Vegetarian Diets: Things to Consider

Have you ever thought of becoming a vegetarian?  Or are you currently a vegetarian?  There are some important nutrient considerations that you should be aware of.  I know people who love their vegetarian lifestyle.  While it is a matter of personal choice, I would like to share some information with you that you may find helpful.
Let's first identify the different types of vegetarian diets...  


Lacto Ovo Vegetarian 
A lacto ovo vegetarian does not eat meat, fish or poultry, however they do eat eggs and milk. They eat eggs and products made with eggs in them as well as yogurt, cheese, milk and ice cream.


Lacto Vegetarian
A lacto vegetarian does not eat meat, fish, poultry or eggs, but they do eat dairy products such as milk, yogurt, ice cream and cheese. 


Vegan
A vegan does not eat any fish, meat, poultry, eggs, dairy products or foods that contain any of these products. They typically do not use any non-food items that contain products from animals, including wool from sheep, leather and silk. Vegans often do not eat honey, because bees may be killed while harvesting it.  A vegan diet consists of vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, fruits and seeds. This diet tends to be high in fiber and moderate in protein and fat.


Macrobiotics
A macrobiotic diet is mainly vegetarian, but it often includes seafood.  Meat, eggs and dairy products are excluded. They also omit "nightshade vegetables", such as potato, pepper and eggplant, as well as refined sugar and tropical fruits. This diet contains many foods found in Asian countries such as miso soup, root vegetables like daikon and lotus, and sea vegetables like seaweed, kelp, and arame.

For babies, children, pregnant and nursing women, a Vegan diet is particularly risky.   This is because vegans risk deficiency of three very critical nutrients: protein, vitamins and fish oil.   

So let's start with proteins.  Not all protein sources are created equal.  While plants do have some protein, they are incomplete proteins.  Amino acids make up proteins, some of which are essential, meaning the body cannot manufacture them.  We need to get those essential amino acids from our food. All plants either lack one or more amino acids, or they contain too little of one. Plant proteins are inferior to animal proteins (meat, fish, milk and eggs) in quantity as there is more protein per calorie in the meat counterparts and they contain amino acids in the *ideal* amounts for human health. Omnivores need complete proteins and they must get them daily because they cannot be stored. Humans are omnivores with bodies designed to eat plant *and* animal foods.

There is a risk of deficiency of essential vitamins with a plant-based diet.  Chicken, fish and liver are rich sources of of Vitamin B6, where plants only provide small amounts of that vitamin. Vitamin B12 is found only in animal foods.  This is not the only vitamin that is lacking in the Vegan diet, however.

Only animal foods such as seafood, liver, butter and eggs contain "true" vitamins A and D. Humans can make vitamin A from beta-carotene, but it requires much more effort to do so.  The conversion also requires bile salts, fats and vitamin E.  People with thyroid disorders, as well as babies, children and diabetics are poor converters.  We can make some vitamin D in the skin from cholesterol and sunlight when it directly hits our skin but surprisingly, many people don't get enough sunlight and those that do get out in the sun typically lather their skin with sunscreen!

A strict Vegan or vegetarian diet that is void of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and DHA, found only in fish, is a grave risk.  These polyunsaturated fatty acids can be made from plant sources like flaxseeds and walnut oil, but humans, especially babies aren't very good at it.  According to Loren Cordain, a professor at Colorado State University and an expert in historic diets, says that low DHA in mother or baby causes behavorial, mental and visual problems in infants. Studies show that vegan breast milk is deficient in DHA. Other risks are low birth weight and premature birth.

If you feel you must be a vegetarian, eat real butter, and eggs for a complete protein source, and consume plenty of flaxseed oil. Your need for vitamins A, B12, B6 and D are greater because of the foods you would otherwise limit in your diet.  If you want to "make up" for the vitamins lacking in your vegetarian diet, please do not take them in an isolated form (outside of a food source), but do take a quality *whole food* supplement that is made from food, to insure you are meeting your body's nutritional requirements.  Talk to me about how you can accomplish being a vegetarian without compromising your body's nutritional demands.

Be healthy And wise 

Karen :)

The Many Faces of Sugar

                                     Is Sugar Disguising Itself 

                                               in Your Food?

The Food & Drug Administration requires that all food products include

nutritional facts on their labels. This includes amounts of calories, fats,

carbohydrates, proteins etc. The FDA also requires that all ingredients found

in that product to be listed in order of greatest to smallest amount. It is

especially important to pay attention to this section of the label to know

exactly what you are putting in your body. 

Food companies have come up with discreet ways to insert ingredients into

their products by calling it by a different, less common name. For example, a

food may claim to have “No Trans Fats,” yet if you look on the ingredient list,

you will see the words “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated.” This is

code for TRANS FATS. This same phenomenon also pertains to sugar.

Most people know that eating large amounts of sugar is hard on the body.

However, what many might not realize is that products that often claim to be

“Sugar Free,” actually still contain sugar or sugar substitutes. This list

contains common names that sugar can be disguised as in the food you eat. 

                        -SUGAR BY ALL ITS ALIASES-

Sugar by any other name will taste as sweet:

 Barley Malt

Beet Sugar

Brown Sugar – Sucrose crystals coated with molasses

Buttered syrup

Cane Juice crystals

Cane Sugar 

Caramel

Carob syrup

Corn Syrup

Corn Syrup solids

Date Sugar

Diastatic malt

Dextrin

Dextran

Dextrose – Obtained from starch, corn sugar, corn syrup (liquid dextrose), grape

sugar

DiastaseEthyl maltol

Fructose – Fruit sugar.  Found in fruits, molasses and honey.  It’s 11⁄2 times as sweet

as sucrose, but provides the same number of calories.  Absorbed more slowly than

sucrose, so blood sugar doesn’t rise as quickly.

Fruit Juice Concentrate – May mean fruit stripped of all nutrients, flavors, and

colors to leave only refined fructose.

Galactose

Glucose – All sugars get converted to glucose in the blood.  Found in fruits, some

vegetables, honey and corn syrup.

Glucose solids

Golden Sugar

Golden syrup

Grape sugarHoney – Made of mostly fructose, honey is more a concentrated carbohydrate than

sucrose.

High-Fructose corn Syrup

Honey

Invert Sugar – A combination of sucrose, glucose and fructose.

Lactose – Milk sugar, a combination of glucose and fructose.

Malt syrup

Malto-Dextrin

Maltose – Formed by the breakdown of starches.

Mannitol  -A sugar alcohol absorbed more slowly than sucrose.

Molasses

Polydextrose

Raw Sugar

Refiner's syrup

Sorbitol – Sugar alcohol in fruits and berries.  Provides the same number of calories

as sucrose but is only 60% as sweet.

Sorghum syrup

Starch – Found in potatoes, grains, and breads.

Sucrose – Known as table sugar, white sugar, granulated sugar, powdered or

confectioner’s sugar.

Sugar

Turbinado

Xylitol – A sweetener found in plants and used as a substitute for sugar; it is called a

nutritive sweetener because it provides calories, just like sugar.

Yellow Sugar

Important fact: *White Blood Cells are adversely affected by excessive sugar consumption

Karen :)

Clearing up Food Confusion

Have you ever been confused by labels?  How do you know that what you're eating is really healthy?  Of course my motto is to buy organic whenever possible, but what about the difference between whole grain and multi grain for example? Is there a difference?  Or grass fed beef vs. grain fed beef?  Is there a benefit to one over the other?  Do you even consider or care where your seafood comes from, whether wild caught or farm raised?  If you're on a tight budget, which most of us are, how can you save some money when shopping for organic produce?   Well read on and hopefully this will clear up any confusion.

Produce

"The Dirty Dozen":

There are 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide count (or 12 fruits and vegetables you should buy organic) - peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, grapes, carrots and pears.

The "Clean 15":

There are 15 fruits and vegetables that have a low pesticide count (or 15 fruits and vegetables that are OK to buy non-organic) - Onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, mango, asparagus, peas, kiwi, cabbage, eggplant, papaya, watermelon, broccoli, tomato, sweet potatoes.

Why Should You Care About Pesticides?

The growing consensus among scientists is that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can cause lasting damage to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. Scientists now know enough about the long-term consequences of ingesting these powerful chemicals to advise that we minimize our consumption of pesticides. Of course, I recommend doing all we can to eliminate these chemicals as it pertains to our food and in that case, it requires eating organically grown foods. 

Will Washing and Peeling Help?

Nearly all the studies used to create these lists assume that people rinse or peel fresh produce. Rinsing reduces but does not eliminate pesticides. Peeling helps, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the skin. The best approach: eat a varied diet, rinse all produce and buy organic when possible.

Poultry/Eggs

Free range or free roaming, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture means producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside.

What is organic chicken?

Organic chicken is chicken that has only been fed organic grains, which means that no pesticides or chemicals were used on the farm to grow the grain in the last three years. The chicken must also never have been given antibiotics, drugs, or hormones to accelerate growth, though they will be given medicine should they fall ill. Also, the chicken must be given free range with access to outdoors and be treated properly.

Beef

Grass-Fed Beef:

The definition of grass fed beef generally means beef from cattle that have eaten only grass or forage throughout their lives, however some producers do call their beef grass-fed but then actually finish the animals on grain for the last 90 to 160 days before slaughter.

Grass-Finished Beef:

A more specific definition is Grass Finished Beef. Finishing is just another word for the time that cattle are normally fattened for the last few months before processing. Typically, feed lots finish cattle for 90 to 160 days on grain, usually corn, whereas, grass finished cattle are fattened on grass only, until the day that they are processed.

Grass finishing compared to grain finishing:

When considering the definition of grass fed beef, most beef animals have probably eaten grass at some point in their lives, but the important thing is that they're "finished", or fattened on grass, rather than grain, for the 90 to 160 days before slaughter.

During those few months of grain finishing the levels of important nutrients like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega 3 decrease dramatically in the beef animal's tissues. It is in the finishing process that those levels and ratios drastically decline because of the grain feeding, and that is why it's so important to make sure that the beef you eat is not only grass fed, but grass finished.

Seafood

From both a nutritional and environmental impact perspective, farmed fish are far inferior to their wild counterparts:

Despite being much fattier, farmed fish provide less usable beneficial omega 3 fats than wild fish.

Due to the feedlot conditions of aquafarming, farm-raised fish are doused with antibiotics and exposed to more concentrated pesticides than their wild kin. Farmed salmon, in addition, are given a salmon-colored dye in their feed, without which, their flesh would be an unappetizing grey color.

Aquafarming also raises a number of environmental concerns, the most important of which may be its negative impact on wild salmon. It has now been established that sea lice from farms kill up to 95 percent of juvenile wild salmon that migrate past them.

The only downside to wild caught salmon is the price, often times up to $10 more expensive than farm-raised per pound...but, isn't your health worth it?

Snack Foods

Whole grain versus multi grain: Whole grain products contain all the parts of the grain: the germ, which is rich in essential fatty acids and B-vitamins; the endosperm, which is mostly starch; and the bran, which, of course, is high in fiber. In products made with refined grains, on the other hand, most of the germ and bran have been removed, leaving the starchy endosperm, which is the least nutritious part of the grain.

With foods like oatmeal, bulgur wheat, brown rice, popcorn, or quinoa, you're always getting the whole grain-and these are all great foods to include in your diet. It gets trickier with foods like breads, crackers, pasta, and tortillas, where the grains have been milled into flour. Then, it can be a little harder to tell whether you're dealing with whole grains or not.

It doesn't make it any easier that manufacturers go out of their way to make their products look and sound healthy, even when they aren't. They use molasses or food coloring to mimic the darker color of whole-grains. They add ingredients that create a dense, chewy texture. They use virtuous-sounding words like "stone-ground," "100 percent wheat," or "multi-grain." None of these things are a reliable indicator of whole grains.

"Multi-grain" bread, for example, could be made out of several types of refined grains. Or, more likely, it's made with lots of refined white flour and small amounts of other whole grains.

(source: CBS News report)

Some additional points to consider are: Non-organic beef and chicken are fed growth hormones to make them grow bigger and faster, hence more profit.  They are also given antibiotics to prevent or treat infections as a lot of these cattle are in large confined feed lots. Chickens are in deplorable housing conditions.  The grain they are fed has not only been sprayed with who knows how many different pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, but it is highly likely that the grain itself is from Genetically Modified Seeds.   We have no idea the ramifications these seeds will have on our health.    GMO seeds are best to be avoided!!  Grain can also be tainted with antibiotics as an easy way to treat the animals. Non-organic produce can also be from Genetically Modified Seeds.  

To your health,

Karen :)