KTK-Nutrition

Who doesn’t love some pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving or any other time of year?   Fall is a great time to enjoy some fall foods and many of these foods, like pumpkin, are loaded with good nutrition.   I always tell my students to enjoy their pumpkin pie or some pumpkin pudding. Pumpkin – a very healthy, nutritious food.   So, enjoy some pumpkin pie, pumpkin pudding, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, or pumpkin muffins.   Pumpkin is loaded with beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A.   The beta-carotene gives pumpkin its orange coloring. Beta-carotene is super healthy as it helps prevent cancer, protects against asthma and for older folks helps reduce the risk of getting macular degeneration.   Additionally, pumpkin adds fiber to your day and many Americans aren’t getting enough fiber.   Besides pie, there are many other ways to enjoy pumpkin: pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, or enjoy some pumpkin pancakes.   Good information on the surprising heal...

Now that Thanksgiving is over, you may be enjoying some leftovers like pumpkin pie or some sweet potato casserole.   Fall is a great time to enjoy some fall foods and many of these foods, like pumpkin, are loaded with good nutrition.    Pumpkin – a very healthy, nutritious food.   So, enjoy that pumpkin pie or pumpkin pudding.   Pumpkin is loaded with beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A.   The beta-carotene gives pumpkin its orange coloring. Beta-carotene is super healthy as it helps prevent cancer, protects against asthma and for older folks helps reduce the risk of getting macular degeneration.   Additionally, pumpkin adds fiber to your day and many Americans aren’t getting enough fiber.   Besides pie, there are many other ways to enjoy pumpkin: pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, and some even make pumpkin pancakes.   WebMD has a great article, 6 Surprising Health Benefits of Pumpkin .   These include: Weight loss – because pumpk...

Well the World Health Organization (WHO) has once again taken the joy out of the American diet.   They made headlines recently for their proclamation about the health risks of eating meat.   The Time headline is, The War on Delicious which is very appropriate when an organization wages war on the foods so many Americans eat.   So what are the health risks with red meat, processed meats and what meats are they talking about?   How much can you eat before you are at risk?   As a person who enjoys a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich, a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin with Canadian bacon, I did not take the news lightly that processed meats are bad for one’s health. Health Risks and Processed Meat WHO attributes about 34,000 cancer deaths each year to diets high in eating processed meats.   For red meat, they attribute 50,000 deaths a year.   But as Time points out, tobacco-related cancer is linked to 1 million deaths a year.   How much raises your risk, ...

Last week I wrote about the Mediterranean diet.   A major component of this diet is eating many fruits and vegetables.    A very easy way to ensure you are getting enough fruits and vegetables is to focus on eating at least 5 A DAY .   Not only are fruits and vegetables loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber they are also loaded with PHYTOCHEMICALS.    “Phyto” is from the Greek and means “plant”.   Phytochemicals are only in plant foods, are not nutrients but are ever so important to your health.    Different fruits and vegetables have different phytochemicals so varying the kind of fruits and vegetable and varying the color is important.   Blue/Purple - helps fight aging, improves your memory and reduces cancer risk.    Choose plums, eggplant, raisins, blueberries, black olives, blackberries, purple grapes Red – great for your heart, tomatoes and other red vegetables and fruits have lycopene – a phytochemical that is a...