The end of Q & A Thursday for this month
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
That’s it for Q & A Thursday for this month. As ever, thanks to all the readers who lodged questions.
If you have any thoughts or comments, then join in the discussions underneath each post.
Otherwise the next Q & A Thursday will be in June – on Thursday 5th. If you have any questions for then let me know by email.
Q & A Thursday: the nutrient content of sourdough bread?
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
The last question in today’s Q & A Thursday is from Antti-Juhani:
what is the effect of sourdough fermentation on the macronutrient content of a bread dough?
Really, really, really good question . . . but one I’m not able to answer.
So I’m wondering if anyone else can help?
What I do know about sourdoughs:
- Sourdough bread is made with a starter culture, which is a blend of bacteria and yeast. This culture reacts with the starches in flour and water to produce gas. The gas is trapped as bubbles in the dough – making it rise and form the texture we know as bread.
- Sourdough cultures do impact the texture and taste of breads.
- They can also affect the bioavailability of some nutrients.
- Sourdough cultures affect how we breakdown and absorb carbohydrates: they have a lower GI than yeasted breads.
- The Australian food tables do not differentiate between yeasted and sourdough breads in their nutritional breakdown.
So, while sourdough might affect how we breakdown and use macronutrients, I’m unsure if it changes the overall levels of protein, fat and carbohydrate in the food stuff itself.
So I’m throwing this one open to you. Does anyone have any further information on the effects of sourdough fermentation on the macronutrient content of bread?
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Q & A Thursday: are you all stuffed up?
Posted by kathryn in Seasonal Health and Q & A Thursday
I know that most of you are headed into Spring and Summer. I read enough Northern Hemisphere blogs to know you’re excited about asparagus season and the onset of warm weather.
Here in Australia though, we’re moving rapidly into winter. And . . . the cold and flu season has already kicked off.
Stephanie, Patrick and Helen have all asked about beating winter illness. So I’m going to combine all the questions into one answer.
Beating a cold, flu or respiratory virus is mostly about time. Under optimal circumstances you should be over a cold in a few days, while a flu will take longer – about 7 days.
However, for many people colds and flus linger, weakening your system and generally getting you down. This leaves you open to catching more illness, more viruses and generally perpetuating the misery.
1. If you’re sick you have to rest
It’s what every doctor will tell you. It’s what your mother will tell you. If you are sick, you need to rest. Let me say that again, if you are sick YOU NEED TO REST.
Soldiering on, dosing yourself up on cold and flu tablets, going to work and putting in long days will perpetuate the sickness. Instead of being over it in a couple of days, it will take a couple of weeks.
It can be hard to take time off work and time out from being busy. But think of it as a short-term investment for the sake of your long-term health.
2. To prevent and treat a cold drink lots of ginger tea
My favourite winter remedy is ginger tea. Fresh ginger, lemon and honey in a teapot or plunger. Fill up with hot water and leave to steep for 5 – 6 minutes.
I drink this regularly throughout winter as a general prophylactic. I’d have at least one or two cups every day during the cold months.
But at the first sign of congestion or sickness I start drinking this stuff by the bucket-full. At least five cups. If not more. It’s effective, but you need to drink a lot of it to get the benefit.
3. To prevent a cold or stop one from perpetuating use Echinacea
There are always reports saying Echinacea is good, no it’s bad, no it’s good. In my experience it’s a great herb – provided you use a good quality product. There are a number of echinacea plant species which end up in retail products. Some work really well, while others are basically useless.
If you have the right product, at the right dose it can prevent you from getting sick. It should also reduce the lifespan of your illness and prevent it from perpetuating.
Last year I wrote a post on this subject: echinacea – does it work.
In my work I regularly come into contact with sick people. However I don’t want and can’t afford to be ill myself. If I’m sick I can’t work. This disrupts my diary, annoys clients and interferes with their management plans. Plus if I don’t work I can’t earn income.
So at the beginning of each cold and flu season I take a course of echinacea plus vitamin C and zinc. I do this for about two weeks. I also look after myself during the winter and this generally keeps me illness free.
4. When you’re unwell eat simple, light foods
If you’re sick, it’s not the time for KFC and pizza every night. Your body needs nourishment. It needs the best nutrition you can give it to fight the infection.
Vegetables, low fat protein, wholegrains and fruit are the optimal basics for your diet. Simple soups, steamed vegetables and fish, a warmed bean salad, ginger mushroom not-quite salad, a flavour-filled seaweed soup, green beans with tamari almonds, tofu with green beans in a lemongrass broth, some simple fish parcels.
These are the kinds of foods to eat. Foods that nourish. Foods that don’t tax your system. Foods that provide your body with the building blocks it needs to fight the infection.
3. If you’re sick keep off the grog
Always the most unpopular piece of advice I give. But if you’re sick one of the best things you can do is lay off alcohol for a few days. Alcohol interferes with your sleep, depresses your system and uses up nutrients that could be put to better use. It may make you feel better in the short-term, but alcohol is not helping. So have a few days without that evening beer or glass of wine. Drink ginger tea instead and you’ll feel better for it.
How do you deal with winter illness?
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Q & A Thursday: is vegemite healthy?
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
I’m going to tread carefully here – commenting on the nutritional value of an Australian icon.
Despina has asked – is vegemite healthy?
The short answer is – it’s not too bad. There are better foods and there are worse foods.
Vegemite is a dark brown paste made from yeast extract, that was first invented in the 1920s. For those living in the UK and New Zealand, it’s similar to marmite.
Vegemite is a concentrated source of some of the B vitamins. One teaspoon contains 50 percent of your daily requirement of B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin) and B9 (folate). Unlike Marmite, it isn’t fortified with vitamin B12.
Vegemite is practically fat free and is also low in kilojoules. Which are all positives.
The main problem with Vegemite is it’s high in sodium. One teaspoon contains 150mg of sodium. This is 16 percent of the daily Adequate Intake (AI) level and 7 percent of the recommended Upper Level (UL) of intake.
This is a lot for one teaspoon of a condiment.
It depends how you use Vegemite
As I’ve blogged before the health value of a food is rarely black and white. It usually depends on how you use it.
And this is my main concern with Vegemite. It’s not the product itself which is potentially unhealthy, but what it replaces. The occasional scraping of Vegemite on toast in the morning, or as an afternoon snack is okay, but it’s not an adequate filling for a lunch-time sandwich.
Lunch and dinner are where most people eat the majority of their daily protein. It’s also where we have most of our vegetables.
If you’re having a vegemite sandwich for lunch then you’re missing out on protein, antioxidants and the full spectrum of vitamins and minerals.
As with most foods Vegemite is healthy if enjoyed in moderation.
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Photograph by Dramagirl under the terms of a creative commons license.
Q & A Thursday: the B12 in your diet
Posted by kathryn in The Micronutrients and Q & A Thursday
Continuing from Naomi’s question about iron and B12 . . .
B12 is a whole different kettle of fish. It’s a curious, complex vitamin. Instead of being one molecule, B12 is actually a group of compounds, which are structurally similar and all contain cobalt.
What is vitamin B12?
B12 can’t be made by either plants or animals. Instead it’s manufactured by bacteria and it ends up in our food as a result of this bacterial activity.
And the bacteria in your digestive tract can also make B12, which we can then absorb.
It’s only required in tiny amounts, but B12 is hard to absorb and deficiency is common.
To absorb this vitamin your digestion needs to be in relatively good shape. It takes actions and enzymes produced by your stomach, pancreas and small intestines to absorb B12.
Is it stored in the body?
There are about 2,000 – 5,000mcg of B12 stored in the body. Mostly in the liver.
B12 can be stored for years. The average intake needs to be about 2.4mcg per day to maintain these stores. But losses and gains occur over time, so this is an average figure.
Deficiency symptoms can take five years or more to develop.
Sources of B12
Our main source of B12 is animal foods and products, including milk and dairy.
Plants only provide B12 when the soil they were grown in has not been washed away. For a long time mushrooms were advertised as being high in B12 and “meat for vegetarians”. But this is a myth. It is the soil surrounding the mushrooms that contains B12, not the mushroom itself.
Some foods like tempeh and other cultured foods may contain small amounts of B12 – but these are not reliable sources.
How much do you need?
Current Australian RDIs specify 2.4mcg per day, although more is required in pregnancy and lactation.
- 1 cup of low fat yoghurt contains 1.4mcg
- 50g tinned salmon contains 0.75mcg
- 100g lean beef contains 1.9mcg
- 100ml fortified soy milk contains 0.3mcg
These a full list of the B12 in different foods at Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Q & A Thursday: Getting the most out of the iron in your diet
Posted by kathryn in The Micronutrients and Q & A Thursday
You have about 3 – 4 grams of iron in your body at any one time.
Much of this is in the haemoglobin molecules in your red blood cells. A smaller amount forms part of certain enzymes, while the rest is in transit, bound to a protein called transferrin. Transferrin manoeuvres iron around your body to wherever it’s needed.
Every day we lose a small amount of iron. Simple bodily functions like sweating, the shedding of skin and cells in the digestive tract, lead to iron loss. Women also lose more iron each month, during their period.
On average men lose 1mg per day, while women lose 1.5 – 2mg per day, averaged over a month.
Because you are continually losing iron, you need to replace it through your diet.
Iron intake vs absorption
Those of you who know your Recommended Daily Intakes will be thinking I’ve gone crazy at this point. Here in Australia the RDI is 8mg of iron per day for men and 18mg for women. Which is quite different from the 1 – 2mg I mentioned above.
This discrepancy is because you don’t absorb all the iron from the food you eat. So you have to eat more iron than you need, to get enough into your actual bloodstream and tissue.
How much iron do you absorb?
There are two types of iron found in food and they have slightly different chemical structures:
- Haem iron is found in meat and meat products
- Non-haem iron is in plant foods
Haem iron is much more easily absorbed than non-haem iron. Which means while plants can contain significant amounts of iron (think spinach and chickpeas), it’s harder to absorb.
However, haem or non-haem, we only absorb a fraction of the iron in the food we eat:
- 15 – 25 percent of the iron from animal sources
- 2 – 5 percent of the iron from plants.
And this accounts for the discrepancy between the RDI and what your body actually needs.
Non-haem iron is important for all
While haem iron is much more easily absorbed, the iron in plant food is an important dietary source, even for non-vegetarians. We simply eat more non-haem iron, because we eat more plant based foods during the day. They are a significant source of iron in all our diets.
How to get the most out of the iron you eat:
- eat plant sources with small amounts of vitamin C foods, as this enhances iron absorption.
- phytates are compounds found in high-fibre cereals which inhibit iron absorption. Limit cereals to breakfast and have them with some fruit (for the vitamin C)
- compounds in tea, coffee and cocoa also limit the absorption of iron, so avoid drinking these with meals
- when you’re low in iron the body is able to compensate to some extent – by absorbing more of the non-haem iron.
- If you eat red meat 2 – 3 times a week, you are almost certainly getting enough iron.
I’ve written about iron sources before in this post, while this post has more about vegetarians and iron.
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Q & A Thursday: Getting enough iron and B12
Posted by kathryn in The Micronutrients and A Balanced Diet
First up on Q & A Thursday, Naomi is asking about iron and B12:
I only cook red meat occasionally at home. How can I maximise the benefit of the iron and B12 in meat when I do eat it? How long does the iron etc I’d get from a meal stay in my system?
The mineral iron and the vitamin B12 are both important micro-nutrients. We use them to form strong, healthy red blood cells. These cells transport oxygen around the body and a deficiency of either B12 or iron will cause anaemia.
B12 is also needed for the healthy functioning of your nervous system. While iron is a component of many enzymes involved in different biochemical processes.
This is quite a large question, so I’m going to cover the answer in two parts. The next post will cover iron and then I’ll write a separate one about B12.
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Do small impediments stop you from eating well?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
I had breakfast with a friend over the weekend.
Amidst the discussion of books, politics and mutual friends, we also talked about his diet. He’s a smart man, knows about food, earns a good income.
And yet he’s not happy with his diet.
Each day starts off well. Breakfast is sugar-free natural muesli with fruit, nuts and yoghurt. He has fruit on his desk for morning snacks and eats well at lunch.
However from mid afternoon, the health value of his eating goes down hill.
We talked about why this was and possible solutions.
His reasons ranged over the usual suspects: time, food enjoyment, shopping and planning. They were all small scale issues. None of the limitations were insurmountable and all had a relatively simple fix.
However, all these small impediments added up to him eating badly for half the day.
Small impediments
While there are often large and complex reasons why people eat badly, for many it’s the micro stuff that gets in the way.
No milk in the house, can make the difference between having breakfast and missing out. You forget your afternoon snack and end up raiding the junk food machine. Running out of crucial ingredients makes it seem easier to eat takeaway.
Individually these are not insurmountable. However put together, these small impediments overwhelm and confound our good intentions. Together they can make it seem too hard to eat well.
How to overcome small impediments
Overcoming small impediments takes a bit of problem solving and some lateral thinking.
But first you need to identify what gets in the way.
Have a think about your own diet, or what you’ve eaten over the past week. When did you eat well and when did your good intentions fall over?
The key question to ask yourself is: what specifically stopped me from eating well in that instance?
Were you missing a key food? Did you leave too much time between meals? Would you have been better off with a different food? What could you have changed to make it easier to eat well?
By thinking about it you can often see patterns in the way you eat. By thinking about it, you can come up with solutions to those small impediments. Once you’re clear about where and why your diet isn’t working, it’s much easier to come up with a solution. A way to make your diet better.
Be creative with your solutions, but don’t try to change everything at once. Instead choose one issue at a time, come up with a solution and practice doing that. Then once you’re in a routine, try changing something else.
An example from my own life
After seeing my friend I thought about my own impediments to eating well – which made me think of my hatred of stir-fries.
Don’t get me wrong stir-fries are a great meal and I love eating them. They’re quick, easy and healthy. You can add in lots of vegetables, limit the fat, include protein and still have a tasty, tasty meal.
Plus we always have tofu and vegetables in the house, which are perfect stir-fry fodder. Our mid-week meals would be better and easier to prepare if I made more stir-fries.
Instead I hate and avoid cooking them.
There are lots of reasons for this. I don’t think I cook them very well, we often run out of necessary condiments etc, etc.
But the real reason I don’t cook stir-fries is . . . I can’t stand cleaning the wok.
We have a mild-steel wok. Unlike stainless steel, it’s difficult to clean, rusts easily and requires constant seasoning. And this is enough to stop me from cooking a stir-fry.
There are some obvious answers to this problem. Telling myself to get over it and just clean the damn thing, being one of them.
Instead, thinking about this on Monday night, I hit on a much better solution. Using the elements of a stir-fry meal without actually using the wok.
Instead of stir-frying I grilled slices of tofu and steamed a huge pile of vegetables. I then whisked together a tangy dressing of pre-made Pad Thai sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and shoyu. I drizzled this over the vegetables and tofu, sprinkled on some sesame seeds and that was dinner.
A not-stir-fry.
For me it’s the perfect solution. I now have the formula for an easy, healthy mid-week meal, which I can make in 20 minutes. And it doesn’t require me to touch the wok.
What are the small impediments that get in the way of you eating well?
Photograph by Adam Cohn under the terms of a creative commons license.
Q & A Thursday is this week
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
This is a Q & A Thursday week – so if you have any questions about food, diet and nutrition then send me an email.
For those of you new to Limes & Lycopene Q & A Thursday is a monthly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter.
The Q & A Thursday forum is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
5 comments
09 May, 2008