KTK-Nutrition

As the weather turns colder, we think of enjoying a hot cup of soup.   Last week, we enjoyed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.   True comfort food.   How healthy is soup?   Have you tried making your own soup?   Some recipes are actually pretty easy to make and taste oh so good.   Livestrong asks “ Why is Soup Healthy ?” Vegetables – soup is a great way to add some vegetables to your day.   A relative hates tomatoes but enjoys a bowl of tomato soup.   Tomatoes are loaded with good nutrition – vitamins A and C and the healthy antioxidant, lycopene, which is so good for your eyes.   An interesting fact :   about 80% of our dietary lycopene comes from tomato products like tomato soup.   And, the lycopene from cooked products, like tomato soup, is even more bioavailable than lycopene in raw tomatoes.     Vegetable soup, pea soup, bean soup – so many choices that add some veggies to your day.   Kids often shu...

The “C” for cancer is a word that people don’t want to hear.   Are there foods you can add to your day that may help fight cancer?   WebMD and others have good articles on cancer-fighting foods .   As WebMD notes, there isn’t one food that can prevent cancer.   But eating a combination of cancer-fighting foods might make a difference.   What are some foods you can add to your diet that might lower your risk of getting cancer? Color – yes, add some color to your diet and the more colorful the better.   Why?   Fruits and vegetables “are rich in cancer-fighting nutrients – and the more colorful, the more nutrients they contain”.   (See:   Enjoy a longer life by adding some “disease-fighting foods to your” day .)   By adding a rainbow of fruits and vegetables to your day, you are adding those healthy antioxidants that fruits and vegetables provide.   Did you know each color provides different antioxidants?   Eating more fruits ...

As the weather turns hot, it is so important to stay hydrated.   This week my husband and I went on a long bicycle ride.   It was going to be 95 degrees that day, so we rode in the morning, found a shadier bike path to ride on and definitely brought some water with us.   Water and other liquids are great for hydration, but there are also foods that are hydrating.   My daughter said she loves watermelon in the summer.   Watermelon is a great food for hydration.   What foods can you add to your diet to help you stay hydrated?   Students in my class are often surprised to learn there are foods loaded with water that help with hydration. Our bodies need water and water is actually a required nutrient.   We lose some water every day from sweat, urine and even breathing.   In the summer, we sweat more and we lose more water.   It is important to restore “your body’s water supply regularly”.   Most of our daily water does come from th...

When you hear someone giving you nutrition advice – how do you know if it is good advice or some myth?   There is so much information on nutrition and some is reliable and some is not.   Here are 5 Nutrition Myths you may have heard of.     “Sugar is Addictive” – Most people know sugar isn’t healthy.   I was talking with a relative about sugar and she stated that we all need some sugar each day – some white table sugar.   Out of respect, I didn’t argue with her but no, we don’t need any white table sugar.   In fact, our bodies easily make sugar (glucose) out of the carbs we eat each day.   Some people think that if you eat foods with white table sugar or other added sugar, you will be addicted to “sugar”.   Food Addicts Anonymous recommends abstinence from sugar (along with flour and wheat which makes no nutrition sense.)   Science doesn’t back up the claim that sugar is addictive.   An article in the European Journal of Nutri...

As the weather turns colder, who doesn’t like a hot bowl of soup?   Is soup healthy?   What nutritional value does soup have?   Actually, soup can be a healthy addition to your diet.   What are some health benefits of enjoying that bowl of soup on a cold day? Vegetables – many soups are either loaded with vegetables or the base of the soup is made from vegetables.   Many Americans are low on veggies and soup is an easy way to add some veggies to your day.   If you have a toddler who is fussy about eating vegetables, that toddler may eat the smaller pieces of the soft vegetables in vegetable soup. Even kids who won’t eat tomatoes might enjoy a bowl of tomato soup.   And as I have noted before, cooking some vegetables actually makes them healthier.   The lycopene in tomato soup is better absorbed than the lycopene in a raw tomato.   Enjoy some split pea soup and you added veggies and beta carotene (vitamin A) to your day.   As noted i...