KTK-Nutrition

So many people focus on cutting back on carbs but not as many focus on cutting back on fat in their diets.   Some fats are truly the bad fats, the worst kinds of fat for your health.   These are trans fats.   Trans fats are so bad for your health that during 2007-2011, eleven counties in New York actually banned trans fats.   Restaurants, bakeries and concessions like park concessions could no longer sell foods containing trans fats.   This became a perfect experiment on trans fats and health as some counties in New York allowed trans fat in food sold in public places and other counties did not.   Granted, in every county in New York you could still go to the grocery store and buy foods containing trans fats, but not in restaurants and other public establishments that sold food.   So, what did the researchers find?   Heart disease – in counties that banned trans fats, heart disease declined even more than in counties that did not ban the...

This week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced proposed changes in our food labels.    Major changes in the food labels appearing on everything from chips to soup haven’t changed much in 20 years.   So what are some of the proposed changes? Serving sizes – ever look at the serving size on ice cream.   It states one half cup is the serving size, yet who eats only one half cup?   In teaching my nutrition class, I show a video in which the dietitian notes the one half cup serving size on ice cream.   The students are always surprised it is so low.   When I told my husband, he insisted that one half cup was too low and went to the freezer to prove it.   Of course, the ice cream container verified that one half cup is the serving.   So one of the proposed food label changes is to increase the serving size on foods such as ice cream to reflect what people actually eat.   Thus, for ice cream the serving size will increase from on...

One nutrition topic in the news this week was trans fats.   T rans Fats In the news because the federal government is pressing towards banning all trans fats in our food supply. What are Trans Fats?   This fat is made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil which makes it a more solid fat.    But by making the fat more solid, they create a fat that is bad for our health.   Why Are Trans Fats Bad for Your Health? Trans fats are known as the “bad” fats.   Actually, the worst of the fats as they have been linked to heart disease, stroke and developing type 2 diabetes.   In an article by the Associated Press, ( No More Trans Fat:   FDA Banning the Artery Clogger ) they called them “heart clogging trans fats”.    Good description as these fats have been linked to heart disease because they not only aise your “bad” cholesterol (LDL –cholesterol), but also lower your good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol)   and thus increase your risk ...