Terre Pruitt's Blog

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Posts Tagged ‘Whole grain’

Oats – The Incredible Whole Grain

Posted by terrepruitt on March 24, 2012

Since breakfast is so important I have been looking for an easy and healthy thing to eat before I rush off to teach Nia.  I don’t always have a chance to eat before my Nia class, but I have been looking to try to change that.  Oatmeal is always touted as being one of the best breakfast foods.  I do not like oatmeal.  I recently found a recipe for granola that is basically just oats and I started to wonder if oats cooked that way are as good as oatmeal. Here are some nutritional facts on oats:

The fiber contained in oats is known in studies to have a cholesterol lowering effect. Since high cholesterol is associated with buildup of plaque in the blood vessel walls the lowering of cholesterol helps with heart disease. In addition to oats special fiber that helps lower cholesterol scientists have also found an antioxidant compound in oats that help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. Studies have also shown that postmenopausal women can greatly benefit from eating oats at least six times a week.  The study showed that the antioxidant slowed the progression of narrowing the arteries.  In addition oats have been shown to improve or enhance the body’s immune system’s response to infection.  They were mentioned in my post Some Foods Can Boost Your Immune System. Oats also help stabilize blood sugar.
 
You have probably heard a lot of talk about flora in the intestinal track and how important it is to keep the guts healthy.  Oats also contain phytochemical the gets converted to friendly flora and a healthy gut contributes to a healthy digestive system which helps the body in so many ways.  If your digestive system is healthy it allows you to absorb the nutrients you need and eliminates the stuff you don’t need.
 
Dance Exercies, Nia, Nia Campbell, Campbell Nia, Nia classes in Campbell, evening Nia, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, SF Bay Nia, San Francisco Bay Area Nia, NiaNow.com,Oats are also gluten-free which is very helpful since it is a whole-grain and it can be used as a serial and it can also be used ground as a flour.  So it can be a very healthy substitute for gluten containing cereals and flours.
 
The oats I bought show that 1/2 cup of uncooked oats have:
 
Calories 190
Total Fat 3.5 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 0 mg
Total Carbohydrates 32 g
Dietary Fiber 5 g
Protein 7 g
 
Of the Daily Values there is 2% calcuim and 15% iron.
 
A lot of fiber and a lot of protein and the benefits of a whole grain.  I am thinking that I might even just like the oats toasted and eaten as a cereal without adding all the extra stuff as called for in the granola recipe.  Since I have this whole bag I might just try that.  Of course I will also have to use some of this bag for the Banana Oatmeal Walnut Cookies.
 
Oats do contain tryptophan so if you get sleepy after eating them it could be more than just because you might think of oatmeal as a comfort food.

With the large amount of fiber and protein this is a great food to start the day with, both fiber and protein help keep you full. So you can start the day off energized and satisfied.  Oats are an incredible whole grain!

Are you including this whole grain as part of your breakfast?

Posted in Food, Oats | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Quinoa

Posted by terrepruitt on April 19, 2011

I heard about quinoa awhile ago, but I never actually went ahead and bought some to prepare.  I had never had it.  Today I went to lunch at a friend’s house where she made a beautiful and yummy quinoa salad.  I had heard that this grain-like food was GREAT because it had so much protein.  I’ve heard some people use it in place of rice, pasta, or couscous and I was thinking of doing the same thing.  The way my friend prepared it was awesome.  She cooked it, sautéed some vegetables, made a dressing with cilantro, and tossed it all together.  We also added thinly sliced almonds and dried cranberries.  We ate it warm, but it can be served hot, room temperature, cold . . . . however you like it.  It was very good.  I am happy to have finally tried quinoa.

I don’t understand how they categorize things, but quinoa is more closely related to greens such as spinach than it is to a grain.  We tend to treat it like a grain in the way we cook it and think of it nutritiously, but its scientific classification is, as I said related to spinach and we eat the seed.

According to WHFoods, quinoa is a great source of magnesium which helps loosen the blood vessels so it is a good food for migraine suffers to add to their diet.  Even it is actually a seed, as I said they compare it to a grain when it comes to nutrition so it is thought to have all of the health benefits of a whole grain.  Quinoa is gluten free.

A cup of quinoa has 222 calories, 4 grams of fat, 0 cholesterol, 13 mgs of Sodium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of dietary fiber, and 8 grams of protein.  Since it has all nine essential amino acids it is a complete protein.

Even though quinoa has almost twice as much protein and a lot more fiber than white rice, and more than brown rice and couscous, it has much more fat.  A significant amount more.  Here’s some numbers for comparison.

1 Cup of cooked white rice:  calories:  203     fat:  0.4     carbs:  44.1     protein:  4.2     dietary fiber:  LESS THAN 1 gram

1 Cup of cooked brown rice:  calories:  216    fat:  0.4     carbs:  48.1     protein:   5      dietary fiber:  3.5

1 Cup of cooked couscous:    calories:  176    fat:  0.3     carbs:  36.5     protein:   6      dietary fiber:  2.2

I believe it can be a nice substitute for a rice or couscous every once in a while, but I would not consider it as a replacement.  I would like to try it as a breakfast treat with honey and maybe nuts.  I think that would be a good way to start the day. Good protein, fiber, and whole grains.  Quinoa sounds very versatile.  I’ll have to remember to thank my friend again for introducing me to yet another great food.

What about you?  Do you eat quinoa?  How do you prepare it?  How do you eat it?

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Banned Foods

Posted by terrepruitt on April 2, 2011

You might have noticed that everything I do is on my way home from teaching Nia.  It is true, I tend to run my errands after my Nia Classes.  I am out, so it is easy to just stop to pick up what we need.  Two issues with going to a store after I teach 1) I usually look akin to a drown rat with my sweaty limp flat hair and 2) I am usually hungry.  I am one of those people who should not go shopping when they are hungry.  I end up walking down the aisles where dinner ideas start popping in my head.  With menus forming into my head as I am shopping sometimes I end up backtracking and going on all over the store.  By the time I get all that I need I am really hungry.  There are a lot of foods that I don’t even bother bringing in the house.  I work hard not to eat the “junk food” but sometimes when I am hungry and it is there, I will eat it.  Therefore some things are “banned” from being in the house like potato chips, ice cream, candy, cookies, and stuff like that.

There is no need for that stuff to be in the house.  But there are other things that aren’t necessarily “junky” foods that become unhealthy when you eat the whole bag or box. Two such foods I should really just keep out of the house are sunflower seeds and cereal.  You know I love sunflower seeds because I have posted about them.  I love them.  I can eat a whole lot of them.  There is a lot of fat in sunflower seeds so eating a lot of them just adds a lot of extra fat.  They have 17 grams of fat in 1/4 of a cup.  Extra nutrients are not good.  Not matter whether it is fat, protein, or carbohydrates.

The cereal is Kashi 7 Whole Grain Honey Puffs.  I think these things are like Super Sugar Crisps.  Remember that cereal.  I love cereal but I know it is not really a healthful food.  For one serving this cereal has 1 gram of fat, 80 grams of potassium, 25 grams of carbs, 2 grams of fiber, and 3 grams of protein.  So it is really something that should be considered a treat.  To me it is just like a desert.  (Hanging my head) I eat it like I will not be allowed another meal.  This is a confession here people.

I just need to NOT buy this cereal.  Every time I buy it I do good for a day or two and then–whoosh, it’s gone.  I know this, but when I go shopping after Nia I am really hungry and I think I can eat it as I believe it should be eaten, as a treat, maybe every other day and according to the serving size, but I never manage that.  I need to just not buy it.

What about you?  Is there a food you think you are better off just not having in the house at all?  Is it a snack food?  Is it something that might be considered somewhat healthy when eaten in the proper portion?

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

WHOLE Grain Products

Posted by terrepruitt on July 18, 2009

You hear it, you know it, we need to be eating WHOLE grain. Ok, so, what does that mean? That means that “wheat flour”, “enriched wheat flour”, “multi-grain”, “100% wheat”, and anything other than WHOLE is not whole grain.

The whole grain is the bran; the outside of the grain where the fiber is, the endosperm; which is the starchy middle part of the grain, and the germ; the little “seed” part in the middle where the vitamins, minerals and some fat are.

I think it is easy to think of a whole “grain” of corn than wheat because most of us have seen a whole kernel of corn, but not all of us have seen wheat. So think of a kernel of corn (ya have to think of one because my attempts of taking pictures of them did not result in something “postable”), you have the outside which is the bright yellow, then the inside which is kind of whitish and liquid starchy, then you have that little bright yellow “seed”. That is the whole grain. So corn—including popcorn is a whole grain.

Items made with “wheat flour” are not. Even though it is wheat it not a whole grain, is has to say “whole” grain wheat flour or “whole” wheat flour. Multi-grain CAN be whole grain, but it would have to say whole grain. Otherwise it could be a bunch of grains that aren’t whole so you are not getting the benefits of the entire grain.

My bread, has whole grain flour (and bulgur wheat, which the MyPyramid.gov shows as a whole grain, but wiki says traditionally it is “de-branned”) as you can see:

 

 

 

 

My cereal has whole grain.

 

 

 

 

My crackers do not have whole grain, it just says wheat flour, which means they are made from some form of wheat as opposed to corn or rice . . . but it does not say “whole” so it is not whole wheat.

 

I think that products can be misleading, so if you are interested in getting whole grain read the list of ingredients not just the package that might say, “100% Wheat” or “10 Grain”. The ingredients has to list the flour used as whole grain.

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »