbet (it will still taste delicious!).
Berries and fresh mint are a terrific garnish for this dessert. This sorbet will taste best if served immediately, but if you have leftovers store in your freezer and let stand until softened a bit after removing.
Makes about THREE Cups (four 3/4-cup Servings)
Variations
Substitute other frozen fruit for the mangoes. Blueberries or strawberries are delicious!
Even with nonfat yogurt, the recipe tastes rich and creamy, but if you want a more decadent dessert (and can afford more calories), use a higher fat yogurt or vanilla Greek yogurt.
Nutrition Notes
Yogurt is a good source protein and calcium. High yogurt consumption (> 7 servings/week) is linked to lower weight (especially in people who eat more fruit), and lower risk of diabetes.
Bananas are rich in fiber, and an excellent source of potassium, an essential mineral that most people don’t get enough of in their diets. Bananas also contain plant lectins, a type of protein being studied for disease-fighting properties.
Mangoes are full of protective nutrients. The vivid orange flesh reflects their high beta-carotene content, and they are also a good source of vitamin C and fiber.
Nutrition Per Serving
160 calories
3 g protein
.5 g fat (0 g sat)
0 mg cholesterol
36 g carbohydrate
2.6 g fiber
33 mg sodium
396 mg potassium
99 mg calcium
29 mg magnesium
This dessert is a great way to add nutritious fruit to your diet. I adapted this recipe from one developed by my cookbook co-authors Vicky Newman and Susan Faerber for cooking classes at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center. The original recipe is in the cookbook and food guide Food For Thought: Healing Foods to Savor by Sheila Kealey, Vicky Newman, with Susan Faerber.
This week, read about keeping the elderly moving, how looking at nature helps your brain work better, how sleeping affects your food intake, new recommendations for standing at work, how much fluids athletes need, and a powerful cyclist.
Keep moving! This runner is competing in the 80-85 age group.
Aging and inactivity: Stop killing the elderly with kindness. This is a terrific article by Travis Saunders, a sedentary behavior expert and Assistant Professor in Applied Human Science at the University of PEI. He explains the importance of physical activity for all ages, and describes how many of the ailments we typically associate with aging are lack of activity.
“Aging is associated with reduced fitness, weaker bones, reduced insulin sensitivity, reduced muscle strength, and reduced balance. Lack of physical activity is also associated with all of those things. This isn’t a coincidence – many (probably most) of the health impacts of aging are not really due to aging at all.”
He encourages us to promote physical activity in elders by considering first if our good intentions are needlessly encouraging sedentary behavior. Let them do cleaning and chores and don’t worry about them walking up and down stairs, it’s good for them to move! (Obesity Panacea)
Children who garden eat more greens. Schools that offer gardening and cooking classes are helping promote good health habits: students are eating more fruits and vegetables than their peers. Classes also contributed to students’ involvement in meal preparation at home. This is a great idea for a school-based health program, and likely has more far-reaching effects that telling children what to eat for good health. (Tulane University Prevention Research Center).
Stare at this picture for 40 seconds and you might improve your sustained attention!
Just looking at nature can help your brain work better. Bringing trees, grass, and parkland into cities has many benefits. Another “greening” strategy is “green roofs” (also called living roof) which are becoming increasingly popular. These roofs help cool buildings, absorb rainwater, provide insulation, and are aesthetically pleasing. New research suggests that viewing these green roofs might help busy office workers and others by improving sustained attention.
Researchers had study subjects view 2 different city scenes for 40 seconds: either a flowering meadow green roof or a bare concrete roof. Participants who briefly viewed the green roof scored better on sustained attention tasks than those who viewed the concrete roof. These results add to the growing body of research showing on the benefits of nature: greening cities with more parks and trees can be important for the health of cities and workplaces. (Washington Post, reporting on Journal of Environmental Psychology, May 2015).
New recommendations for standing at work. A new paper by public health experts in the UK puts an hourly figure on how much we should stand during working hours. The authors recommended breaking up sitting bouts, and initially aiming to stand for 2 hours/day, and eventually increasing standing time to 4 hours/day (everything counts – bathroom breaks, etc.). The evidence that sitting for extended periods is harmful for health is mounting, showing sitting increases risk of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, kidney problems and premature death. (Time, reporting on British Journal of Sports Medicine, June 2015).
The less you sleep, the more you eat. Many factors beyond hunger influence how much we eat. As research on the benefits of sleep continues to grow, studies have shown that sleep affects appetite regulation: the less you sleep, the more you eat. This article reviews the literature on biological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral factors may lead to poor sleep and affect food intake. (Journal of Health Psychology, June 2015)
5 celebrity-endorsed health tips that aren’t backed by science. Tim Caulfield, professor of law and health policy at the University of Alberta, and author of “Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?” looks at the evidence behind these popular tips. (money.com)
Vitamin supplements
Detoxes and cleanses
Spot reduction
8 cups water/day
Gluten-free diets
How much fluids do athletes really need? Research is changing what we know about our fluid needs. The most recent studies in the lab show a little dehydration is o.k., and winning performances in the field show that top athletes do finish events a bit dehydrated. Although previous guidelines were to avoid sweating out more than 2% of your body mass, new information suggests that 3 to 6 % dehydration makes more sense. (Alex Hutchinson, Globe and Mail).
