Eating For Health

I just started teaching another semester of nutrition.   Each semester I ask students to write down some of their nutrition questions on a stickie note and then post them on the board.   Throughout the semester I answer the students' questions.   One of the students asked “ What is the best way to minimize sugar intake ?”    What “sugars” should we cut back on? Many people are confused about sugars in our foods.   We should cut back on “added sugars” but what about the natural sugars occurring in foods?  Added Sugars – how much should we have in our diets? Many foods we eat have sugar added to the food.   Surprisingly, most foods we buy in the store such as soup, pasta sauce, catsup and many more foods have sugar added during the manufacturing process.   The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends we limit “calories from added sugars to no more than 10% each day.   That’s 200 calories or about 12 teaspoons,...

We all have heard of processed food.   If it comes out of a bag, box or can, the food has undergone some processing. But now there is a new term to know, ultraprocessed food.   What are ultraprocessed foods and do they affect our health any differently than processed or whole foods? 1.  Ultraprocessed Food The definition varies but one definition for “ultraprocessed” foods can be described “as ready-to-eat formulations with five or more ingredients, often including flavor-enhancing additives, dyes or stabilizers”.          2.   Processed foods are foods that have undergone some processing – frozen, canned, dried , cooked or packaged.   These foods may be fortified or preserved in some way.   These include cereals, bread, fruit juices, canned vegetables like canned tomatoes, frozen fruit, frozen vegetables, pasta sauces and crackers.   Examples of even more processed would be frozen pizzas or a microwave dinn...