KTK-Nutrition

We all have heard that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”.   I always emphasize to students how important breakfast is to children’s health and recent research is showing to adult health as well.    Adult Health Research in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that breakfast skippers increase their risk of dying from heart disease or a stroke.   And the risk is huge.   The study found that people who skipped breakfast had not only a higher risk of dying from heart disease but breakfast skippers had an 87% higher risk of dying from heart disease than those who took the time to eat breakfast every day.   And it just wasn’t a study of “old” people.   The 6,550 study participants ages ranged from 40 to 75.    How often did the people in the study skip or eat breakfast? 5.1% never ate breakfast 10.9% rarely ate breakfast 25% had breakfast sometimes 59% ate breakfast every day  Unfortuna...

Want to lose a few pounds before swimsuit season starts?   If so, losing fat, not muscle should be the goal.   Many fad diets proclaim losing 5 or more pounds in one week.   Yes, that may be possible but along with some fat loss you will be losing some muscle and a lot of water.   Often people find when they go off the crash diet, the weight piles back on.   And losing muscles means you slow your metabolism as muscle burns more calories than fat.   So, how can you drop some pounds with more of the loss being fat and not the muscle you want to keep?   An article on “ 4 Rules for Losing Fat, Not Muscle ” has some suggestions.        1.    Cut the calories but do it gradually To lose weight you do have to cut back on calories in versus calories out.   But cutting back on too many calories at once can slow your metabolism, make it hard to get the nutrients you need, and cause you to lose muscle mass along with some...

Cinnamon, does it have any health benefits?   Last week we talked about turmeric and the many health benefits spices have.   Cinnamon is a spice that also has health benefits.   Like turmeric, cinnamon has been around for a long time , “since 2000 BC in Ancient Egypt”.   In the U.S. cinnamon ranks just behind black pepper as a popular spice.    What can cinnamon do for your health? Diabetes- some research has shown that cinnamon can help those with type 2 diabetes.   How?   By lowering blood glucose levels and also improving lipid levels.   Researchers monitored 60 people with type 2 diabetes who added cinnamon to their diets for 40 days. Those taking cinnamon lowered their blood glucose, their bad LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol.   Another study found taking 1/4 th teaspoon of cinnamon a day lowered the LDL bad cholesterol.   However, other research indicates that adding cinnamon didn’t help lower blood glucose...

We all have heard of natural remedies for many health conditions.   Go to any drug store and walk down the vitamin aisle.   You will see hundreds of bottles of vitamins and minerals but also many so-called “natural” remedies for certain medical conditions.   Some of these remedies are bogus, unproven, and can even be bad for one’s health.   But other “natural” remedies seem to have some promise.   One of these natural remedies is a spice.   Spices have been known for a long time to have health benefits as spices are full of those healthy antioxidants.   Not only do spices make our food taste better, they provide few calories while providing good nutritional value.   One spice in particular, turmeric, is getting a lot of attention and praise from those in the health field. What is Turmeric? Turmeric is a yellowish spice , known for 4,000 years and used often in Indian cooking and the spice used in curry.   The chemical   in turmer...

Added sugar.   Seems like most foods we eat have added sugar.   Last week we talked about all the added sugar in foods, especially sugar-sweetened beverages like soda pop, sweetened tea and fruit punch.   The Star Tribune ran some interesting articles about added sugar, one about readers challenged to give up on added sugar for a month.      Journalist , Erica Pearson, began noticing how many foods have added sugar.   Not just the donuts, cakes, pies, cookies that we all know have added sugar, but the salad dressings, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, even chicken stock.     The Star Tribune challenged readers to take a sugar break – a bread from added sugar for 28 days.   They called it the “28-day Sugar Free Challenge” which they held in February.   Why February?   They said it was the shortest month which made the challenge somewhat easier. Goal – cut out the added sugar in one’s diet for 28 days.    This was t...

Added sugar.   We have all heard about added sugar but so many people are confused as to what foods have added sugar, how to know if a food has a lot or a little added sugar.   At the gym this week a mom was giving her toddler some Cheerios as a snack.   Good choice as Cheerios are easy to eat and very healthy.   Then the mom said she avoids the Goldfish as they are too high in sugar.   I asked, “even the whole grain Goldfish?”.   She didn’t know about that.   I came home looked up Goldfish.   The Goldfish Cheddar has 0 Sugar grams.   The ingredient list does list “sugar” but it must be an amount less than 4 calories as the label says 0 grams of sugar.   I then looked up Baked with Whole Grain Cheddar and again sugars = 0 grams.   The ingredient list has no sugar listed.   The first ingredient is Whole Wheat Flour so it is a healthy choice.   The crackers also contain real Cheddar Cheese and some heart healthy oil. ...