What's your (Glycemic) Index?

The kinds of food you eat have a direct effect on your health. Our body uses the food we eat for many things, but the primary use is as a fuel. The calories we take in are used to run out bodies. The common denominator of this fuel is glucose, a six carbon sugar.
Our bodies try to maintain a constant blood glucose level in order to deliver a steady stream of energy to cells. Insulin is the primary regulator of blood glucose.
Carbohydrates and fats are the primary sources of energy. My last two posts have discussed the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats. In short, fats are absorbed into the bloodstream with minimal processing whereas carbohydrates must be broken down into simple sugars such as glucose before they are absorbed. The result is that fats are absorbed and can be easily stored for use when needed but the sugars that come from our food must be dealt with immediately. They must be either used by cells or converted into stored energy (fat or glycogen).

Insulin

Insulin regulates our blood sugar by directing cells to take up glucose where it can be burned or stored. The problem is that if you take in a lot of sugar at one time, your pancreas must make a lot of insulin to keep your blood sugar from going too high. If you eat foods such as starches which a large complex carbohyddrates, these are broken down by your digestive system more slowly and absorbed into your bloodstream over a longer period of time. This places smaller demands on the pancreas for insulin.

Glycemic Index

It turns out that a big jump in blood sugar and insulin is bad for you. It contributes to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and, of course, diabetes.  It's much better to eat foods that are digested slowly and don't require a large insulin response. There is a way to measure this trait called glycemic index (GI). Simple sugars such as glucose, fructose, sucrose have a high glycemic index meaning that they are absorbed quickly and cause a large rise in insulin. Glucose has the highest glycemic index which is defined as 100. Foods such as white bread, white rice and other sugars have a GI of over 70 and cause a severe insulin reaction. Foods such as whole wheat flour, whole rice and most fruits are medium GI foods and are healthier. Even better, foods with a GI of less than 55 such as beans, vegetables, nuts and seeds as well as intact whole grains are least challenging to your insulin response and are the healthiest.
You can easily find the GI of most foods online. Try to eat a diet that includes mostly low GI foods and avoid high GI foods. This will help prevent diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Another plug for hummus

I can't resist mentioning my favorite food, hummus. It has a glycemic index of only 6... even more reason to eat more hummus!

The Many Faces of Fat

Of the three main nutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrate), fat is the most complex and interesting and gives us the most latitude to improve our nutrition.
Protein consists of long chains of amino acids which fold into useful shapes to provide structure and function such as enzymes and muscles. There are 21 different amino acids and these can be assembled into countless combinations to form complex shapes. However, from the nutrition standpoint, all protein is pretty much the same. Whatever the source of protein, our digestive system disassembles the long chains into individual amino acids which are then absorbed into the blood stream. Our body then uses these amino acids to build the proteins it needs.
Carbohydrates are also simple. They are short or long chains of sugars. The digestive system breaks these down into simple sugars; they are absorbed and used as fuel.
However, fats are more complex. There are many different kinds of fats and they are metabolized differently.

Why fat?

Osmotic pressure.
Since we already have fuel in the form of sugars, why do we need fat? Can't we just store sugar or starch? The answer is that sugar and starch are water soluble and are osmotically active so in order to store significant amount of fuel, we would need lots of molecules and each of these molecules attracts water. We would literally bloat up with water.
Fat has the advantage in that it is not water soluble so you can store lots of fuel in a glob of fat and not have to worry about attracting water.
Fats are long chains of hydrocarbons with oxygen molecules at crucial locations which repell water. These are large molecules with lots of different shapes and variations. Animal fat has more hydrogen bonds and is said to be "saturated". Vegetable fats are "unsaturated". Cholesterol is a special type of saturated fat.

Digesting all of this...

Fats that we eat are handled differently than protein or carbohydrates. Fats are broken down only into triglycerides which are absorbed directly into the blood stream. Therefore, the types of fat you eat make a difference since they are absorbed directly into the blood. A common test for "blood lipids" is to measure these in the blood. They can be roughly separated into "high density lipoproteins (HDL)", cholesterol and "low density lipoproteins (LDL)". There are many different kinds of fatty acids and these are only the large groupings.
We know from lots of research that the body handles different kinds of fat differently and that when you eat large amounts of animal fat (saturated fat), this leads to high cholesterol and high LDL. This is associated with heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and other medical problems.
Trans fat has been in the news recently because they have been banned by the FDA. Trans fats are a type of synthetic fat manufactured by taking vegetable oil and adding hydrogen. Unfortunately, it took many years of research to confirm that these synthetic fats are as bad for you as saturated fat. Unfortunately, the food industry has come up with new synthetic replacements (interesterification) which are not proven safe and show some of the same problems (increase in LDL and increase in blood sugar and insulin) as trans fat. I fear we may confirm that these are also dangerous years from now.
Vegetable fat (unsaturated) does not tend to cause these problems and should be preferred. Olive oil and peanut oil are mono-saturated fats which are also known to be healthy. Fish oil (omega fatty acids) are also know to be beneficial and protective from heart disease.

You are what you eat

So, while protein and carbohydrates are broken down completely, fat comes through to your blood stream and reflects its source. Animal fats are saturated and cause health problems. Vegetable fats and fish oils are healthy.

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.

 

 

Mediterranean Diet in the news again

"Adopting a Mediterranean diet - olive oil, nuts, oily fish, plenty of fruit and vegetables and a moderate amount of red wine - after a heart attack is almost three times as powerful in reducing mortality as taking a statin", writes Dr Malhotra.

He also warns against too much sugar which play a crucial role in heart disease (and also diabetes).

You don't have to wait for a heart attack to start benefiting from a Mediterranean diet.

Veggieburgers!

I've been trying different recipes for veggie burgers and finally arrived at a good, healthy burger.
Store bought veggie burgers are just terrible. They are pathetic lumps full of industrial food chemicals, too much salt and often contain cheese or other non-vegan ingredients.
I found a recipe for black bean and brown rice veggie burgers that was pretty good and tweaked it to my taste.

Vegan Southwestern Black Bean and Brown Rice Veggie Burger Patties Recipe

makes 10 patties (I make these as a batch and freeze them)
2 cups cooked brown rice (day old rice works well)
One 15 oz can black beans (I prefer to cook black beans from dry beans so you can avoid the unnecessary salt and packaging chemicals)

sauté
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 small red (or green) bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon store bought taco seasoning (substitute with 1/2 tablespoon cumin powder + 1/2 tablespoon paprika or red chile powder)
(I've been using cumin and Costco organic no salt veggie seasoning)
salt
3 tablespoons flour or gluten flour (this helps them stick together better)


Drain the canned black beans. Again, make sure it is drained very well.
Heat a large  non-stick skillet with the oil. Add onion and red pepper. Cook till onions are soft. Add garlic, stir for about 30 seconds. Add seasoning and drained black beans. Stir on high heat for about a minute. Turn off heat. Add salt (remember store bought taco seasoning already has some salt).
Using a potato masher or fork, mash the black bean mixture. Mash roughly, so that some black bean pieces remain. Add cooked, drained brown rice and flour. Using a spatula, mix everything together. Taste and adjust salt and taco seasoning.
You can form the patties by hand but I prefer to use the lid and ring of a wide mouth Mason jar as a mold. You can fill the lid and compress the mixture and set it out on a cookie sheet. The ring can be easily removed first and then the lid.
I recommend putting the cookie sheet in the freezer. When the burgers are frozen, they can be wrapped individually.
To cook, put the frozen patty in a fry pan with a little oil and cook until brown on both sides. They hold together better when they are frozen to start.

Heat about 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick skillet.  Place 2 burger patties on the skillet. Cook for 1-2 minutes on medium-high heat on each side. Remove when a crispy golden crust forms on both sides. Add more oil to the skillet and fry up 2 more patties at a time. Repeat till all patties are cooked.

Animal fat is bad for you

I'll update this as I come across new research which shows that animal fat is bad for you.

Today's post: Animal fat and prostate cancer.

Published: June 10, 2013 at 7:02 PM

SAN FRANCISCO, June 10 (UPI) -- Men with non-metastatic prostate cancer who replaced some carbohydrates and animal fat with vegetable fat had lower risk of dying, U.S. researchers say.
Erin L. Richman of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues examined fat intake in men after a diagnosis of prostate cancer in relation to lethal prostate cancer and all-cause mortality.
The study included 4,577 men diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer from 1986-2010 who were enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
The study, published in the journal Internal Medicine, found after a midpoint follow up of 8.4 years, there were 315 lethal prostate cancer events and 1,064 deaths. Replacing 10 percent of calories from carbohydrates with vegetable fat was associated with a 29 percent lower risk of lethal prostate cancer and a 26 percent lower risk of death from all-cause mortality.
"In this prospective analysis, vegetable fat intake after diagnosis was associated with a lower risk of lethal prostate cancer and all-cause mortality," the study authors wrote in summing up their work.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2013/06/10/Replacing-some-carbs-with-vegetable-fat-lowers-death-rate/UPI-76151370905364/#ixzz2VrQcAKEk

Eat less!

A new article in the British Medical Journal explores an interesting "natural experiment" that took place in Cuba from 1990 to 1995. During this time of economic crisis, Cuba experienced a shortage of food and fuel for transport and agriculture. The result was that people ate less and exercised more. (For transportation, Cuba distributed more than a million bicycles and people walked more.) During this five years, the average adult weight dropped 5 kg (10 pounds).
It is unusual to have an entire population go on a low calorie diet like this and also increase their exercise.
The result was immediate and dramatic. Deaths from heart attacks and stroke dropped precipitously almost from the start. Deaths from diabetes and rates of diabetes started to drop after a few years.
After 1995 economic conditions improved and people started to gain back the weight they had lost and also had access to more motorized transportation so they exercised less. The result then was an increase in heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
The message here should be clear. Eat less. Exercise more. Live longer. Live healthier.

Oka, Kokoda, Ceviche

In the South Pacific, many of the islands have a traditional food which is fish marinated in lime juice and coconut milk.  Add in chopped tomatos and onions with some seasoning (corriander seems to be popular) and you have a delicious meal.

We are in Samoa now and this is their version, called Oka.  It's served here with taro chips on the side.  This is absolutely delicious!
We were in Fiji last week and their version is called Kokoda.  Here is an example:

You can make this at home easily.  Ingredients include fresh fish (tuna, snapper, mahi mahi or other firm white fish), lime juice, coconut milk, cucumber, tomatoes and onions with some corriander or cumin and maybe a little hot pepper.  Marinate the fish in lime juice for a few hours then add coconut milk and the other ingredients.

Mediterranean Diet Again Shown to Be Best

I have often spoken of the advantage of the Mediterranean Diet in improving health, particularly in reducing cardiovascular disease.  More confirmation of this comes from a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine:

Medpage-Mediterranean Diet Study


"Eating a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil and nuts lowered the rate of major cardiovascular events, at least among people at increased risk for heart disease, researchers reported.

In a randomized trial in Spain in high-risk people, those who ate the Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or mixed nuts saw a reduction in the rate of major cardiovascular events by nearly 30% compared with a control group eating a low-fat diet, according to Ramón Estruch, MD, PhD, of the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, and colleagues.

The results support the use of the Mediterranean diet for "primary prevention" of heart disease, the researchers wrote online in the New England Journal of Medicine."


The Mediterranean diet recommended for the study had olive oil, fruit, nuts, vegetables, legumes, some fish and poultry, and limited amounts of dairy products, red meat, soda drinks, processed meats, and sweets.

This study is interesting in that they compared a "low fat" diet with a Mediterranean diet high in olive oil, fish and nuts.  The results show that it is not the amount of fat but the kinds of fat in your diet.  Olive oil, fish and nuts contain large amounts of healthy unsaturated and mono-saturated oils.  The Mediterranean Diet also has reduced amounts of saturated fats from meat and dairy.  This reinforces my belief that it is saturated fat from farm animals (beef, chicken, pork, etc.) that is the major contributor to heart disease and (as other studies have shown) cancer and metabolic disorders.

Eat fish, fruit, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Avoid meat, dairy and sugar.

By Land or by Sea?

Get off the range.

For many years, the evidence has been accumulating and now clearly shows that fats from land animals are bad for you.  Consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol lead to cardiovascular disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes and raise the incidence of cancer.  In addition, these fats contribute to many other chronic degenerative diseases.  That is why I have made a concerted effort to eliminate these from my diet.  My goal is to not consume any saturated fat or cholesterol and this means eliminating all land based animals from my diet.  This include beef, pork, poultry.  It also includes dairy products: milk, cheese and eggs.
I should note that these land based animals are also significant contributors to agricultural pollution and global warming since they are very inefficient concentrators of protein and calories.  They waste 10 to 20 times as much nutrition as they produce.  It is much better for the environment and for your health to just say no to land based meat and dairy products.
Meat is a major source of protein and many people worry that if they don't eat meat, they won't get enough protein.  I cover this subject in detail here but suffice it to say that it's easy to get all of the protein you need from a vegan diet containing no meat of any kind.  However, many people would like to have some "meat" in their diet.

What about seafood?

There is, however, another broad category of "meat" we should consider and that is seafood.  This includes fish, shellfish, non-shell fish such as calamari, etc.  These have evolved with a different physiology and body chemistry.  Most significantly from the standpoint of nutrition they have evolved to store their energy in fats that have a much different structure than land animals which maintain their body temperature at 98F.  Because they live in water, their fats much be able to remain liquid at lower temperatures.  The saturated fat and cholesterol of land animals congeal at lower temperatures and it just wouldn't do for a fish to congeal.  Seafood tends to have different fats and these contain high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids.  These fatty acids are originally created in plants (algae and plankton) and consumed by fish where they become concentrated.  They have been found to be protective of the heart and have anti-inflammatory properties as well as reducing the tendency of blood to clot.  Consumption of omega-3 fatty acids tends to lower your triglyceride levels. These are all good effects since they help your cardiovascular system stay healthy.  The anti-inflammatory effects help prevent arthritis.
The amount of healthy omega-3 fatty acids in seafood varies.  Salmon and tuna and sardines contain high amounts (about 3 grams per 100 gm serving) of omega-3.  Other seafood such as shrimp, cod and crab contain less.  Fresh water fish such as tilapia contain only small amounts (0.13 grams per serving) but are still healthy since they don't contain saturated fat and cholesterol.  It is interesting that flax seed also contains high amount of omega-3 fats.  Flax flour can be added to most cereals and baked good to improve nutrition.
You should also consider the environmental effects of the food you eat.  Land animal farming has many detrimental effects on the environment.  Some fish farming practices can also have detrimental effects.  Tilapia is usually raised in ponds which can easily become sources of pollution   Ocean farmed salmon can also concentrate pollution.  Wild salmon is better.  I usually avoid tilapia since it is low in omega-3 and can contribute to pollution.  The Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a good list of which seafood is best to eat and which to avoid.  They consider environmental effects so there are differences in the source of the seafood and it is best to consult their guides which are tailored to the seafood found in different regions of the US.

Stick to the water!

Because of this, I include seafood in my diet. It is healthy!
Stay healthy!