Brown Rice vs. White Rice

So someone was making a joke the other day about a Mexican restaurant that specializes in extra large burritos offering the choice between brown or white rice - "WOW! Those 15 calories I'll save by choosing the brown rice will really make a difference in losing weight!! Ha ha ha ha..." (BTW, he was wrong about the calorie difference - just saying :-D )

The truth is that the difference in calories is negligible in these choices - brown or white.  What IS important is another couple of things (I think they're more important than the actual calories): Glycemic Load and Nutrient Density!  


Some definitions first:
1) Glycemic load (in conjunction with the glycemic index) is basically the effect of the carbohydrate on blood glucose or blood sugar (how fast and how much it gets raised) and has been used for a number of years to help diabetics control their blood sugar.  The higher the number, the higher the effect=spike in blood glucose which would trigger insulin release, etc.  The best idea is to maintain a fairly leveled blood glucose amount to prevent problems.  Anything higher than say 20 is considered HIGH and anything with a 10 or less is considered LOW.

2) Nutrient density is pretty self-explanatory but just in case... it's the most nutrients you can get for the least amount of calories.  Comparing a Hershey chocolate bar to an apple - the apple is more nutrient dense because it has more vitamins and fiber than the Hershey bar per calorie.

Now back to the brown rice vs. white rice...

In case you don't know, it's all rice, right?  The difference is the brown rice still has its bran and germ (the nutritious and fibrous parts).  The white rice has been processed and the bran & germ has been removed to make it faster to cook.  Yeah, that's the thing - it's faster to cook, meaning it's also faster to digest and you'll be hungry sooner.

A side by side comparison shows us the following (per the USDA Nutrition website):
1 cup of brown rice = 218 kCalories; 4.52g of protein; 3.5g of fiber; 20mg Calcium; 1.03mg Iron
1 cup of white rice =   169 kCalories; 3.51g of protein; 1.7g of fiber;   3mg Calcium;  .24mg Iron
        White rice has 49 kCalories less than brown rice but look at how much less of the nutrients too!

And what's the glycemic load on them? According to the "Death to Diabetes" website:

1 cup white rice (boiled): Glycemic index of 64, with a glycemic load of 23

1 cup Brown rice (boiled): Glycemic index of 55, with a glycemic load of 18

So, while calories (intake and usage) are important, it's also important to not overlook the nutrients and the effect certain things might have on our bodies' glucose levels.  Too many glucose blood level spikes aren't good, so choose smarter.

(For more information on white rice vs. brown rice, read the article on Livestrong.com!)



All information on this blog is my own pursuit of information on the road to getting my BS in Nutrition Science and as a mode of studying. 

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

The Good, The Bad and The...Carbs!

Carbohydrates!  Did you flinch?  Hide?  It seems these days that little word (okay, it's a pretty long word) sends fear into so many people and has prompted so many arguments within and without the medical community.  You have fitness gurus, nutrition store workers, chiropractors, medical doctors, and all kinds of people making claims to "stay away" from those bad, awful, belly-bulging carbs, right?  Are they right or just inappropriately generalizing?  I think those people are taking the good of carbohydrates, ignoring them, and lumping them in with the bad.

Carbohydrates are NEEDED by our bodies.  Here's an idea - ask a dietitian or nutritionist (or anyone that spent longer than one semester learning about nutrition - not counting online researching).  Everything in excess becomes a toxin or a bad thing for us.  Too much protein can cause havoc in your stomach, your liver, etc. and lead to so many other issues.   The fact is that most people don't reach for the legumes when they're told to increase their protein and limit their carbs.  Nope, they go straight to the fatty animal proteins, with their cholesterol and saturated fats. Yep, that's so healthier, right?  Forget that bologna if you're trying to lose weight (no, really, bologna is mega bad for you on so many levels)...it's a basic equation to lose weight: More calories out than calories in. PERIOD.

As for thy mortal enemy "The Carbs", the ones we really need to stay away from as much as possible are the overly-processed sorts:  white sugars, white breads, white rice, etc.  (notice a "white" theme here?)  What those folks don't mention is that lettuce is a carb but have you ever seen an obese wild rabbit?? Ya, I didn't think so.  I don't think that even most people know exactly what a carbohydrate is...do you?

First of all, carbohydrates (carbo=carbon, hydrate=with water) are compounds composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen arranged as monosaccharides or multiples of monosaccharides (mono=one saccharide=sugar; they follow a general formula of C6H12O6 & form a single ring).  Did I lose you? Basically, a monosaccharide is the smallest form of sugar.  Now, there are two categories of carbohydrates: simple and complex.  You've probably heard people talk about "simple sugars" or "complex carbohydrates" but, really, what's the difference?  They are either simple or complex :-D  Okay, simple carbs are either monosaccharides or disaccharides and are easy for the body to access or store for immediate energy.

The most important of the simple carbohydrates are:
     -Monosaccharides
        1) Glucose
        2) Fructose
        3) Galactose

     -Disaccharides (pairs of monosaccharides)
        1) Maltose (glucose + glucose)
        2) Sucrose (glucose + fructose)
        3) Lactose (glucose + galactose)

The complex carbohydrates contain many glucose units, including sometimes other monosaccharides.  These are all strung together to form polysaccharides (poly=many).  There's another word in this category - oligosaccharide (oligo=few), which has less units than polysaccharides but more than the simple carbohydrates.

So, why are carbohydrates so darn important?  They're important because, eventually, all these carbohydrates, simple or complex, get turned into their basic forms - glucose or glycogen.  (Glycogen is what our bodies store extra glucose into that isn't immediately needed/used.)  These two basic carbohydrates provide about half of all the energy that our muscles (and other body tissues) use to function.  The other half is provided mostly by stored fat.  Glucose is the "food" preferred by our brain cells and nerve cells to function efficiently.  Also, it's super important for muscle function (which helps when we exercise).

But there are carbohydrates we should try to avoid most of the time and ones we shouldn't, especially if you're looking to lose weight.  It's a matter of making the right choices most of the time.  Sometimes it's difficult to choose between a slice of chocolate fudge cake and a bowl of fresh fruit for dessert...it's difficult to choose carrots over pretzels...trust me, I know!  And, sometimes, you just have to go for that piece of cake and that's okay too but remember that those are "empty" calories (foods that deliver energy but little or no protein, vitamins or minerals) and that there are healthier, more nutrient rich carbohydrates out there.  It's all back to choosing one's calories wisely and trying to go more toward nutrient-dense foods (e.g. a candy bar at 92 calories versus a bowl of soup at 90 calories).

Let's stop with giving carbohydrates such a bad reputation!  They are our fuel and some of them pack a mighty nutrient punch too!  Embrace the carbs!

Oh and this topic isn't over yet...look for my next entry about what happens to your body on a low dietary carb diet!

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

Think E-N-E-R-G-Y Instead of Calories

Those two words are pretty synonymous because calories and energy are pretty much the same thing.  The correct term is kilocalories (or kcalories for short). For those who remember from school, a kilo is equal to a 1000 increment of metric measurement, in this case it's calories.  So, it is a measurement in 1000-calorie metric units for the energy released/produced from carbohydrates, fats (lipids), and proteins. Basically, it measures heat energy.

Now, let's make it more complicated and talk about the International System of Units (known as the SI).  Well, obviously, these are used worldwide in the scientific communities. Even though calories or kcalories is the most common measurements of food energy, the SI uses joules or kilojoules instead.  I know, I know...some of you might be thinking "Hey, wait a minute! A joule is a measurement of work done!"  Guess what? You're right, it is. So there's a formula (of course there is).  The work energy formula goes like this:

1 joule = 

the movement of 1 kilo,

a distance of 1 meter,

by the force of 1 newton

Get it?  I've got the gist of it, which is what matters.  A little easier is to convert from kcalories to kilojoules and that formula is to just multiply the kcalories by 4.2 to arrive at the kilojoules (kj). Now that that's out of the way, on to more interesting things to do with food energy!

Energy from Foods (aka calories).  

This is oh-so dependent on how much carbohydrates, fats, and proteins a food contains.  But not all of these are the same either!

To calculate how many calories a particular food has, you have to know the baseline caloric breakdown for these nutrients.  

       1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 kcalories of energy

       1 gram of proteins          = 4 kcalories of energy

       1 gram of fat                  = 9 kcalories of energy

       1 gram of alcohol           = 7 kcalories of energy

Now, you probably will never have to do this calculation because most product manufacturers and plenty of weight control books/websites offer the breakdown for you but just so I get it down... the formulas to calculate a food's available energy:

  Total carbohydrate grams X 4 (kcalories)= available energy

  Total protein grams X 4 (kcalories)         = available energy

  Total fat grams X 9 (kcalories                 = available energy

  Total alcohol grams X 7 (kcalories)         = available energy

    -Next, add all the available energy and you have your total.

Now, this calculation might come in handy as it helps to gauge the energy density of a food. This is NOT the same as the nutrient density which I previously discussed. Nope, this has to do with the potential energy of that food.  Which means that if you were trying to lose weight, you'd want this density number to be low and not high.  Remember, lower for losing, okay?  So to calculate this, take the total kcalories and divide it by the total grams...

   Total kcalories  /  total grams    = kcalories per gram

And, to calculate the percentage (%) of kcalories of the separate nutrients:

Nutrient's Available kcalories / Total kcalories of food =  %

So, for example... say the total calories for a food (that's all it's nutrients' calories added together) is 173 kcalories and you want to know how much of that food's kcalories is derived from fat.  You know that the fat's available kcalories for the food is 81, so you divide 81 by 173. That gives you .468, and flashback to school again, you multiply that number by 100 to get a percentage (or do the fancy decimal point move thing) which makes it (with rounding) 47%.  That means that the food derives 47% of it's energy/kcalories from fat!  That's a lot.  One should strive to limit fat intake to 20-35% of the DAILY kcalorie intake.

Now think about all these calculations and how many times we refer to the word energy.  These kcalories/calories are basically potential energy - nothing more, nothing less.  Think of this energy as money you deposit into your checking account at the beginning of the month.  Then you pay your rent/mortgage, utilities, and other bills, you meter out spending money and then you (hopefully) take what's left and put it in savings.  The bill paying is your daily calorie burn.  Savings is the fat storage located all over our bodies.  The fat "savings" is there for a "rainy day" and, just like your savings account, if you never draw money for those fabulous exotic vacations and just keep adding, that account grows larger and larger because, just like the bank, our bodies aren't going to say "Whoa, there partner, you're saving way too much so we're going to have to throw away some of this".  Nope, as much as we'd like our bodies to reach a maximum weight savings, it's not going to happen.  But, it is our responsibility (for health reasons alone) to make sure we are properly taking in energy amounts that our bodies can use to function properly without throwing the extras into "savings".  Hmmm, maybe I should've compared energy intake and output as paying the right amount of income taxes so that you neither have to pay anything in April nor receive a refund...oh well, you get the idea!

I'm going to end this section here - hopefully you weren't too bored with all the math in this post :-D 


All information on this blog is my own pursuit of information on the road to getting my BS in Nutrition Science and as a mode of studying. Most information and data was taken from my textbook "Understanding Normal and Clinical Nutrition" by Rolfes, Pinna, & Whitney, ISBN-13: 978-0-495-55646-6

Happy October!

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

RECIPE - Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

Makes 16 pieces
Calories without icing: 114 per piece
Calories with icing: 130 per piece
(Compared to a leading unnamed company's mini version that has 350cals each.)

Dough:
• 3/4 cup vanilla soy milk
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• sprinkling of evaporated cane sugar
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1tbsp evaporated cane sugar
• 2 tbsp organic canola oil
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or regular whole wheat flour)
• 1/2-1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

Filling:
• 3/4 cup organic brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp Blackstrap Molasses

Icing:
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
1. In a small bowl combine ground flax seed and water; set aside.
2. Warm soy milk in microwave but don’t let it get too hot then add yeast and sugar; Let sit for about 5 minutes.
3. Pour yeast mixture into a mixing bowl & add oil, flax seed mixture, salt, and wheat flour. Mix it a little with your hands then begin adding the all-purpose flour 1/4 cup at a time, kneading it in before adding more. The dough shouldn’t be sticky. When it’s not sticky, knead it for another 5 minutes.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar, molasses, & cinnamon, making sure the molasses is mixed well into the mixture.
5. Once the dough is ready, form into a ball, spray nonstick spray into bottom of bowl, place dough back & spray top with nonstick (I used coconut oil). Cover with a moistened tea towel & let it sit in a warm area for 1- 1 1/2 hours to rise (1st rising).
6. When ready, put dough on a floured surface & roll out into a 10 by 14 rectangle. Brush entire surface with water & spread filling mixture over surface, leaving about 1 inch without filling at one of the short ends.
7. Begin rolling the dough up using the short edge that has filling. Try to roll it away from you, tucking and squeezing the roll as you go. When you get to the untouched dough edge, brush it with some water and finish rolling, sealing it with that edge.
8. Now cut the log in half, then each half in half, and so on. You should have about 14-16 cinnamon rolls. Place them in an 8” round pan or a square brownie pan. Cover with moist tea towel again and let rise in warm place for 45 minutes (2nd rising).
9. Heat your oven to 350˚ & bake rolls for 15-20 minutes. Rolls should be firm to the touch and golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool slightly while you make the icing.
10. To make the icing, place powdered sugar and water in a bowl - add only enough water to get a thick consistency of the icing. Add the vanilla. If you don’t want to do the icing, drizzle some organic, raw honey (yes, I still eat honey because it has no cholesterol).


Let me know if you like these!  We did!

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools