How to get more nutrition out of your whole grains

6 years ago, when I started this whole natural food thing, I read about soaking whole grains to make them easier to digest. I think I tried one recipe. It seemed "too weird" so I stopped doing that. I've revisited it and you know what? It isn't really weird at all. Take any recipe that contains whole grain flour and liquid (so any pancake, muffin, biscuit, bread, cake, etc) and allow the flour to sit in that liquid for 7-24 hours before you finish the recipe. Seriously, that easy. Why did I think that was weird?

Why do this, you ask?? Because whole grains contain phytic acid, which actually blocks the absorbtion of nutrients. If we soak it, ferment it, or sprout it, the phytic acid gets neutralized and the nutrients are more available. In addition, this helps break down the grain a bit and makes it easier to digest (particularly the gluten, which some people have trouble with). This also makes for a lighter, fluffier product than other whole-grain recipes usually produce.

Soaking is easy, as I stated above (and you don't soak and drain it like soaking a stained shirt, you just let it sit and then continue baking). Fermenting is easy too. You can just add a little lemon juice, vinegar, buttermilk, or yogurt to the liquid and fermentation occurs. Sprouting is still "too weird" to me. I'll get back to you on that when I get gutsy enough to learn how.

Something else I learned 6 years ago, but forgot, is that freshly ground flour loses 40% of its nutrients within 24 hours of grinding (unless sealed or refrigerated) and 80% is lost in 3 days. So using freshly ground grains, or refrigerating store-bought ones preverves the nutrients.

Information about natural sweeteners from another blogger

I've been finding that there are lots of "us" out there in the blog-o-sphere. Many have done their research and are helping me on my journey quite a bit. Here is a link to some great information about natural sweeteners, including how to substitute them in recipes:

http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2008/09/my-favorite-natural-sweeteners.html

I learned that some of my stand-by's aren't maybe as healthy as I thought. For instance, I hadn't thought about the damage that heat does to liquid sweeteners. Heating a liquid sweetener above 118 degrees damages it and can even change the molecular structure. Well, maple syrup and agave nectar start out looking like water and must be boiled down until they are syrup consistency. They get way over 118 degrees and become something different and not quite as healthy as they were before. Pasteurized honey gets over 118 as well, and with that one, beneficial bacteria are killed off in the process. We have to worry about botulism in honey because pasteurization kills off the natural honey killer that God put in there!! I'm thinking they are still way better than refined white sugar, but it is something to think about.

I learned, also, that Stevia is best bought in its ground leaf form, and not in the white powdered form, because that white powder is super-processed. Good to know.

I'm thinking, based on what I learned, that Succanat and RAW honey are our best choices for sweeteners, as long as we don't cook the honey. So succanat should go in things that will be baked or cooked on the stove, honey can be stirred into or drizzled onto already-cooked or fresh items. I don't think this will make me give up my Maple Syrup on pancakes, and I'm not going to go back and change all my recipes because this is all about growth. I have no doubt that yogurt sweetened with cooked honey and blueberries is heathier than commercially sweetened yogurt. It's just good info to use in the future.

A good explanation of why some oils are good and some oils are bad

I was recently asked to defend my position on what fats I've deemed good and bad. I had to admit that I had done the research and that I used to know, but that I couldn't remember the specifics. Now I remember:

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t043800.asp

"Oils are liquid fats. Most commercial oils come from plant sources, such as nuts and seeds. Oils are an important part of a balanced diet because, besides being a rich source of energy, they provide essential fatty acids which are the building blocks for cell membranes, especially cells in growing brains. Oils help the body absorb certain vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K, and contribute to healthier skin. And oils carry and intensify flavors in food and give it a pleasurable feel in the mouth.

Most oils come from the seeds of plants, which are crushed and pressed to remove the oil. Heat can damage oils and alter the fatty acids, creating harmful substances, so the best oils are produced with minimal heat. This is called cold pressing. However, when you see the term "cold-pressed" on a label, don't assume that the oil in the bottle was not heated during manufacturing. "Cold-pressed" is a little fib that appeals to consumers who are savvy enough to equate heating with damage to oils. The problem is that the term has no chemical, legal, or technological definition, and it means something different to a manufacturer than it does to the consumer. To a manufacturer, cold-pressed simply means that no external heat was applied during the pressing of the oil, yet the press itself, which comes in contact with the oil, may become quite hot anyway and damage the oil. A more informative label would state the temperature at which the oil was processed, which ideally should be below 110 degrees. The words "omegaflow process" on a label means that the oil has been protected from reaching high temperatures during processing.

Most of the oils you'll find in the supermarket have not only been extracted with heat or solvents, but have also been refined with potentially toxic substances. These processes improve shelf life and make oil cheap to produce, but they take the product further away from its natural state and leave chemical residues behind. If the label does not boast that the oil is "unrefined," you can assume that it has been through some kind of chemical process that makes it worse for your health."

My strolls through Barnes and Noble... and the natural foods store

I have been asked to give a healthy eating presentation at church next week. I decided that I wanted to actually OWN the handful of books that have led me to think the way I now do, and to set them out for people to look at and leaf through. I also wanted to see what else was out there on the topic of clean eating, whole foods, "real" eating, etc... I found Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. I've checked it out from the library a dozen times and decided that frugality is silly when it comes to this book. I MUST own it. I also found Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels. I didn't find any other books that I'd recommend or set out as an example of my beliefs.

I looked for new books, too. I found NOTHING. There is a book called The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno. She won't use butter and she does use white flour, white sugar, and white pasta. How is this clean? Other books, whose exact titles I forget now, claimed to be "whole foods" cookbooks but contained dessert recipes using white sugar and white flour. They also contained white pasta, arborio rice, meats full of nitrates and sodium, vegetable oils, margarine, and other foods I don't consider "whole." Apparently, if you only use a little, these foods become "whole" all-of-a-sudden.

I found vegetarian cookbooks loaded with ingredients I won't use. Sure, there's no meat on the plate, but there's margarine and refined oil and processed cheese and a whole bunch of other crap I found "sugar free" cookbooks full of Nutrasweet and Splenda. People don't get that replacing one refined product with another even more refined product isn't smart. I did find a couple of books that I might have considered except they used at least two ingredients in every recipe that I'd never heard of or that I KNEW were expensive or difficult to find. There really is very little out there, in the mainstream bookstore, for people who want to eat "close to the earth," but who also have restricted time and resources, like me.

Prior to this visit, I found myself walking through our huge, beautiful, food co-op. I went there for rapadura. It is the only place I can buy it, locally. I was frustrated as I wandered aisle upon aisle of processed, packaged foods that say "all natural" and "organic." Are people really fooled by this? If Paul Newman makes your oreo cookie from white sugar and white flour and calls it organic is it suddenly a health food? Gluten free organic cheese puffs are still cheese puffs. Organic mac and cheese made with white pasta and some cheese-product is still not real food. Makes me crazy, I tell ya. And what I kept asking myself was, "who buys this stuff?" Are there people willing to spend $3 a box for organic mac and cheese with zero nutritional value instead of .79 cents a box for the non-organic version? Don't they see that fake food without pesticides isn't much better than fake food with pesticides???

Gaaaah.....

thanks for listening.

An article that explains that "evil" gluten to me.

Gluten-free cuisine: is avoiding the protein better for us?
E: The Environmental Magazine, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Kimberly Jordan Allen

While perusing the lunch offerings at a local health food store recently, I overheard the chef say to a customer: "You have to try my vegetarian lasagna. It is gluten-free, which is better for you, of course." I had heard that wheat and gluten sensitivities could cause health problems for some people, but calling these foods unhealthy surprised me. Could gluten actually be bad for us?

Gluten is the elastic, water-insoluble protein found in wheat and other grains such as rye, barley, kamut, spelt and oats. It is also found in a surprising number of products on supermarket shelves. Gluten is used as a thickener and binder in thousands of such products as soups, sauces (including soy sauce), candy, artificial cheese, pharmaceuticals and even envelope glue. In the typical Western diet, wheat is the primary source.

For someone suffering from celiac disease, also called celiac sprue or celiac enteropathy, all forms of gluten are toxic to the digestive system. This means sufferers must avoid gluten in every form. The protein causes an immunological reaction in the small intestine, resulting in the disintegration of the finger-like villi that facilitate the absorption of nutrients. People who have been afflicted with this condition for extended periods of time lose their ability to process food normally, thereby leading to potentially severe health problems.

Long misdiagnosed, due to a lack of education, new studies suggest that up to one in 133 people are afflicted with celiac disease. People can also go years without being diagnosed due to the multifaceted symptoms, which include diarrhea, gas, bloating, weight loss, water retention, constipation and dermatitis. Long-term effects of the condition are anemia, malnutrition, osteoporosis and cancer. Some people also suffer an immediate allergic reaction to wheat or gluten, and others say they just feel better without it. But to deem gluten simply unhealthy seems to be a stretch.

For some consumers of organic and healthy foods, a generous chunk of whole grain bread can be the cornerstone of a nutritious meal, a staple bordering on iconic. Bleached white bread is rightfully condemned for its lack of nutritional value, but whole grains have long been praised as a good natural source of nutrition and fiber. The notion that wheat is unhealthy is definitely not the norm, but in the era of Atkins and South Beach anti-carb diets, people may be tending to think of wheat as junk food. Some are choosing to minimize starches altogether, while others partake in a gluten-free diet that allows more complex carbohydrates. Many are losing weight on these higher-protein, higher-vegetable diets, but nutritionists caution they may be missing out on important nutrients once grains are removed, such as B vitamins that are found in whole grain wheat.

Some people experience gluten sensitivity without knowing it. Melissa Diane Smith, a nutritionist and author of the book Going Against The Grain, warns that glutenous grains might be wreaking havoc on our health. "Gluten sensitivity is a hidden health problem that many Americans don't know they have," says Smith. "When a gluten-free diet is strictly followed, long-standing health problems clear up." This is obvious for those with celiac disease, but for the people who suffer subtler forms of intolerance, it could take years to discover sensitivity.

Claire Williamson, a nutritional scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, disagrees that gluten sensitivity is more common than currently believed, and she stresses that wheat is an important part of the daily diet. "We would not recommend a wheat/gluten-free diet for a non-celiac sufferer," says Williamson. "Wheat forms a staple part of the diet, and avoidance of wheat is far from an easy task," she says. Most Western physicians and dietitians believe that in the absence of strong symptoms of intolerance, a gluten-free diet is unnecessary.

It may be a good idea to get checked for intolerance if you experience chronic digestive disorders that have gone undiagnosed, however. In a 2002 article in the peer-reviewed American Family Physician, Dr. David A. Nelson, Jr. of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences concluded, "Gluten-sensitive enteropathy commonly manifests as 'silent' celiac disease (i.e., minimal or no symptoms)." A blood test can determine if you have the antibodies that signify the disease is present. An intestinal biopsy verifies the presence of the problem. A gluten-flee diet promises relief.

Soo.....................What does this mean for me and my food choices? We're gonna keep eating it. We don't seem to have any sensitivities here. My recipes contain quite a bit of wheat and oats and I was starting to feel guilty about that. I'm over it.

So..... I'm browsing for cookbooks on Amazon and....

I came across a GREAT book.....at least I think it's great because I LOVE what the author says on one of the pages I got lucky enough to see in the "Look Inside" portion. I'm waiting for the book through interlibrary loan right now, because I hate to buy a book, only to find out that I don't really love it after all!

Anyway, the book, should you wish to look it up, is called:

Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods by Cynthia Lair, and Peggy O'Mara.

I like what the authors say on this ONE page because they think like me, of course. They say "to determine whether a food is whole or not, we must be conscious when making food choices" Didn't I say that?? The authors say that before we eat it, or even heat it up, or even put it in our cart, we need to think about where it came from. They run it through the following questions:

1. "Can I imagine it growing??" Marshmallows, diet soda, fruit loops? Yeah, hard to imagine them growing, isn't it??

2. "How many ingredients does it have? A whole food has only one ingredient--itself. No label of ingredients is necessary on simple ingredients like salmon, apples, and wild rice"

3. "What's been done to the food since it was harvested? The less the better. Many foods we eat no longer resemble anything found in nature. Stripped, refined, bleached, injected, hydrogenated, chemically treated, irradiated, and gassed, modern foods have literally had the life taken out of them"......."if it isn't something that you could possibly make in your kitchen or grow in your garden, be wary. For example, you can make tofu, but you can't make isolated soy protein."

4. "Is this product part of a food or the whole entity? Juice is only part of a fruit. Oil is only part of the olive. When you eat a lot of partial foods, your body in its natural wisdom will crave the parts it didn't get."

I'm going to add to her list.... egg whites are only part of an egg. An apple or potato without its skin is only part of an apple or potato. Obviously, this logic only goes so far. We don't want you eating egg shells or banana peels.....

5. "How long has this food been known to nourish human beings?...... Putting something on my toast or in my tea that the FDA just approved last month warrants caution......Most whole foods have been on the dinner table for centuries."

ISN'T THIS AWESOME????? I love these criteria. They are similar to mine, but written so much better and make more sense than all my ramblings.

Sodium, the Silent Saboteur of Skinny

Watch this video. Jillian says what I would have said, only she's hotter than me, and has visuals and stuff.

http://video.aol.com/video/jillian-michaels-america-takes-it-off-2008-jillian-michaels-sodium-tips/2040026

If you ever wonder why you gained a pound without doing anything "wrong" or you lost a bunch of weight fast, without doing anything particularly "right," it is probably the result of sodium.

About eating at night...

I just learned A LOT from Jillian Michael's new book Master Your Metabolism. She confirmed quite a bit of what I already knew, and have been teaching you, which was a big confidence boost for me. However, there were many new ideas in her book, which I'm going to share with you here. First, she explained WHY eating at night (especially carbs) makes you gain weight. I've always heard that, but never understood why.

I didn't know any of this....................

1. You have a hormone, called Cortisol, that tells your body to store fat. Your body makes less of it in the morning than it does in the evening and night time. So eat your carbs in the morning and eat fewer as the day goes on, and NONE at night.

2. Your gastric emptying rate (or the rate at which food leaves your stomach) slows down at night.

3. Your ability to process glucose (sugar) is best in the morning, slower in the evening, and almost nil when you sleep.

4. About one hour after you fall asleep, when you are sleeping hard, your body releases its largest pulse of growth hormone for the whole day! Growth hormone builds cells and burns fat!!! Insulin slows growth hormone production. You know what makes insulin, right? Sugar (aka carbs). Carbs at night = high insulin = low growth hormone = less restoration for your body and less fat burned!!

5. Deep sleep is best achieved when your hunger hormone, Ghrelin, is high. All foods that make you full depress Ghrelin, of course, but carbs depress it more than any other nutrient.

So...... we need to be in a semi-fasting state when we go to sleep, so we can fall into deep sleep sooner and make the most of the most beneficial hormone release of the day!

DON'T eat carbs after dinner. If you MUST eat, snack on leftover lean meat or non-carb veggies. Carbs will make your insulin high and your Ghrelin low, which will limit your production of fat burning growth hormones!

DON'T eat anything in the hour before you fall asleep. You need to be a bit hungry (high hunger hormone, Ghrelin) to fall into deep sleep.

RULES 1-6 ARE LISTED HERE

RULE #1:
Eat 5-6 times every day and eat food combinations that will keep you full. Decide ahead of time when you are going to eat. You don't need to know exactly what you are going to eat but you do need to think about how your day will shake out and where you will be at each meal time.

RULE #2
Drink lots of water. In between meals, when you get to hour 2 and you have 30 minutes to wait until you eat again, you'll start to feel hungry-ish. Drink 2 glasses of water. Stand right there at your sink and chug them down. Put your glass on the windowsill. Repeat. Get a water bottle and take it everywhere with you. When you want a soda, buy a bottle of water instead. You should be peeing a lot. This is the best "cleanse" you can do.

RULE #3
No "bad" carbs/ processed carbs. Here's the list: processed sugar (white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup) or any food containing these sugars, white flours (flours with the germ and bran removed this includes bleached and unbleached wheat flour), white rice. Replace these items with natural sweeteners in moderation, whole grain flours, brown rice, and quinoa.

RULE #4
Eat all kinds of protein. Chicken, turkey, elk, bison, and fish are good lean choices but try to even use these in moderation. You need protein 5x a day on this diet. Do NOT make them all from meat. Use eggs, dairy, nuts, protein powders, beans, and seeds as often as you can. Eating meat sparingly is a good idea, particularly meats that are high in fat, like bacon, sausage, and certain cuts of beef or pork.

RULE #5
Limit your fat to the following: fats that are already in your food (like the fish oil in your fish, or the marbling in your beef), butter, lard, drippings (like bacon fat or the chicken fat you skim off your soup), and cold-pressed vegetable oils (look at the label. It must say cold-pressed). This means you are giving up any food that is fried in a restaurant or a factory. They do not use cold-pressed oils.  Use these fats IN MODERATION.

RULE #6
A. Go to sparkpeople at least once a day, every day, for 3 weeks and enter in every single item you eat. Try your best to stay within the limits given to you in each category. Yes, it is tedious, but you don't have to do this forever. For 3 weeks, you are going to track your calories and nutrients and you will pay attention to what the numbers say. Notice how you feel when you don't get enough fiber and protein. Notice what the scale says when you go way over your sodium goal one day. If you click on "see today's full report" you can see your whole day, plus a pie chart that indicates what percentage of your food intake went to carbs, fat, and protein. Try to manage your meals to make your pie chart look like the recommended pie chart.

B. After your 3 week stint on sparkpeople, you may step away from it if you feel like you are ready. HOWEVER, for every day that you fall off your own bandwagon, you MUST go back to sparkpeople for a day, up to 3 weeks. So if you go away for the weekend and eat like a silly person, then come back, re-read my rules, and do sparkpeople for 2 days. If you blow it and eat Twinkies and Coke for a month, and then decide you are ready to be sane again, then come back, re-read my rules, and go back to sparkpeople for 3 weeks.

Let's get started!

I'm not going to throw this thing at you all at once. It took me six years to get to where I can follow all my rules most of the time. Take it one rule at a time. Over the next several entries, you will see bold-faced rules. Don't get mad if you follow one rule and don't feel better, lose weight, or lose belly fat. This is NOT a 5 day get skinny kind of thing. This is a lifestyle change. You'll need to learn to live all the rules, most of the time, little by little, before you see the see those changes. Today we are going to start by being CONSCIOUS of what we eat and when we eat it. We sabotage our healthy eating goals when we get too hungry, so for the first rule, we are going to EAT.

RULE #1:

Eat 4-5 times every day and eat food combinations that will keep you full.

Decide ahead of time when you are going to eat. You don't need to know exactly what you are going to eat but you do need to think about how your day will shake out and where you will be at each meal time. Do this:

Breakfast : a whole grain or potato, a protein, a fruit
Snack : protein and a carb
Lunch: whole grain or potato, protein, fruit or veggie)
Snack : protein and a carb
Dinner: whole grain or potato, protein, veggie

I do 8:30, 11:00, 1:30, 4:00, 6:30. If we are eating a lot earlier, I skip the 4:00 one. You tweak the times to fit your schedule but never go more than 3 hours without food and try not to stray from the food combinations I've suggested. You need to plan ahead if you are going to be away from home. If I know I'm going to be at Walmart at 11:00, I pack a cheese stick and some raisins in my purse and munch while I shop. We do this for our kids, right? Why not for ourselves?

These meals/snacks are SMALL. I have 3 sizes of plates. I use the middle size for my "meals" and the small size for my "snacks" (if I need a plate). I think about kid-sized portions when I make my meals. Today's breakfast was one apple, one egg, and one slice of toast with a little butter. This is not a grown-up restaurant breakfast, this is a kid's meal. You will be eating in just 2.5 short hours. You don't need the Denny's grand slam. In fact, when eating out, continue to think this way. Order off the senior menu or the kid's menu and if they give you too much, DON'T EAT IT. Ask for a to-go box and portion up what you don't need before you dig in.



I'm not telling you WHAT to eat yet. I'm only telling you to eat small meals 5x a day and keep them kid-sized. I'm not telling you to count your calories, not yet. I just want you to be AWARE of what you put in your mouth and when. I want you to recognize what keeps you full for the whole 2.5 hours and what does not keep you full.

I suggest you to pair certain foods together. Why? Because you will stay fuller longer if you do it this way. I've dieted lots. I've counted calories lots. What I've learned is that 200 calories of chips does not feel as good in your body as the 200 calorie combination of a cheese stick paired with an apple.

Food combinations I like for breakfast:

• Oats with ground almonds and dried cranberries
• Egg, toast, fruit
• whole grain unsweetened cereal with bananas, honey and milk
• leftover brown rice with an egg white stirred in and microwaved (makes it creamy) with maple syrup and berries on top
• cottage cheese with canned fruit (with no added sugar) and sunflower seeds

Food combinations I like for lunch:

• one hard-boiled egg mixed with Kraft Olive Oil Mayo and a little mustard, one slice of bread, and some carrot sticks
• leftovers from last night's dinner
• one piece of whole wheat bread with natural peanut butter and fruit sweetened jam and a piece of fruit
• beans and brown rice with salsa stirred in and some pepper slices on the side
• a pile of spinach with a sliced boiled egg, shredded carrot and any Newman's Own light dressing.
• microwave baked potato with some leftover taco meat, chili, lentils, or something like that on top

Food combinations I like for snacks

• apple and a cheese stick (my stand-by)
• a baggie of nuts and a little bottle of 100% juice (can grab this at the gas station)
• a smoothie made with spinach, 1/2 frozen banana, 1/2 C. orange juice, water, and protein powder
• banana and some Triscuits
• baked tortilla chips, microwaved with 1/4 cup cheese and salsa
• a slice of bread with natural peanut butter

Dinner is dinner. I make what my family will eat, which sometimes means little extras that I wouldn't do if it were just me, like butter on the green beans and extra cheese on the enchiladas. I make sure I get plenty of veggies and a reasonable portion of what is prepared. As you read through this blog, you'll find my recipes and see some of the dinners I make. I don't make seperate meals for seperate tastes. We are all in this together! Kids can learn to eat healthy!

RULE #2

Drink lots of water. In between meals, when you get to hour 2 and you have 30 minutes to wait until you eat again, you'll start to feel hungry-ish. Drink 2 glasses of water. Stand right there at your sink and chug them down. Put your glass on the windowsill. Repeat. Get a water bottle and take it everywhere with you. When you want a soda, buy a bottle of water instead. You should be peeing a lot. This is the best "cleanse" you can do.