Sugar, Where it Does Not Belong

Leave a comment May 6, 2015 Patricia Becker

Sugar has a sneaky way of showing up in places where it doesn’t really belong. You expect the sweetness to appear in desserts, candy-coated treats and donuts, but in your hamburger?

Sugar’s near-ubiquity in processed and packaged foods makes limiting one’s daily sugar intake — a choice from which nearly anyone could benefit — a more difficult task. Krispy Kreme’s original glazed contains 10 grams of the stuff, but while we expect a donut to be extra sweet, savory foods such as a meatball sub and foods that are marketed as “healthy” — such as Greek yogurt — can easily get by a person’s sugar radar.

For the average adult, the World Health Organization recommends a daily intake of 25 grams of sugar, or about two and a half Krispy Kremes. According to Natasa Janicic-Kahric, an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University Hospital, many Americans eat around five times the recommended amount of sugar.

Overdoing it with sugar may increase a person’s risk for heart disease, obesity and diabetes. A third of American children are overweight or obese, which puts them at a greater risk for developing diabetes later in life. And recent research has found that sugar can get in the way of cognitive function or even put people in a bad mood. In more serious cases, sugar-laden foods may exacerbate experiences of depression and anxiety.

If you avoid dessert and sweet treats, but don’t keep track of the incidental sugar in your meals, you are mistaken. Check below!

Thank you huffingtonpost.com

sugar not where

Patricia’s Potato Salad

2 Comments May 2, 2015 Patricia Becker

The potatoes at the Farmer Markets have been looking so fresh and beautiful…I thought a good time to share this recipe from a cooking class I taught several years ago. For the best taste please choose all organic ingredients. Hope you enjoy!

Patricia’s Potato Salad

5     large red potatoes, cooked, cooled and peeled
2      celery sticks, sliced
2     small kosher pickles, diced
1     small cucumber
1/3 C parsley, minced
1 T Dulse sea vegetable flakes

Toss all the above ingredients in a bowl. Blend the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad. Best when marinated for a few hours.

Dressing

1      T olive oil
1      T mustard
1      T and 1 t balsamic vinegar
1      T and 1 t umeboshi vinegar
3/4 C nayonaise or mayonnaise
1/4 t pepper

The Digestive Perks Of Being A Vegetarian

1 Comment April 28, 2015 Patricia Becker

Besides typically consuming more nutrients, and avoiding congesting foods, vegetarians also have incredible digestion.

Switching to a vegetarian diet may be a good way to enhance your digestive health, and you don’t have to take an all-or-nothing approach to the switch. There are several types of vegetarian diets, and semi-vegetarian diets to choose from, including:

Vegetarian. This diet cuts out meat and fish but dairy, and egg products are ok.
Vegan. No meat, fish, or animal products or byproducts, such as dairy, eggs, and honey
Semi-vegetarian. Typically, no red meat but some fish or poultry.

Digestive health can improve with a vegetarian diet, but the key is a “well-planned vegetarian diet,” emphasizes registered dietitian Sheah L. Rarback, MS, RD, director of nutrition at the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida. It’s possible to eat an unhealthy vegetarian diet that will not aid your digestion or your health.

“If it’s a good vegetarian diet that’s high in a lot of fruits and veggies, it will also be generally nutrient-rich,” Rarback says. It’s important to strive for balance and variety in the foods you consume while avoiding foods high in fat or salt.

How Vegetarian Diets Help Digestion

When you eat more fiber-rich foods — fruits and vegetables — you’re getting more nutrients. Other possible benefits to a vegetarian diet include.

Feeling full. When you eat foods that are high in fiber, Rarback says, you feel fuller. This can benefit people who are trying to control their weight. Maintaining a healthy weight helps with many aspects of digestive health and can prevent unpleasant problems with digestion, such as acid reflux.
Regular bowel movements. The fiber in a vegetarian diet will keep foods and waste moving smoothly through your system, avoiding both constipation and diarrhea. By increasing their fiber intake, Americans could save more than $12 billion — the amount spent on constipation-related therapies each year, according to research in the April 2014 issue of BMC Public Health. The researchers noted that consuming more fiber could also prevent a lot of time lost at work.
Disease prevention. Vegetarians are about 31 percent less likely than people who also eat meat to experience diverticular disease, a potentially serious condition that occurs when pouches form in the colon, according to research published in the British journal BMJ in 2011. There’s also some evidence that a vegetarian diet can help ward off certain cancers, such as colon cancer, and chronic diseases such as heart disease. When researchers examined the health data and dietary habits of more than 73,000 Seventh-Day Adventists, they found that vegetarians were less likely than meat eaters to die for any reason during the five-year study period. The results of their study were published in the July 2013 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

Everyday Health digestive benefits of vegetables

April 27, 2015

The Myth of High Protein Diets

1 Comment March 30, 2015 Patricia Becker

MANY people have been making the case that Americans have grown fat because they eat too much starch and sugar, and not enough meat, fat and eggs. Recently, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee lifted recommendations that consumption of dietary cholesterol should be restricted, citing research that dietary cholesterol does not have a major effect on blood cholesterol levels. The predictable headlines followed: “Back to Eggs and Bacon?”

But, alas, bacon and egg yolks are not health foods.

Although people have been told for decades to eat less meat and fat, Americans actually consumed 67 percent more added fat, 39 percent more sugar, and 41 percent more meat in 2000 than they had in 1950 and 24.5 percent more calories than they had in 1970, according to the Agriculture Department. Not surprisingly, we are fatter and unhealthier.

A study published last March found a 75 percent increase in premature deaths from all causes, and a 400 percent increase in deaths from cancer and Type 2 diabetes, among heavy consumers of animal protein under the age of 65 — those who got 20 percent or more of their calories from animal protein.

The more people adhered to these recommendations (including reducing the amount of fat and cholesterol they consumed), the more improvement we measured — at any age. But for reversing disease, a whole-foods, plant-based diet seems to be necessary.

In addition, what’s good for you is good for our planet. Livestock production causes more disruption of the climate than all forms of transportation combined. And because it takes as much as 10 times more grain to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, eating a plant-based diet could free up resources for the hungry.

What you gain is so much more than what you give up.

Source: “The Myth of High-Protein Diets” by Dean Ornish MD, The Opinion Pages, The New York Times, March 23, 2015