"nutrients" news and stories

It's ok to put a little butter on your corn on the cob and add a bit more dressing to that salad. The nutrients in some vegetables are fat soluble and are absorbed much better by the body when accompanied by a little fat. A study conducted at Ohio State University, found that the absorption of nutrients was not only higher when accompanied by fats, but that it was actually minimized when the fat-free foods were eaten alone.

Previous studies have shown the same results in rats, but this study followed the nutrient absorption of human diets. It was a follow-up to a 2004 study that tracked nutrient absorption when comparing low fat salad dressings to fat-free ones. In this one, salsas and salads were served to participants with and without avocado. Absorption of beta carotene jumped by up to 18 times the amount, and lycopene jumped as much as 7 when the avocado was included, even controlling for the nutrients added by the avocado itself.

Researchers at UC-Davis have found that cut fruit left in the refrigerator doesn't lose nearly as much of its nutritional value as they thought, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Over a nine-day period, six different types of cut, refrigerated fruit were compared to uncut, refrigerated samples and tested for amounts of vitamin C, carotenoids and phenolics. Sliced watermelon only lost 5 percent less C than whole watermelon and it retained the same amount of lycopene, the CS-T reported. One conclusion reached was that visual appeal and taste fade well before nutritional value does.

With news agencies now saying that a major source of salt in daily diets is bread, carb-laden loaves could once again come under fire from nutrition-fanatics. Even though the headlines blame bread, more than 75 percent of all the salt in people’s diets come from processed foods, only a small portion of which are breads. Salt is necessary in bread making, not only for flavor, but because it interacts with the yeast, retarding its growth and producing a better-textured, tastier loaf. One teaspoon of salt weighs just over 2 grams, and organizations like the British government recommend a maximum of 6 grams of salt a day. If a loaf of homemade or non-preprocessed bread has one to three tablespoons of salt in it, there is nothing to worry about unless you are eating multiple loaves of bread on a daily basis.

Some salt is necessary in the diet, serving functions like regulating fluid levels in the body. Do yourself a favor and cut back on the deli meats, don’t just cut back on bread.

Source

In today's Washington Post, a column by Robert L. Wolke, author of What Einstein Told His Cook, aims to debunk claims that microwave cooking saps vegetables of many of their nutrients. According to Wolke, much of the clamor stems from media interpretations of a Spanish study on how different cooking methods affect nutrients in vegetables. The culprit, he says, was not microwaving, but cooking vegetables in water. Much of the focus was on the reported loss of flavonoids, which are water soluble. Since the broccoli was microwaved in water and then compared to broccoli that had been steamed above boiling water, the loss of flavonoids was obviously greater. Wolke contends that microwaving veggies with no water is one of the best ways to cook them and still retain their nutrients.

Source

Seven new "superfoods" have been added to the original list of 14 by Dr. Steven Pratt, the founder of the superfoods movement. Superfoods are generally defined as foods that are incredibly nutrient dense, more so than any other foods. In his new book, Pratt describes the nutritional properties of these foods in detail, as well as naming similar foods, or "sidekicks", which have similar properties. Pratt's seven new superfoods are:

• Pomegranates
• Apples
• Kiwi
• Honey
• Cinnamon 
• Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Dark Chocolate

I wonder if there are any recipes that involve all the superfoods. These new ones seem as though they might be combined into some sort of dessert, but once you have added beans, blueberries, salmon and soy from the original 14, your dish will start to look very unusual, not to mention fairly unappetizing.

Source