Bread, Rice, Pasta: Why Brown is Better

Many people love pasta and rice. However, most of us prefer the white versions of these foods over the brown because they look much tastier. However, where nutrition is concerned, brown bread, rice and pasta are much better for you. If you want to include more brown bread, rice and pasta in your diet, or if you are just curious about the nutritional benefits, then read on. Also, bear in mind that white rice and pasta, before they were processed looked just like their brown counterparts.

 

Processing Out the Nutrients

When brown rice and the wheat that later will be processed into white flour for pasta and bread are processed, the grains are damaged. Their hulls and outer shells are stripped away. With the stripping away of their outer coatings, the nutrients in those coatings are lost. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is. Along with the nutrients from the coatings, the grains lose the protection their coatings provided. This means that the bleaching that makes wheat and rice white will leech more nutrients out of the grains than the loss of the coatings did. By the time brown rice and wheat have been processed fully, much of their nutrient value and flavor are gone. Some manufacturers go through the trouble of adding vitamins back in, but these products are not as good as eating whole-grain foods in the first place.

 

Losing the Fiber

One of the nutrients commonly lost due to processing is fiber. Fiber is a very important nutrient, one that all of us need. Fiber helps keep the digestive tract clear. It is very difficult for the body to digest, so when it travels through our bowels, it gathers up other waste products along the way, carrying them out of the body. It also tends to regulate the function of the digestive tract. Brown rice, as well as unprocessed wheat, still contain all the fiber present in the raw grains and are an excellent way to get your daily allowance.

 

Lower the Risk of Chronic Diseases

Whole grain foods, like brown rice, pasta and bread can lower the risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes when eaten as part of a healthy diet. The benefits of whole grain consumption are not only for diabetics. Eating whole grain cuts your risk of strokes thirty to thirty-six per cent. It can also cut the risk of heart disease, the number one killer in the United States by twenty to twenty-five per cent. That is an amazing drop in numbers for one simple dietary choice.

 

Whole grains such as brown rice and the wheat used to make the darker breads like whole wheat lose most of their nutrients when processed, leaving them mainly starch with no fiber, and even though some bread manufacturers put back some of the lost nutrients, it is still not enough. Therefore, eating whole grain foods is an important health decision. Processed grains also have a lack of fiber, which our bodies use to balance the digestive tract. Whole grains have a number of amazing chronic disease-reducing benefits. That is why looks are not everything and brown really is better than white when it comes to your health.

The Benefits of Paleo

As far as diets go, paleo is both very new and very old. At first, this may seem like a contradiction, but people have been eating in this fashion for millions of years, ever since the first hunter-gatherer tribes appeared on Earth. However, it was only just recently that we became aware of the health benefits of this historical way of eating. Whether you are planning on embracing the paleo lifestyle or just curious about the health benefits of this type of diet, then this article is for you. Here we will outline the health benefits of paleo so that you can decide whether it is for you.  Paleo, for this article’s purposes, is the act of eating as our hunter-gatherer ancestors did. This means that you are allowed to eat foods which could be gathered from the ground or pulled from trees as are free-range, grass-fed animals. Gluten is prohibited, as are all processed foods as much as possible. This more natural way of eating of course promotes a number of health benefits.

 

Real Food Vs. Processed Food

Processed foods contain a lot of additives, preservatives, colorings, sodium and hidden sugar. These chemicals are not good for our bodies, causing everything from allergic reactions to sluggishness to high blood pressure. If you eat a paleo diet, which contains only whole, organically produced foods and some natural but packaged sauces and ingredients, you eliminate a large number of toxins from your body as well as the salt which raises your blood pressure and the hidden sugar that can increase your risk of diabetes and becoming overweight. Eliminating additives, preservatives and other unnecessary chemicals from your food also helps you feel much better, both mentally and physically, helping your body work at peak performance.

 

Get Your Nutrients

Along with the benefit of removing preservatives, the paleo diet also removes nutrient-void carbs. People eating in this manner tend to replace the filler carbs with fruits, vegetables and healthy fats. In fact, a person eating a paleo diet can get all the required nutrients for a day from plant-based foods, meat and fish. They eliminate grains and legumes, which also leads to increased gut health. Increased gut health, in turn means that their bodies digest food much more efficiently.

 

Weight Loss

Paleo diets promote a long-lasting weight loss and muscle growth when paired with a healthy lifestyle. Better stress management techniques as well as an improvement in sleep and a good balance of Omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids help to burn off stored fat. Also, eating a paleo diet will increase your energy, which will allow you to exercise longer without tiring.

 

Lose the Bloat

Many people eating a Western-style diet find themselves experiencing chronic bloat and gas which can be very uncomfortable. Eating a paleo diet reduces these symptoms, as paleo diets contain a lot of fiber. Fiber allows waste products in the body to be broken up more effectively and carried away, thereby eliminating constipation which can lead to much worse issues such as compaction. Those on paleo diets also drink an adequate amount of water and decrease their sodium intake. This both flushes out the waste and prevents water retention, which can lead to bloat.

 

Avoid Blood Sugar Crashes

If you have ever been in an important meeting at work and have suddenly found your mood plummeting as you got hungrier, then you have experienced a blood sugar crash. Eating a paleo diet can be very helpful in preventing these crashes and the accompanying spikes that occur when we eat because they are very rich in protein, fats, and slow-digesting carbs. Meals with a lot of protein and fat are very energy-dense and satisfying. This means you feel full sooner than if you were eating something like a bag of chips that was unbalanced. Carbs all raise your blood sugar a bit, but slow-digesting carbs do not raise it nearly as much. Nor do they let it drop as quickly. Slow-digesting carbs take a long time to be metabolized. This means that you will become hungry more slowly and without the irritabality and mood swings you might normally experience.

 

There are many benefits to a paleo diet. These are only a few. Paleo diets are rich in healthy fats, proteins, fruits, vegetables and slow-digesting carbs. This makes them the exact balance of the foods your body needs and people have been eating this way for millennia and still do in other parts of the world. These people are living happy, healthy lives, free from most of the health problems that face the Western world. Would it not be nice to live a life in which you had less of a risk of most of those problems? If you agree, then paleo just might be the right lifestyle choice for you.

A Guide to Vegetarianism

The choice to go vegetarian is a personal one. Sometimes it is for medical reasons, sometimes ethical, sometimes both and sometimes neither. Whatever the reasons for your choice to go vegetarian, you

The choice to go vegetarian is a personal one. Sometimes it is for medical reasons, sometimes ethical, sometimes both and sometimes neither. Whatever the reasons for your choice to go vegetarian, you will have to make some very large changes and to pay much more attention to the foods you eat. Would it not be great if there was a guide to help you through the change, a road map of sorts that you could use to point the way? Well, now there is. This article will serve as your tool kit and provide the information you need in order to make the transition to vegetarianism easier.

 

What Is A Vegetarian Anyhow?

Before you choose a vegetarian diet, you need to answer this simple question. What kind of vegetarian diet are you going to follow? In the broadest sense, a vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat, poultry or seafood. But in reality, that definition is not nearly so clear-cut as it seems to be. There are several types of vegetarian diets. Lacto-ovo vegetarians will not eat meat but will eat eggs and drink milk. They will also consume cheese and other dairy products. This is the most common type of vegetarian. Ovo vegetarians eat only eggs, but do not consume dairy products or eat any meat. Lacto vegetarians consume dairy products but do not eat eggs or any type of meat. Vegans will not consume any dairy, eggs or meat. They will not also wear leather or use any other animal products whatsoever. Research is the key here. Read up on the types of vegetarian diets. Pick the one that best fits your needs. Talk to your medical professionals. Your doctor may know of reasons that a vegetarian diet would not work well for you, and they will most assuredly have information on how to more effectively transition from your normal diet to a vegetarian one.

 

Make Menus and Find Recipes

Going vegetarian is not easy if you do not have a game plan. To these ends, making menus can be very helpful. A menu works as a road map of sorts. It provides a framework with which you can build the week’s meals. Be sure to check your grocery store to find out what vegetables and fruits are in season, as well as if they have vegetarian-friendly versions of your favorite products. For example, there are delicious tofu-based versions of many meat-based dishes, for example hamburgers, chicken nuggets and deli sliced turkey. These foods can make your adjustment to the vegetarian lifestyle far easier. Also, good recipes are a must-have. There are many vegetarian cookbooks out there. Chances are your local library or bookstore stocks these cookbooks. The Internet is also another good source of recipes. Aim to try a new recipe once weekly. That way your pool of vegetarian-friendly foods is always increasing and you will feel far less burned out.

 

Make Substitutions

Just because you are embracing a vegetarian lifestyle, it does not mean you have to give up your favorite foods. As mentioned above, there are a number of vegetarian options for dishes in most supermarkets. If your supermarket does not have these vegetarian options, they could very easily stock them for you. Many vegetarian versions of meat-based dishes are made with tofu. Tofu on its own is pretty flavorless. However, the lovely thing about it is that it soaks up the flavors of anything you cook with it. This means if you like spicy foods or sweet foods you can simply season the meat alternative you choose as you would normally and the tofu will suck up all the flavors. As a bonus, many of the vegetarian tofu products have almost the same consistency as meat. Chances are, you may not even miss meat at all.

 

Start Out Slowly

When adjusting to vegetarianism, it is important to start slowly. Cutting out red meat first is probably the best place to start. Of all the kinds of meat out there, red meats such as beef are the most unhealthy. Clearing these out of your diet will drastically improve your health as well as making the rest of the adjustment process easier. When you have grown accustomed to the lack of red meat, you can wean yourself off of other types of meats as well.

There are many reasons to become a vegetarian, some medical and some personal or ethical. Whatever your reasons are, a vegetarian diet can be much healthier than a diet which contains a lot of meat. No matter which vegetarian diet fits your needs best, there are still several steps you need to make to adjust to being a vegetarian. Now, with this article as your guide, you are fully ready to embrace your new, exciting lifestyle and all the challenges and rewards that come with it.

 

 

There are many reasons to become a vegetarian, some medical and some personal or ethical. Whatever your reasons are, a vegetarian diet can be much healthier than a diet which contains a lot of meat. No matter which vegetarian diet fits your needs best, there are still several steps you need to make to adjust to being a vegetarian. Now, with this article as your guide, you are fully ready to embrace your new, exciting lifestyle and all the challenges and rewards that come with it.

Fats: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Stop! Put down that donut. Unhand that candy bar. Before you take another bite, there are some things about fats you need to know. Did you realize that not all fats are bad for you? Some fats, eaten in the proper proportions can help keep your body healthy. If you did not know this small but important fact, do not worry. Many people do not know. It is far easier to think of all fat as evil that needs eradicating, but this article will disprove that notion. We will discuss the difference between good fats and bad fats, and the ways both affect your body, as well as steps to help you make better choices in what types of fats you eat. We will also clarify some of the tricky terminology surrounding the subject of fat, giving you a road map forward. If you are curious, then please keep reading. Oh, and you can pick up the donut now.

 

The Good

It is a common misconception that all fats are bad for you and go straight to your hips. This is completely untrue. Some fats, in healthy quantities pose a benefit to the body and are actually necessary for good heart health as well as other bodily functions. However, not all fats are created equal. Unsaturated fats are known as good fats, and they come in two types, mono unsaturated and poly unsaturated, based on their chemical composition. These types of fats help protect your heart, lower blood cholesterol and help insulin work more efficiently, which is particularly useful if you have Type II diabetes. As a bonus, unsaturated fats are really easy to add into your diet. Chances are good that you already get your recommended daily allotment of these fats, especially if you like any of the following foods: avocado, olives, peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts, natural peanut butter, fatty fish such as tuna, salmon and mackerel and pumpkin seeds. There are also unsaturated oils. However, be careful with these. There are two types of unsaturated oils. The first type are cold-pressed oils such as peanut, sesamae and extra-virgin olive oil. These oils have been used in Asian cooking for hundreds of years and support your good health. The other type are more recently developed industrially manufactured oils such as soybean, corn, canola and safflower. These oils are manufactured generally using genetically modified crops and in a way that damages the fats, turning them into dangerous trans fats.

 

The Bad

As we have discussed before, not all fats are created equal. Just as there are good fats, there are also bad fats. These fats are saturated fats and trans-fats. These are the fats which do all the bad things that people have attributed to fats in general for so many years. They clog your arteries, add to your waistline and cause heart disease. Perhaps surprisingly, even a good fat can become a bad fat if it is damaged. Some fats, such as flax seed oil, must be stored in the refrigerator in an opaque container. If they are not properly stored, they will turn into saturated fats, and nobody wants that. Also, if you are going to use nuts and seeds, please be careful. Never eat or cook with nuts or seeds after they start smelling rank or tasting bitter.

 

The Ugly

We have briefly touched on the effects of bad fats, like the ones found in a lot of donuts, candy bars,  and potato chips, but we feel it is a good idea to discuss these effects in greater detail. Saturated fats and trans fats can cause plaques to build up in the arteries. These plaques are sticky like super glue, and they actively haul in proteins, more fats, and other types of molecules. Eventually, a plaque could even rupture, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke as the blood vessel holding the plaque will be blocked. These bad fats can also lead to fat deposits around the waistline. These fat deposits, in turn decrease the efficiency of insulin which may lead to Type II diabetes or worsen it in those who already have it. In short, saturated fats and trans fats can make your health vastly worse than it would otherwise be.

 

Fats are very important to your health. However, they are not equally healthy. Unsaturated fats can benefit the body in a number of ways such as improving the health of your heart as well as increasing insulin efficiency for Type II diabetics. Saturated fats, however, will damage your body in various ways and can undo your healthy choices. Think of that before you eat your next donut.

Nutrition 101: Getting Started

Going to the supermarket can feel like walking into a car dealership if you are trying to eat nutritiously. Every item on the shelves claims to be nutritious in one way or other, even things that you likely know blatantly are not, such as candy bars and potato chips. Every product is screaming at you from the shelves like a used car salesman hawking his wares, using all the buzz words. Every food claims to be low fat, low carb, high in protein, low in trans fat. If you do not know what these words mean, or the names of the chemicals you are shoving into your mouth, it will be hard to make the important, healthy choices you need to make. This article will serve as your guide through the labyrinth. We will discuss everything someone just starting out on this journey of healthy eating should need to know in order to not be duped by all the sales claims. This way you will know what nutrients you need, what quantities you need them in, and you will not overspend on the latest fad. If you are just beginning on the journey of healthy eating, just stick with us, and we will get you out the other side.

 

Too Much, Too Little

Multivitamins can be very useful in enhancing the amount of those nutrients you get too little of in your regular diet. However, taking more than one multivitamin can lead to overdoses of some of them. This overdose can lead to illness as your body attempts to cope with the excess. Furthermore, some vitamins are rendered useless if they are not in a harmonious balance with others. That is why it is so important to make sure that your nutrient intake is in balance as much as you can. There are many ways to insure a correct balance of nutrients. Do not take more than one multivitamin. Make sure to always pick foods from the five food groups at every meal. Check for your serving size based upon your height, weight and activity levels.

 

Balancing Act

There are five food groups. It is very important to eat a good balance of foods from each group to maintain good health. Many diets insist that you cut out or cut down on certain nutrients such as protein or carbs. However, this is not a good idea. If you cut down on carbs or protein or any other form of nutrition, then chances are likely that the only thing you will succeed in doing is unbalancing your metabolism. The key is balance and moderation. Each food group requires a person to eat different amounts of foods from that group.

 

Drink Water

The last helpful nutrient is water. Water is necessary for every single process within our bodies. It cools us off, carries nutrients throughout the body, is a major component in most of our organs and cells and helps flush out waste. Humans can live for a couple of weeks without food. However, it is impossible to live more than a few days without water. Some water comes from the foods we eat. However, that water is not nearly enough to power all your body’s processes. To gain the necessary water to maintain healthy, it is important to drink enough of it during a day. The average person needs six to eight glasses of water per day. Many of us, however, do not drink nearly that much and instead fill up the defecit with sugary soft drinks and coffee which can lead to dehydration, issues with blood sugar, and weight gain.

 

Watch Out For Refined Sugar

Many foods contain refined sugar. It is very important to look out for this sugar in your diet as it can lead to a lot of problems in the long-term. Perhaps the biggest of these problems is diabetes which, if untreated can be fatal. There is no cure for diabetes, and treating it may involve several painful needle pricks a day on top of the needle pricks necessary to test your blood sugar. One would think refined sugar would be easy to spot if you avoid candy, soda, cakes and pies but that isn’t the case. Refined sugar exists in every sort of food from fried rice to potato chips.

 

Good nutrition is very important. If your nutrition is poor, your health will suffer. Poor nutrition also leads to several diseases, including heart attack, heart disease, stroke, various cancers and some forms of Diabetes. These conditions, though they can be managed are incurable. This means if you are diagnosed with one, you will have it for the rest of your life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those whose health is bad  report symptoms as diverse as chronic fatigue, irritability and bloating. This is just scratching the surface. Now, however, you have the keys you need to unlock good nutrition and change this grim prognosis. It is never too late to make healthier choices. And you do not even have to make all the changes at once. Every small change you make has a cumulative effect on your health and can make you happier and less ill. With these simple keys, you might even shut up the used car sales talk of the choices at your local supermarket.