Eating For Health

Fall is the season for apples.   And apples are nutritious and an easy way to add some fruit to your day.   Health professionals, even some nutritionists, used to put down apples as they thought apples provided little nutritional value. But with more research, they now know that apples contribute a lot of nutrition. Nutritional value of apples Calories – apples are low in calories and have no fat and no added sugar.   Some people say apples have “too much sugar’.   Not true.   Health professionals want us to cut down on added sugars, not the sugars naturally present in fruit like apples.                 1 apple provides about 95 calories Fiber – so many Americans have diets low in fiber.   Eating more fruits and veggies, especially raw fruit like apples, can add some fiber to your day.   The white part of the apple provides soluble fiber.   Soluble fiber helps lo...

Who hasn’t heard of the saying, “an apple a day, keeps the doctor away”?   For years I have heard apples aren’t all that healthy.   At least not compared to carrots or blueberries.   But now experts are saying apples have a lot of nutritional value.   The Fall is apple season and there are so many varieties to enjoy.   We love the Honey Crisp variety.   (A big shout out to David Bedford at the University of Minnesota who created the Honey Crisp variety.) Oh, so tasty.   No one fruit will really “keep the doctor away” but what is the truth about the health benefits of apples?          1.  Fiber – apples provide the fiber, pectin .   Although we really don’t digest pectin, this fiber has a of health benefits.   a.      Pectin can help lower cholesterol:   Pectin is called a soluble fiber that binds to cholesterol in our intestines and literally takes the cholesterol out of ...

Most everyone knows that we all should eat at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day.   For years USDA has a slogan:   5 A DAY, to remind us to eat at least 5 servings of fruit and veggies a day.   Many people ask how much of the 5 A Day should be fruit and how much should be veggies?   Mixing up fruits and veggies are a good idea as each provides us with different vitamins, minerals and those good antioxidants.   Some say to limit fruit to 2 servings a day as fruit has “sugar” in it.   But fruit has natural sugar in it, not “added sugar”.   It is the “added sugar” that we need to cut back on.   So what guidance is there about how much fruit we can or should eat?   An interesting article appeared in Time, Is it possible to eat too much fruit?   Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor at University of California at San Francisco discusses some interesting new research on fruit. What are the concerns about eating too much fruit? ...