Hot Off the Press! New Guidelines for Vit D and Calcium Intake

Report Brief - Institute of Medicine

I'll post my comments soon, but in the meantime, what do you think?

It's almost Turkey Day.....let's get cookin'!

Thanksgiving is almost here, and no, there is no “tofurkey” here at the VenHuizen house.  Nor will there ever be.  We eat REAL food, and processed alternative products are generally frowned upon.  This also means we do a lot of cooking.  Thank goodness we love to cook.   It’s a lot of work to be sure, but one that we place value on.   I just get this innate sense of satisfaction when a warm, hearty meal comes together, especially when the ingredients were gathered at the local farmers' market, or better yet, were gifts from our neighbors’ gardens.   And I’m lucky.  My hubby loves to cook, probably more than me.  He has a good sense for throwing things together, even without a recipe.  I tend to be one of those Type A’s that needs to follow the recipe word for word (nothing wrong with that) but I always wish I was more creative and spontaneous in the kitchen.  All that to say cooking is a valuable skill when it comes to eating healthy.  I’m not saying you have to love it, but realizing its value and making more time for meal preparation is something we could all be more mindful of.

So how would one, now interested in furthering their cooking abilities, go about such an endeavor?  Read, read, read!  Reading is always a great way to learn new recipes and techniques.  Start with simple recipes out of cooking magazines or basic cookbooks.  Look up anything you aren’t sure of on the internet.  Never de-boned a chicken?  I bet you could get a rudimentary idea within a few minutes searching on the web.  Another way to learn is to take a cooking class.  There are always classes at community colleges or through local culinary groups.  A quick read through the newspaper or a basic online search will probably produce some ideas.  Even some organic grocers such as PCC, Whole Foods and Marlene’s have a regular schedule of classes for a wide variety of palates.  Yet another (albeit more expensive) route is to hire a personal chef or nutrition professional who will come into your home and teach you the basics.  Many local Dietitians, myself included, offer in-home cooking lessons and pantry clean-outs sessions.

But the best and potentially the easiest way to increase our collective cooking knowledge is to teach your children!  Get your youngins measuring out the spices for curry, chopping vegetables for stew, and stirring the home-made pasta sauce.  Teach them where their food comes from, how it’s typically prepared, and why.   Help them pick out ingredients at the grocery store and ask questions of the farmers at the market.  They don’t teach this stuff in school anymore, folks, so it’s up to you.  If you show them the ropes now, they won’t need to learn the hard way as adults.

So with that, I will share our Thanksgiving menu which I put together yesterday rather hastily from a hodge podge of cookbooks we have hanging around (mainly Nigella’s Feast and Whole Grain Baking by Diana Greene).

-Fennel Potato soup

-Organic Turkey from PCC (based w/ white wine butter sauce)

-Sweet Potato Mash

-Parsnips w/ maple syrup

-Brussel sprouts /w chestnuts and pancetta

-Cranberry sauce

-Herbed whole grain rolls

-Pumpkin pie

All of this will be fresh and homemade from raw ingredients, however I will admit that I’m seriously considering running down to the Swinery as they just posted that they have fresh lard pie crusts……and pie crusts are my least favorite thing to do. =) 

So now I’d love to know…..what’s your menu?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Healthy Fats?

I've been asked to share a little more about healthy fats.  So I shall.  Fats are wonderful things.  They are critical for brain development, hormone production, nerve impulse transmission, memory storage, and are a key in the structure of our cell membranes.  They are also handy for energy storage (which is a feature some of us wish our bodies didn't have) and keeping us warm.  And best of all?  They make food taste GOOD.  We need fats.  It is a real shame the whole low-fat diet craze did such a disservice by scaring the general public away from healthy fats and into the arms of artificial sugars, low-fat processed foods, and George Foreman grills.  Bleh.  I will say though, I was a low-fat diet guru in my earlier years.  I could tell you how many calories was in a serving of Snackwells, where to buy the best veggie burgers, and extol the virtues of fat-free cereal as the perfect snack.  Looking back, this was terribly unhealthy.  The only reason I didn't feel like utter crap was because I was young.  You can get away with a lot when you are young and naive.  I remember once in college I subsisted for an entire day on nothing but jube-jubes (those wonderful jelly candies you can only get in Canada.  They make nothing quite as delectable here.).  Seriously, I did.  I'm almost ashamed to admit it.  But no fat, right?  But no nutrients either!!  How did I survive?  Apparently my high school education failed in instilling some basic knowledge of macro and micro nutrients.

So that was me 10+ years ago.  I have wised up since then.  I make sure to have generous amounts of healthy fats in my diet daily.  I suppose the real problem is that so many fats have been villified that one is no longer sure what constitutes a healthy fat and what does not.  Here is where I can help break it down for you: everything in moderation.  The only caveat to this is trans-fats, which you should never eat. NEVER.*  So yes, everything in moderation.  Even saturated fats you say?  Yes, even saturated fats. I'm not convinced saturated fats coming from natural, non-processed sources are really as bad as they are made out to be.  Many of our ancestors lived on large amounts of saturated fats from meat and dairy yet did not have the rampant heart disease we have now.  What's different?  I think the answer is SAD - the Standard American Diet.  High-fat, high-processed food diets, low intake of plant matter + low physical activity = poor health.  I think it's that simple.  Or not simple I suppose.  Our society is not set up to make eating well easy.  How did a jube jube end up in a poor, naive college girl's dorm room in the first place?  Why didn't someone intervene?  Because they didn't know any better either!  So our friends can't help us, the stores, filled with misleading claims and false advertising, certainly won't help us, and our government which makes food rules for us not based on science but on how much money the lobbies are willing to give them unfortunately provides little help as well.  This all sounds so hopeless, doesn't it?

This is why I am so passionate about what I do.  There is hope.  And as most of you already know, things are getting better.  People are becoming more aware.  Our government is paying more attention now that heart disease and gastric-bypass surgeries are continually on the rise.  And more and more health professionals are promoting normal, plain, regular FOOD instead of things out of boxes, bags and cartons.

But enough ranting about SAD.  Back to healthy fats.  So some saturated fat is ok, but do keep portions small and get it from natural sources like organic meats, dairy and coconut milk.  Don't get it from baked goods or processed foods.  Most of us do need to decrease our saturated fats though for sure, and so when you do, replace them with healthy fats and not carbs.  As I touched on last week, your risk for heart disease does not decrease if you replace fat with carbohydrates.  In fact, I literally just read an abstract in The Journal of Nutrition online stating that the LDL/HDL ratio (aka bad/good cholesterol) improves when replacing saturated fats with healthy fats. Replacing them with carbs produced no change in this particular study.

So I guess here is the most interesting part of my long-winded post.  What fats should we replace them with then?  Why, mono and poly-unsaturated of course!  I think I/we forget that most people have no idea what these words mean, and yet they are supposed to go find these fats and eat them.  Right.  Clearly it's not happening. And when it is, people are not giving these delicate and somewhat unstable fats the love and care they deserve.  Did you know these fats are highly prone to rancidity and can do more damage than good when stored and prepared improperly? Especially oils.  You must be extremely careful with oils.  Because they are not fully saturated, they are less stable and more prone to rancidity and oxidation.  In fact, I would recommend one avoid cooking with polyunsaturated oils because the heat can break them down, which frankly makes them angry.  You don't want angry unsaturated fats in your bloodstream, do you?  So here is a few lists of examples of some "healthy" fat foods:

Avocado, olives, nuts/seeds, flaxseed, soybeans, nut butters, sardines, herring, mackerel, salmon, tuna, olive oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil.....

This list is not exhaustive but covers a wide range of foods.  Also note that I lumped them all together because most of these fats are a combination of mono- and polyunsaturated, so it is sometimes hard to classify them as one or the other.  So that's that.  I think I am done now.  Questions?   A lightly salted avocado is sounding mighty good right now.

*Except for those naturally occurring in meat and dairy.  I'm just talking about the crap in processed foods.

Amusing

I do cook at home and quite enjoy it, however I'll admit sometimes I feel like this:  http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home
(Pardon the small bit that contains foul language)

What Does a Dietitian Eat for Breakfast?

I often get asked what I eat, so as I sat eating breakfast with my son this morning I thought I'd give some insight into my breakfast habits.  Now I'll be honest.....I don't always eat perfectly.  In fact, I think most of my meals are imperfect.  I could always use a little more of this or a little more of that, but I think in the end it all works out.  And being that one of my goals in this blog is to be honest and practical, I'm going to divulge my imperfections.  We all "know" what we are supposed to do and don't always do it, and I am no exception.  I could sit here and pretend that I spend my afternoons soaking beans and grains, kneading whole wheat flour into bread, or roasting root vegetables for a mid-day snack, but I don't.  I do these things, yes, but not consistently.  I could be doing one of those things now while Soren naps, but instead I am here blogging.

But I digress.  Back to breakfast.  Here is this morning's menu: two pieces of cinnamon toast from Great Harvest with butter, 2 eggs scrambled, and a cup of coffee.  "Holy cholesterol," you might say.  Yes, it's a little heavy on the cholesterol. I'm really not too concerned about that.  What I should be concerned about is what is missing.  Can you guess?  Clearly I am missing a good source of antioxidants. Ok, yes, coffee is rich in antioxidants, but some colorful plant matter would do me good. I should have added an orange or bowl of blueberries, for instance, or scrambled my eggs with some spinach and tomatoes.  It's the little things that make a big difference.

The reason antioxidants are on my mind brings me back to one particular session at the FNCE conference.  A couple of PhD nutrition researchers gave a very interesting presentation on recent data surrounding fats and heart disease. What research has found, they explained, was that it is true that saturated fats increase the overall risk for heart disease by increasing LDL, aka "bad," cholesterol. This LDL cholesterol becomes oxidized, gets deposited in our arteries, and cardiovascular disease begins. That is information most of us already know. What they also found was that by decreasing saturated fats and replacing those calories with carbohydrates, our risk for heart disease stays the same. That doesn't sound good considering our love of low-fat diets and refined carbohydrates in this country.  Also, they reported that even with meals high in saturated fats, blood levels of oxidized LDL actually do not increase significantly if that meal is consumed with antioxidants.  A study on the effects of red wine was one used, which made me happy.  Anyways, all that to say....antioxidants are important, so eat your blueberries.  And instead of replacing saturated fat with carbs, include more healthy fats instead.  The whole low-fat diet idea really needs to just go away.  So thinking back to my breakfast, I think this would be a better scenario:  1 piece of toast with butter, 2 eggs scrambled with spinach & tomatoes, 1 orange, and my beloved cup of coffee. What do you think?

Here we go....

So here it is. I’m finally starting a blog. I’ve thought about this for a long time but there has always been a reason why I didn’t have the time or didn’t have anything to write about. I heard the founder of Monster.com speak the other day and it was just the kick I needed to get me started. His advice was just to do it and stop overanalyzing it. So that is what I am going to do. I’m just going to write what comes to mind, what interests me, what I am thinking today, etc, and try my best not to over-think it. Sometimes too much thinking results in great thoughts but no action (ie polititians). We do that with our diets too, but more on that another day.

As I write this I am in Boston and on way home from FNCE (Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo). It’s the annual conference for the American Dietetic Association. This is my second time attending and it was fascinating once again. I learned a lot and came away with some great messages and ideas that I am excited to share with my clients. A few highlights come to mind: great research on the truth behind fats and heart disease (you’d be surprised!), new insights into gluten sensitivity and celiac disease, and a riveting presentation by the legendary Anthony Bourdain to wrap up the conference.

Well my flight is about to board so I had better sign off. I’m excited to share more about what I learned and other nutrition tidbits as they come to mind. Stay tuned!