Bulk Up That Diet
Americans tend to have a very narrow view of what a diet is or
what it means. It frequently is used simply in the context of losing
weight. "Can't have that, I'm on a diet". "Which diet are you
following"? "How much weight have you lost on diet X (fill in the
blank), Y (fill in the blank) or Z (fill in the blank)"? Well, the
word diet has Latin (diaeta) or Greek (diaita) roots meaning "way
of living". So unless your life involves constantly making a
concerted effort to lose weight, you should be concerned with the
appropriate diet. That is, the daily diet you consume that doesn't
hasten your appointment with the maker or constantly makes you
seek out that other... diet.
When it comes to food, nutrition and weight, there is no magic.
This is one of the few instances where simple math is correct. One
plus one does equal two. Five minus one does equal four. You can
consume pure lard and still lose weight as long as the energy you
burn exceeds the energy you consume. And while deprivation diets
can make you shed excess pounds faster than Frosty in the desert,
once you go back to your standard diet that made you put on
those excess pounds in the first place, those excess pounds return
with a vengeance. I say vengeance because if all we do is deprive
ourselves of calories, we'll lose some fat tissue (good) along with
some lean tissue (not so good) and water (can be replaced within
hours). Then once we're off the deprivation diet - if we do
nothing else other than go back to our usual eating habits - we
put that weight right back on. With a slight difference. Some of
the initial weight loss was lean tissue, when it packs back on its
simply fat tissue so even if our weight doesn't exceed previous
levels, we're now "fatter" than before. And fat tissue doesn't burn
calories, it simply stores calories. Lean tissue is the furnace that
burns calories and we lost some of it due to the deprivation diet.
Add several cycles of this deprivation diet (on top of simply
getting older which usually lowers our basal metabolic rate) and
now you have a middle aged person who may be the same weight
as 10 years ago but much "fatter".
So What's a Person to Eat?
As I've mentioned many times before, there are only 3 types of
macronutrients that account for all of our caloric intake: Protein,
fat and carbohydrate. When it comes to protein, we want to look
for leaner sources of protein like poultry breasts instead of thighs
or pork tenderloin or loin in place of butt or shoulder. Or how
about tenderloin steaks in place of ribeye or strip. Most
supermarkets also sell various mixtures of ground beef from 75%
lean all the way up to 93% lean which would be the preferable
mixture. Adding seafood protein also keeps the fat at bay as most
seafood items are low in fat and the fat found in cold water fish
tend to carry their fair share of possibly beneficial fats in the form
of omega-3 fatty acids.
When it comes to fat, these also come in all forms from the artery
clogging saturated fats to the healthier Mediterranean
monounsaturated fats found in nuts and olive oil to the wide range
of polyunsaturated fats found in walnuts, canola oil and cold water
fish. The general rule of thumb for fats is that if it's solid at room
temperature, it's not good for you but if it's liquid it's a better
choice.
Finally for carbohydrates, look for whole grain, not just color.
Often bread is labeled as containing "whole wheat" and since it's
colored brown, it's understandable that it could be mistaken for
100% whole wheat when all it actually contains is 10% whole wheat
and colored with molasses. Along with bread and rice, whole grains
are also found in pasta. And they cook a lot better than the whole
wheat pasta of old. For starters, many companies are now using
hard white wheat which gives the finished whole grain pasta an
appearance like regular pasta and it cooks just as nicely. Of course
another carbohydrate is that form that we can't digest and simply
passes right through our system. And that carbohydrate is fiber.
Not Always Roughage
I know what you're thinking; isn't fiber simply that bran cereal at
the supermarket? Or is it Metamucil? Well, fiber comes in all
shapes and sizes. First of all, they are classified as insoluble and
soluble fiber with the insoluble variety being your wheat bran
cereal, most fibrous veggies (celery, green beans, tomato skin,
corn) and are what previously was termed "roughage". The stuff
that keeps you "regular". Then there's soluble fiber which usually
are starches that we can't digest like the raffinoses, stachyoses and
verbacoses in beans or the pectin found in many fruits and
vegetables or the mucilaginous gums found in guar gum and gum
arabic. Some of these indigestible starches are partially digested by
bacteria in our lower tract like inulin which produces short chain
organic acids that may facilitate the absorption of calcium, iron
and magnesium. Fermentable fibers such as inulin are commonly
found in chicory root - that's why you see chicory listed as an
ingredient in many "high fiber" bars, crackers and cereals. These
soluble fibers also potentially bind to bile acids thus reducing our
levels of serum cholesterol. And from a dietary standpoint, dietary
fiber have negligible calories so they don't contribute to the
"battle of the bulge" and since they do take up space in the
stomach during mealtime, you're more likely to consume less of
those other foodstuffs that make you go on that other diet.
Dietary Recommendations
The American Dietetic Association recommends that adults get 20
to 35gm of dietary fiber every day (daily recommendations for
children are 5gm plus age) though most Americans only get about
one-half of the daily recommendations. Why so little fiber? Well,
most processed and fast foods are devoid of fiber because they are
produced to sell. And you sell food products with taste... which
usually means extra fat or salt (when was the last time you heard
someone comment on the exquisite flavor the wheat bran added to
those muffins)? And since food manufacturers concentrate on sales
and not health, you have to make that extra effort to get your
daily fiber.
But what about the side effects? You know, those "musical" side
effects of fiber. As I recommend to all of my patients, "start low
and go slow". Though we can't digest those starches or gums, that
doesn't mean our intestinal flora can't and boy do they do a good
job! And perchance one of those musical tunes does escape, simply
turn to face your offended audience and state "On behalf of my E
Coli, I'd like to apologize for their impudence, this always happen
when they consume inulin".
I previously posted a version of this recipe about 5 years ago in my
article "The Many Faces of Surimi". However back then the focus
was on surimi, this round it's on fiber and foods we can consume
as part of our everyday diet:
The Gochiso’s Broccoli, Tomato & Crab Pasta Salad
4 broccoli crowns
8 plum tomatoes, ripe but firm
8 ounces imitation crab flavored surimi
6 ounces real crab
1 & ½ cups whole grain pasta (available from Barilla and Safeway)
1 to 1 & ½ cups canola oil mayonnaise
2 tbsp brown mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and cool pasta.
Trim broccoli to bite sized pieces and
steam for 3 to 4 minutes. Cool broccoli then mix with pasta. Chop
tomatoes to large bite sized
pieces and mix with broccoli mixture. Cut surimi to bite sized
pieces – don’t flake the surimi,
cut it or leave it in chunks and mix with broccoli mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix mayonnaise, mustard, honey, sesame oil,
crab and salt/pepper. Pour over
broccoli mixture and toss until it’s evenly coated. Refrigerate for
an hour before serving.
Serves 18 (1 cup portions)
Per serving: Calories 158
Fat 4.7gm
Saturated fat negligible
Fiber 4.3gm
Carbohydrate 18gm
Protein 8gm
Americans tend to have a very narrow view of what a diet is or
what it means. It frequently is used simply in the context of losing
weight. "Can't have that, I'm on a diet". "Which diet are you
following"? "How much weight have you lost on diet X (fill in the
blank), Y (fill in the blank) or Z (fill in the blank)"? Well, the
word diet has Latin (diaeta) or Greek (diaita) roots meaning "way
of living". So unless your life involves constantly making a
concerted effort to lose weight, you should be concerned with the
appropriate diet. That is, the daily diet you consume that doesn't
hasten your appointment with the maker or constantly makes you
seek out that other... diet.
When it comes to food, nutrition and weight, there is no magic.
This is one of the few instances where simple math is correct. One
plus one does equal two. Five minus one does equal four. You can
consume pure lard and still lose weight as long as the energy you
burn exceeds the energy you consume. And while deprivation diets
can make you shed excess pounds faster than Frosty in the desert,
once you go back to your standard diet that made you put on
those excess pounds in the first place, those excess pounds return
with a vengeance. I say vengeance because if all we do is deprive
ourselves of calories, we'll lose some fat tissue (good) along with
some lean tissue (not so good) and water (can be replaced within
hours). Then once we're off the deprivation diet - if we do
nothing else other than go back to our usual eating habits - we
put that weight right back on. With a slight difference. Some of
the initial weight loss was lean tissue, when it packs back on its
simply fat tissue so even if our weight doesn't exceed previous
levels, we're now "fatter" than before. And fat tissue doesn't burn
calories, it simply stores calories. Lean tissue is the furnace that
burns calories and we lost some of it due to the deprivation diet.
Add several cycles of this deprivation diet (on top of simply
getting older which usually lowers our basal metabolic rate) and
now you have a middle aged person who may be the same weight
as 10 years ago but much "fatter".
So What's a Person to Eat?
As I've mentioned many times before, there are only 3 types of
macronutrients that account for all of our caloric intake: Protein,
fat and carbohydrate. When it comes to protein, we want to look
for leaner sources of protein like poultry breasts instead of thighs
or pork tenderloin or loin in place of butt or shoulder. Or how
about tenderloin steaks in place of ribeye or strip. Most
supermarkets also sell various mixtures of ground beef from 75%
lean all the way up to 93% lean which would be the preferable
mixture. Adding seafood protein also keeps the fat at bay as most
seafood items are low in fat and the fat found in cold water fish
tend to carry their fair share of possibly beneficial fats in the form
of omega-3 fatty acids.
When it comes to fat, these also come in all forms from the artery
clogging saturated fats to the healthier Mediterranean
monounsaturated fats found in nuts and olive oil to the wide range
of polyunsaturated fats found in walnuts, canola oil and cold water
fish. The general rule of thumb for fats is that if it's solid at room
temperature, it's not good for you but if it's liquid it's a better
choice.
Finally for carbohydrates, look for whole grain, not just color.
Often bread is labeled as containing "whole wheat" and since it's
colored brown, it's understandable that it could be mistaken for
100% whole wheat when all it actually contains is 10% whole wheat
and colored with molasses. Along with bread and rice, whole grains
are also found in pasta. And they cook a lot better than the whole
wheat pasta of old. For starters, many companies are now using
hard white wheat which gives the finished whole grain pasta an
appearance like regular pasta and it cooks just as nicely. Of course
another carbohydrate is that form that we can't digest and simply
passes right through our system. And that carbohydrate is fiber.
Not Always Roughage
I know what you're thinking; isn't fiber simply that bran cereal at
the supermarket? Or is it Metamucil? Well, fiber comes in all
shapes and sizes. First of all, they are classified as insoluble and
soluble fiber with the insoluble variety being your wheat bran
cereal, most fibrous veggies (celery, green beans, tomato skin,
corn) and are what previously was termed "roughage". The stuff
that keeps you "regular". Then there's soluble fiber which usually
are starches that we can't digest like the raffinoses, stachyoses and
verbacoses in beans or the pectin found in many fruits and
vegetables or the mucilaginous gums found in guar gum and gum
arabic. Some of these indigestible starches are partially digested by
bacteria in our lower tract like inulin which produces short chain
organic acids that may facilitate the absorption of calcium, iron
and magnesium. Fermentable fibers such as inulin are commonly
found in chicory root - that's why you see chicory listed as an
ingredient in many "high fiber" bars, crackers and cereals. These
soluble fibers also potentially bind to bile acids thus reducing our
levels of serum cholesterol. And from a dietary standpoint, dietary
fiber have negligible calories so they don't contribute to the
"battle of the bulge" and since they do take up space in the
stomach during mealtime, you're more likely to consume less of
those other foodstuffs that make you go on that other diet.
Dietary Recommendations
The American Dietetic Association recommends that adults get 20
to 35gm of dietary fiber every day (daily recommendations for
children are 5gm plus age) though most Americans only get about
one-half of the daily recommendations. Why so little fiber? Well,
most processed and fast foods are devoid of fiber because they are
produced to sell. And you sell food products with taste... which
usually means extra fat or salt (when was the last time you heard
someone comment on the exquisite flavor the wheat bran added to
those muffins)? And since food manufacturers concentrate on sales
and not health, you have to make that extra effort to get your
daily fiber.
But what about the side effects? You know, those "musical" side
effects of fiber. As I recommend to all of my patients, "start low
and go slow". Though we can't digest those starches or gums, that
doesn't mean our intestinal flora can't and boy do they do a good
job! And perchance one of those musical tunes does escape, simply
turn to face your offended audience and state "On behalf of my E
Coli, I'd like to apologize for their impudence, this always happen
when they consume inulin".
I previously posted a version of this recipe about 5 years ago in my
article "The Many Faces of Surimi". However back then the focus
was on surimi, this round it's on fiber and foods we can consume
as part of our everyday diet:
The Gochiso’s Broccoli, Tomato & Crab Pasta Salad
4 broccoli crowns
8 plum tomatoes, ripe but firm
8 ounces imitation crab flavored surimi
6 ounces real crab
1 & ½ cups whole grain pasta (available from Barilla and Safeway)
1 to 1 & ½ cups canola oil mayonnaise
2 tbsp brown mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and cool pasta.
Trim broccoli to bite sized pieces and
steam for 3 to 4 minutes. Cool broccoli then mix with pasta. Chop
tomatoes to large bite sized
pieces and mix with broccoli mixture. Cut surimi to bite sized
pieces – don’t flake the surimi,
cut it or leave it in chunks and mix with broccoli mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix mayonnaise, mustard, honey, sesame oil,
crab and salt/pepper. Pour over
broccoli mixture and toss until it’s evenly coated. Refrigerate for
an hour before serving.
Serves 18 (1 cup portions)
Per serving: Calories 158
Fat 4.7gm
Saturated fat negligible
Fiber 4.3gm
Carbohydrate 18gm
Protein 8gm
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