KTK-Nutrition

Fruits and Veggies – so good for our health.   Last week I highlighted the September 2018 issue of Consumer Reports which contained the article Fruit and Veggie Superpowers .   I discussed the many fruits that are super healthy and especially good ones to add to your diet.   Recently, I was talking to my sister who told me a health professional recommended she add some vegetables to her lunch.   Her lunch was already pretty healthy.   She told the health professional she might eat an apple, yogurt and an egg sandwich for lunch.     Good choices.   The health professional recommended she add some vegetables like steamed broccoli, green beans, yellow beans.   I always go back to the 5 A DAY recommendation as everyone should try to include 5 or more fruits and vegetables a day in their diet.   So, if you are trying to add more vegetables to your day, which vegetables are considered super vegetables by Consumer Reports?    Wh...

Who doesn’t like some fresh fruit?   My husband brought home a watermelon this week.   It was summer sweet.   All kinds of fruit will soon be coming your way as summer approaches; strawberries ripened on the vine, cherries from Washington, blueberries from Michigan.   Not only is fruit delicious it is super healthy, low in fat and low in calories.   Consumer Reports has an excellent article on 100 calorie summer fruits (June 2018) and 100 calorie picnic foods .    If you are going on summer picnics or barbeques soon, read what a 100-calorie serving of barbeque foods look like.    Enjoy some 100-calorie fruit:   most fruit is so low in calories that you can eat a handful or more and enjoy a number of servings throughout the day.   Yes, fruit has “sugar” but this is the natural sugar, fructose.   It is the “added sugar” that we should be cutting back on, not the natural sugar in fruit.   Some people mistakenly believe f...

It is amazing how many people have no idea what a whole grain is and what foods are whole grain and which are just refined grains.   To have a healthy diet, one needs whole grains in their diet, yet so many people have no idea what that means.    I was presenting at a high school class while the students ate their lunches.   All the students said they ate whole grains.   When I asked them what on their lunch tray was whole grain they pointed to the white roll, the breading on their fried chicken, the mashed potatoes.   Of course, none of these foods are whole grain.  Fortunately, I was there to help them learn what whole grains were.     I’ve asked many adults what whole grain bread is and they respond, if the bread is dark in color, any brown at all, it is whole grain.   Not true. What is whole grain?   To be whole grain, the food needs to contain 100% of all parts of the grain seed including the bran, endosperm and germ. ...