White Death

Don't eat white food.

White Death

It's complicated. We have to make decisions about what food to eat many times a day. It's good to have a few rules of thumb to make it easier to choose.

One good rule is "don't eat white food".

There are very few foods in nature that are white. Foods in nature are green or brown or yellow or red or purple. These colors are made by vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients. The darker the color the better.

The grocery store is different. There are lots of white foods. How did they get that way? They were processed (mechanical or chemical) to make them white. Why? Sometimes to improve shelf life. Sometimes to make them more attractive. Making food white never improves it.

Let's look at some different foods and their nutritional value.

Glycemic Index

First we should discuss glycemic index. This is a measure of how quickly blood sugar levels rise after eating each kind of food. Glucose is 100 and most sugars are also 100. This is bad. You want a low glycemic index in the food you eat. Hummus (my favorite food) has a glycemic index of only 6. Most beans are about 25. Eating lots of high glycemic index food leads to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and excess weight gain. A high number is bad. A low number is good.

Grains

Wheat is the most common grain in our diet. Wheat is brown. Industrial food production and storage found that if they removed the brown outer layer (and the "germ"), the resulting white flour could be stored and shipped long distances. Of course, in removing the outer layers, they also removed a lot of the nutrition leaving just starch and a little protein. The outer layers provide fiber, vitamins and minerals. White flour also has a much higher glycemic index (71) than whole wheat flour (50).

Rice another common grain. Same problem here. Food processors who are interested in storage life remove the outer covering and "germ" to make white rice. White rice has a glycemic index of 89 whereas brown rice is only 50. Black rice (available in Asian markets) is also very high in phytonutrients and antioxidants.

Legumes

Beans, lentils, etc. are all good. Fortunately, they are not usually stripped of nutrients during processing and they retain their natural color and nutrients. Darker colored beans (black beans and kidney beans) are high in phytonutrients. You can buy most beans dry and soak then cook them easily, thus avoiding the excess salt that is usually found in canned beans and also avoid the BPA coating in cans.

Fruits

Here again, you have lots of options. Dark colored fruits such as blueberries and dark red cherries have more phytonutrients and antioxidants and are very healthy. Most fruits have a glycemic index of about 40.

Vegetables

Vegetables come in all colors of the rainbow. The more colorful, the healthier. Most vegetables have a low glycemic index (30 to 50). Eat your vegetables!

A note about cooked food

You know that frying or baking food makes it brown. If you take white bread and bake it or white flour breading and fry it, it will turn brown. However, it is still white food. Cooking doesn't magically put back all of the nutrients that were lost when the food was made white.

So, the next time you get hungry... avoid the white stuff.