KTK-Nutrition

This  week my husband saw an interesting slide show on MSN health and fitness, 35 simple tips to help you lose weight and keep it off too!    They have some great suggestions.    Their focus: We're not talking about drastic measures here, but quick and easy changes you can make in your daily life to help you achieve your weight loss goals.   If you want to see all 35 tips, click the link.   Here are a few they highlighted:      Don’t give up your favorite foods – how often do you hear someone say, “I ate a cookie and blew my diet.”   Nonsense, as Joyce Meyer says, “ eat the cookie ”.   But don’t eat the whole box.   MSN recommends limiting the number of times you eat your favorite or junk food to once a week and eat less of it than you normally do.     Opt for Whole grains – so many people forgo the whole grains when they are such a healthy addition to your diet.   My relatives are now into Ezekiel br...

Which carbs are good for your health?  Introduction:   In the nutrition class I teach, students were asked to respond to and prepare a convincing argument to counter the myth, Carbohydrates are bad for you .  One of those students, Jackie Kunstmann, has been asked to be a guest author on this blog site.  Her paper on The Case for Carbs is below. Carbohydrates, or “carbs,” have been given a lot of bad press lately.  Many people I know are very quick to jump onto the Atkins or South Beach Diets with their low carbohydrate ways when wanting to lose weight. I even had leanings this way until this Nutrition class.  The DRI Committee has determined that all persons need to have a diet composed of 46 to 65% of carbohydrates (with only 10 to 35% for protein and 20 to 35% for fat) to adequately meet their energy needs and reduce the risk of chronic disease.(1)  The USDA’s current dietary recommendation, My Plate , features the plate being filled with ove...

Who doesn’t love pizza?   Buying a frozen pizza is simple, convenient and easy to pop in the oven for  a quick meal.   Are there ways to make healthier choices when choosing frozen pizza?   We enjoy frozen pizza about once a week.   We add ingredients and make healthier choices when choosing a frozen pizza and you can too.   The Healthiest and Best Tasting Frozen Pizza   lists a number of ideas for making healthier frozen pizza choices.    Thin Crust – you can save a lot of calories by choosing thin crust pizzas.   If you are ordering a pizza, choose thin crust.   If they offer a whole grain crust, that would be a healthier choice.   Skip the cheese-stuffed crust and skip those added calories.    Simple is Best – although the loaded toppings are tasty, they are also loaded with calories.   The “meat-lovers” pizzas are especially high in calories and in sodium.   Add veggies – we cut up and add some f...

Many of us are trying to cut back on calories and thus cut back on fat calories.   But do you need some fat?   The answer is yes.    Fat is important for many reasons but one is that fat soluble vitamins need some fat to be absorbed.   Thus, you may not want to use a fat-free dressing on your salad but a dressing with some fat.   If you want to cut back on fat calories, you can choose the light or reduced fat version of dressing and not the fat-free version.    In the classes I teach, many students come up with a snack for kids of carrots and Fat-Free Ranch Dressing.   Carrots are a healthy food but serving it with Fat-free Ranch means you won’t be absorbing all the nutrients in those carrots.   Not to mention the child will be hungry in no time as carrots are low in calories and Fat-Free Ranch also is low in calories.   Are there health benefits to using salad dressings with some fat such as regular Ranch or Light Ranch dressi...