Americans tend to have a very narrow view of what a diet
is or what it means. It frequently is used simply in the context of losing
weight. "Can't have that, I'm on a diet". "Which diet are you
following"? "How much weight have you lost on diet X (fill in the
blank), Y (fill in the blank) or Z (fill in the blank)"? Well, the word
diet has Latin (diaeta) or Greek (diaita) roots meaning "way of
living". So unless your life involves constantly making a concerted effort
to lose weight, you should be concerned with the appropriate diet. That is, the
daily diet you consume that doesn't hasten your appointment with the maker or
constantly makes you seek out that other... diet.
When it comes to food, nutrition and weight, there is no
magic. This is one of the few instances where simple math is correct. One plus
one does equal two. Five minus one does equal four. You can consume pure lard
and still lose weight as long as the energy you burn exceeds the energy you
consume. And while deprivation diets can make you shed excess pounds faster than
Frosty in the desert, once you go back to your standard diet that made you put
on those excess pounds in the first place, those excess pounds return with a
vengeance. I say vengeance because if all we do is deprive ourselves of
calories, we'll lose some fat tissue (good) along with some lean tissue (not so
good) and water (can be replaced within hours). Then once we're off the
deprivation diet - if we do nothing else other than go back to our usual eating
habits - we put that weight right back on. With a slight difference. Some of
the initial weight loss was lean tissue, when it packs back on its simply fat
tissue so even if our weight doesn't exceed previous levels, we're now
"fatter" than before. And fat tissue doesn't burn calories, it simply
stores calories. Lean tissue is the furnace that burns calories and we lost
some of it due to the deprivation diet. Add several cycles of this deprivation
diet (on top of simply getting older which usually lowers our basal metabolic
rate) and now you have a middle aged person who may be the same weight as 10
years ago but much "fatter".
So What's a Person
to Eat?
As I've mentioned many times before, there are only 3
types of macronutrients that account for all of our caloric intake: Protein,
fat and carbohydrate. When it comes to protein, we want to look for leaner
sources of protein like poultry breasts instead of thighs or pork tenderloin or
loin in place of butt or shoulder. Or how about tenderloin steaks in place of
ribeye or strip. Most supermarkets also sell various mixtures of ground beef
from 75% lean all the way up to 93% lean which would be the preferable mixture.
Adding seafood protein also keeps the fat at bay as most seafood items are low
in fat and the fat found in cold water fish tend to carry their fair share of
possibly beneficial fats in the form of omega-3 fatty acids.
When it comes to fat, these also come in all forms from
the artery clogging saturated fats to the healthier Mediterranean monounsaturated
fats found in nuts and olive oil to the wide range of polyunsaturated fats
found in walnuts, canola oil and cold water fish. The general rule of thumb for
fats is that if it's solid at room temperature, it's not good for you but if
it's liquid it's a better choice.
Finally for carbohydrates, look for whole grain, not just
color. Often bread is labeled as containing "whole wheat" and since
it's colored brown, it's understandable that it could be mistaken for 100%
whole wheat when all it actually contains is 10% whole wheat and colored with
molasses. Along with bread and rice, whole grains are also found in pasta. And
they cook a lot better than the whole wheat pasta of old. For starters, many
companies are now using hard white wheat which gives the finished whole grain
pasta an appearance like regular pasta and it cooks just as nicely. Of course
another carbohydrate is that form that we can't digest and simply passes right
through our system. And that carbohydrate is fiber.
Not Always
Roughage
I know what you're thinking; isn't fiber simply that bran
cereal at the supermarket? Or is it Metamucil? Well, fiber comes in all shapes
and sizes. First of all, they are classified as insoluble and soluble fiber
with the insoluble variety being your wheat bran cereal, most fibrous veggies
(celery, green beans, tomato skin, corn) and are what previously was termed
"roughage". The stuff that keeps you "regular". Then
there's soluble fiber which usually are starches that we can't digest like the raffinoses,
stachyoses and verbacoses in beans or the pectin found in many fruits and
vegetables or the mucilaginous gums found in guar gum and gum arabic. Some of
these indigestible starches are partially digested by bacteria in our lower
tract like inulin which produces short chain organic acids that may facilitate
the absorption of calcium, iron and magnesium. Fermentable fibers such as
inulin are commonly found in chicory root - that's why you see chicory listed
as an ingredient in many "high fiber" bars, crackers and cereals. These
soluble fibers also potentially bind to bile acids thus reducing our levels of
serum cholesterol. And from a dietary standpoint, dietary fiber have negligible
calories so they don't contribute to the "battle of the bulge" and
since they do take up space in the stomach during mealtime, you're more likely
to consume less of those other foodstuffs that make you go on that other diet.
Dietary
Recommendations
The American Dietetic Association recommends that adults
get 20 to 35gm of dietary fiber every day (daily recommendations for children
are 5gm plus age) though most Americans only get about one-half of the daily
recommendations. Why so little fiber? Well, most processed and fast foods are
devoid of fiber because they are produced to sell. And you sell food products
with taste... which usually means extra fat or salt (when was the last time you
heard someone comment on the exquisite flavor the wheat bran added to those
muffins)? And since food manufacturers concentrate on sales and not health, you
have to make that extra effort to get your daily fiber.
But what about the side effects? You know, those
"musical" side effects of fiber. As I recommend to all of my
patients, "start low and go slow". Though we can't digest those
starches or gums, that doesn't mean our intestinal flora can't and boy do they
do a good job! And perchance one of those musical tunes does escape, simply
turn to face your offended audience and state "On behalf of my E Coli, I'd
like to apologize for their impudence, this always happen when they consume
inulin".
I previously posted a version of this recipe about 5
years ago in my article "The Many Faces of Surimi". However back then
the focus was on surimi, this round it's on fiber and foods we can consume as
part of our everyday diet:
The Gochiso’s
Surimi & Broccoli Pasta Salad
4 broccoli crowns
8 plum tomatoes,
ripe but firm
8 ounces imitation crab flavored surimi
6 ounces real crab
1 & ½ cups whole grain pasta (available from Barilla
and Safeway)
1 to 1 & ½ cups canola oil mayonnaise
2 tbsp brown mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and
cool pasta. Trim broccoli to bite sized pieces and steam for 3 to 4 minutes. Cool broccoli then mix with
pasta. Chop tomatoes to large bite sized
pieces and mix with broccoli mixture. Cut surimi to bite
sized pieces – don’t flake the surimi, cut it or leave it in chunks and mix with broccoli
mixture. In a separate bowl, mix mayonnaise, mustard, honey,
sesame oil, crab and salt/pepper. Pour over broccoli mixture and toss until it’s evenly coated.
Refrigerate for an hour before serving.
Serves 18 (1 cup portions)
Per serving: Calories 158
Fat 4.7gmSaturated fat negligible
Fiber 4.3gm
Carbohydrate 18gm
Protein 8gm
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