Omega-3 Fatty Acids: What Role Do They Play?
by Shereen Jegtvig
Fats can be confusing. Some are bad for you, if you eat too much of them, like the saturated fats and trans fats, but some are good for you, like the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. But you even have to be a little careful with the good fats, because all fats are high in calories. One gram of fat has nine calories, almost twice as much as the same amount of carbohydrate or protein. You need fats, but not a lot of them and some, like the omega-3 fats are essential – your body can’t make them for you – so you need to get them from your diet.
Omega-3 fats are necessary for good health – they’ll help protect your heart, slow down macular degeneration (the leading cause of blindness in the elderly), and reduce inflammation in your body. Your brain and nervous system need omega-3 fats for normal function, and in fact, it’s crucial for pregnant women to get lots of omega-3 fats during the third trimester of pregnancy as well as through the first three months of nursing, so that the baby’s brain and eyes develop normally. Read more
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Cutting Fat and Calories by Using Cooking Sprays
by Shereen Jegtvig
With obesity becoming a major health problem, it’s good to look for ways to cut calories – every little bit counts. One way to reduce the calories and total fat in your diet is to use cooking sprays instead of oil or butter when you cook. These cooking sprays work great for coating pans and bakeware without adding extra calories because you’re able to use just a thin layer of the product on your cookware.
How Cooking Sprays Work
Cooking sprays combine a small amount of oil with an emulsifier (usually soy lecithin) and a propellant. You simply spray the product onto your cookware. Some brands contain small amounts of silicone-based materials that appear to be harmless when ingested in these small amounts; however I don’t think they have the greatest flavor. Many also contain preservatives and even some artificial flavorings. The best cooking sprays keep the ingredients list short – only an oil, lecithin and a propellant. Read more
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Fortify Yourself With IRON
If, like many of us, you see the encouraging words ‘fortified with iron‘ or, ‘a great source of iron‘ splashed across a myriad of food labels these days you could be forgiven for thinking you are doing the right (healthy) thing by assuming that if it says that, then surely…it must be good for me – right? In most cases – No. But perhaps more to the point – do we really understand the role that iron plays in our body? FoodEssentials investigates, and discovers there’s more to Iron than science labs and iron gates!
Iron is one of the most vital minerals needed in our diet because of it’s important functions in the body. Among other things, it carries oxygen around the body, helping our bodies to grow and repair themselves, whilst keeping our immune system on top form. Read more
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Cheese: Healthy Lifestyle or Fattening Indulgence?
by Shereen Jegtvig
Cheese is one of those foods (like chocolate) that’s good for you in the right amount, but too much probably isn’t so good. Cheese is a dairy product so it’s a good source of protein and calcium, but it’s usually high in saturated fat and sodium. Too much saturated fat may lead to cardiovascular disease and inflammation, plus all that fat adds a lot of calories (cheese is a very energy dense food). Then there’s the sodium.
People who have high blood pressure have probably been told to cut back on their sodium intake to around 1500 milligrams every day. Those of us without high blood pressure should probably eat no more than 2400 milligrams sodium daily. The obvious source of sodium is the table salt you add to recipes or to foods at the table, but that only accounts for about 11% of your daily sodium content.
In order to get the health benefits of cheese, you need to do three things. Read more
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