Are All Fibers Created Equal?

Fibers As Health Food

Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the sand, you’ve heard the hype you need fiber in your diet. Well, actually, it’s true, you do. But the question is, what kind and how much? Because you see, all fibers are NOT created equal.

The fiber in your diet comes from plants. It’s the part of the plant that isn’t digested by enzymes in the intestinal tract, though some parts may be metabolized by bacteria in the lower gut. It is found ONLY in plant foods: fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains. There is no fiber in eggs, meat or milk.

Different plants have varying amounts and types of fiber, including pectin, gum, mucilage, cellulose, hemicellulose or lignin fiber. Of these fibers, pectin and gum are water soluble and found inside plant cells. They slow the passage of food through the intestines but don’t add bulk. These water soluble fibers are found in beans, fruit, vegetables and oat bran.

Cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are fibers found in cell walls. They are water insoluble and do increase the bulk in the intestines, thus speeding up the passage of food through the digestive tract. Most of this type of fiber can be found in whole grains and wheat bran, though some vegetables and beans are also good sources.

Generally speaking, the nearer the food is to its original form, the more fiber it has. No surprise there.  However, it may surprise you to know canned or frozen fruits and vegetables actually contain just as much fiber as raw fruits and vegetables.

Drying or crushing foods, on the other hand, destroys the water holding quality of fiber, and the removal of seeds, peels or hulls also reduces the fiber content. (This is why 100% whole grain breads have more fiber than white breads.)

How Much Fiber?

Roughly speaking, for every 1000 calories you comes, 14 grams of that should be fiber. Most people don’t eat enough fiber since most people don’t eat several servings of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and dried beans every day. Adding these foods is obviously a good way to boost fiber intake.

What Makes Fiber A Health Food?

Fiber is good for the treatment and prevention of constipation, diverticulosis, and hemorrhoids.  It also helps lower blood cholesterol levels by helping the body to excrete cholesterol in bile acids. Some fibers work better at this than others, with oats working better than wheat. Quaker Oats isn’t kidding, eating oatmeal really does help lower your cholesterol.

Not only that, but there is now strong evidence that fiber is linked to a reduced risk of diabetes.  Water soluble fibers like oats and barley help control blood sugar by slowing the absorption of carbohydrates.

Adding more fiber to your diet is an easy health food change, but if you aren’t used to fiber don’t go crazy and add a bunch all at once. You’ll likely be sorry if you do, since your body won’t be used to the suddenly increased amount of fiber, and that may result in gas and/or diarrhea.

Once again, it’s better to make changes a little at a time! Add a little more fiber to your diet gradually, and do good things for your health without making yourself suffer in the process.

In A Pickle For Health Food

It’s not the calories that are a problem with pickles; they’re actually pretty low calorie. But the sodium, now that’s another story. Face it, using all that pickling salt pretty much guarantees a high sodium product!

Too much sodium isn’t a good idea for anyone, yet sometimes a pickle sounds mighty good on or with a sandwich. But who’d have thought of making pickles healthier? Evidently someone at the Mt. Olive company did, because they’ve come up with a lower sodium pickle.

For instance, Mt. Olive Kosher Petite Dills have 340mg. of sodium per serving, while the new Reduced Sodium Kosher Baby Dills have only 135mg of sodium per serving. Quite a difference!

The regular salt has been replaced with a mixture of other salts, including potassium, magnesium and calcium chlorides. Potassium is actually beneficial, since it helps lower blood pressure. That doesn’t mean pickles are suddenly a health food, and you can eat all you want. That’s still a lot of sodium, but it’s a better option, another one of those easy changes for eating healthier.

I haven’t been able to find any yet to taste test, but so far I’ve only been to one store to look for them. However, the folks at “Nutrition Action” did a taste test and declared they couldn’t tell the difference between the higher sodium pickles and new reduced sodium Kosher Baby Dills and Kosher Dill Strips.

So next time you crave a pickle, try some of Mt. Olive’s Reduced Sodium varieties!

Gotta Have Pizza

I doubt many restaurant pizzas are overly healthy. Too much grease! Too much salt!  Too much bad fats!  And I’m sure frozen pizzas aren’t any better.  The amount of salt in those things is phenominal! 

Like most foods, if you want to make it healthier, you’re going to have to make it yourself.

Yes, you can make a healthier-for-you pizza! Use whole wheat in the crust, low-fat mozzarella cheese, put some good stuff on top like fresh green peppers and onions, and how about a little pineapple? I like a little feta cheese on there too, which makes a nice contrast to the pineapple.

Over the weekend I made a bunch of sourdough pizza crusts. I like to make several at a time, then stick them in the fridge or freeze them. It’s handy to just pull one out, put whatever toppings sound good on it, and chunk it in the oven for a few minutes.

I also make some smaller sizes in 9-inch cake pans that work well to pop in the toaster oven too. Saves having to turn on the big oven and heating up the house during our hot southern summers.

I don’t want to give up my pizza, so I make my own, and use as many healthy ingredients as possible. Of course it’s more work than popping a frozen pizza in the oven, so it’s not what you’d call an “easy” health food change.  But besides being better for you, the taste is soooooo much more delicious!

If you haven’t tried making your own pizza, give it a whirl.  You’ll love the results!

Baby Steps To More Health Food In Your Diet

One step at a time.  Making easy changes to get more health food in your diet.  That’s what I’m talking about!  I’m not the only one who thinks making small changes can add up to better health.  No, you can’t make just ONE small change and everything will be glorious, but make one, and then a little later make another… and then they start adding up and equal a better diet for better health.

Here’s an article I read that addresses this issue: 

Take Baby Steps to Better Health

Oatmeal in a Slow Cooker

An EASY Health Food - Oatmeal in a Crockpot!

I’m always searching for new ways to make it easier to cook good food. I’d tried cooking oatmeal in a slow cooker before, but it came out too mushy for my tastes.

Recently I got a new cookbook, “The Healthy Slow Cooker.” I was delighted to see a recipe for making oatmeal in a crockpot. The difference is using steel cut oats, not rolled oats like Quaker Oatmeal.

I discovered that you can find steel cut oats in one of our local grocery stores, and that it is also found under the name of “Irish Oatmeal” (Not to be confused with Scottish oatmeal – see yesterday’s post!) And did you notice the Whole Grain stamp on the top of the package like we discussed back in the post “Whole Grain or Not Whole Grain?”

It actually works out pretty well. I like the texture better than rolled oats.  Of course, making it in the slow cooker (crockpot, whatever), there is a little crust along the sides and bottom of the pot.

If you don’t like the crust, you can just spoon the oatmeal out and leave it behind. I like a little extra chewiness, so I put the crust in mine.

Whichever way you choose to eat it, when prepared in a slow cooker, steel cut oats are an easy health food!

Oats, Groats, What’s The Difference?

As you may remember, oats are one of the Super Heroes of Health Foods.

They contain vitamin E, several B-vitamins, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Oats also have some of the trace minerals selenium, copper, zinc, iron and manganese. They’re full of good-for-you phytochemicals and have both soluble and insoluble fiber. Oats have been found to benefit heart health, lower blood pressure, and can even help prevent diabetes as part as a high whole-grain diet.

Oats were one of the earliest cultivated cereals. The ancient Greeks were the first people known to make porridge (cereal) from oats. In England, oats were considered inferior, but in Ireland and Scotland they were used in many kinds of porridges and baked goods.

Oats came to America with British immigrants in the 1600s, and in fact, the British Quaker influence inspired the name for “Quaker Oats.” Today oats are produced in many countries, but Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota and central Canada lead in oat production in North America.

So I Repeat, Oats, Groats, What’s The Difference?
Oats come in more than one form. In fact, there are six basic types found at the grocery or health food store. Each kind has a different texture when prepared, different cooking times, and even some nutritional differences.

Whole Oat Groats
Oat Groats (say that fast a few times!) are the starting point. This is the harvested “as-is” product. Whole oat groats are widely used as animal feed, but not so easily found for human consumption. Some health food stores carry them. Whole oat groats can be cooked or steamed, but because they’re a bigger grain than rice or even whole wheat kernels, take much longer to cook. It can take up to an hour, although a pressure cooker will shorten the cooking time. Because they are “as-is”, they have the highest nutritional value of all forms of oats. They are digested very slowly, which reduces the glycemic load and makes them quite filling.

Steel Cut Oatmeal or Oats
Just to make things even more confusing, steel cut oats are also commonly called Irish Oatmeal. They’re exactly what the name says, being whole oat groats that have been steel cut into smaller pieces. This shortens the cooking time, but keeps all the nutritional value of the whole oat groats. These are much easier to find at the grocery stores than whole oat groats. Look for either steel cut oats or Irish Oatmeal.

Scottish Oats
Scottish oats are not to be confused with Irish Oatmeal. They are steamed, steel cut oats than are then ground into a meal. This improves the grain’s ability to absorb water and allows a shorter cooking time. Some manufacturers toast the oats to create a richer-flavored oatmeal, or combin it with some oat bran to make the oat meal creamier.

Rolled Oats or Oat Flakes
When people think of oatmeal, this is the kind they usually mean. Rolled oats can be made with the whole oat groat or using steel cut oats. Either way, the oat is steamed to soften the grain, so it can then be pressed between steel rollers to flatten it. There are four main types of rolled oats:

1. Thick Rolled Oats: These are made from steamed whole oat groats rolled into flakes. Because they’re the thickest variety, it takes them longest to cook.
2. “Old Fashioned Oats”, or Regular Rolled Oats: Think Quaker Oatmeal. These are the steamed whole oat groats rolled into a thinner flake which shortens the cooking time. The texture is a bit mushier than thick rolled oats, but still pretty filling and full of whole grain goodness.
3. Quick Oats: Instead of using whole oat groats, these are made from steel cut oats so are smaller pieces, and faster cooking. They digest a little quicker than regular rolled oats, but are still nutritious.
4. Instant Oats: These are quick oats that have one more processing step… they are pre-cooked. Because of this, all you have to do is add hot water and they’re ready to eat. Non-flavored varieties may have a bit of salt added, but are still nutritionally decent. However, the flavored varieties can have a lot of sugar and artificial flavoring, so aren’t quite as good for you as regular types of oatmeal.

There are two more types of oat products available, oat bran and oat flour.

Oat Bran
Made from oat groats ground into a fine oat mea, oat bran is then combined with some of the outer bran or husk of the oat to increase the overall fiber content of the oatmeal. Because of this, it is slightly higher in insoluble fiber than rolled or cut products. It is also quick cooking with a creamy consistency somewhat like cream of wheat. Oat bran is a great addition to breads or granola for a little extra fiber.

Oat Flour
Steel cut oats are steamed, then ground into a fine powder to make oat flour. It has a lot of fiber, but contains very little gluten. It can be used in place of wheat flour in recipes, though it is usually mixed with other whole grain flours since it needs a little help to make it rise due to the lack of gluten. Adding gluten powder to breads will help it rise better, or using baking soda or baking powder in your baked goods.

No matter what variety of oats you choose, they’re a nutritional powerhouse that should be in everyone’s diet!

Watermelon - Summertime Treat & Health Food

Sure you knew it tastes good, but did you realize it’s a really good health food?

The History of Watermelon

The first reference to watermelons was discovered in ancient hieroglyphics on the walls of Egyptian buildings. Watermelon is thought to have originated there in the Kalahari Desert of Africa some 5,000 years ago. They were often placed in the burial tombs of kings. 

Later watermelon made its way on merchant ships into countries along the Mediterranean Sea, then later into China.  By the 13th century watermelon spread through Europe, and later made it’s way to the US on slave ships coming from Africa.

Growing Watermelon

Today watermelons are grown commercially in almost 100 countries. China, Turkey, Iran and the US are top producers, with California, Florida, Georgia and Texas being the top producing states in the latter.

This scrumptious food is related to the cantaloupe, squash, pumpkin and other vining plants. There are over 1,200 varieties of watermelon, with about 50 varieties most commonly grown in the United States and Mexico.  The top favorites fall into four general categories: Allsweet, IceBox, Seedless and Yellow Flesh.

What Makes Watermelon So Good?

Lycopene! Just like tomatoes, watermelons are full of lycopene. This is supposed to help prevent colorectal and prostate cancers. They also have a lot of good-for-you beta-carotene.

So slice off a hunk and eat it, put melon cubes or balls in fruit salads, make cubes of juice to add to drinks, or puree it into soup. Or you could even combine it with feta cheese, a sweet and salt combination often enjoyed in Israel and Egypt.

However you like it best, eat that watermelon.  It’s a summer time treat that’s also a great health food!