Posts Tagged ‘minerals’
What are Empty Calories?
Whenever you want to lose those extra kilos that we had, the first thing suggests a diet is the amount of calories you should eat daily. Men and women (separately), we need a minimum and maximum amount per day to achieve weight loss or to keep the ideal.
Within those calories, we take special care to consider the so-called empty calories. These are those that provide food as our mothers would say “do not feed.”
Usually, a lot of sugars, fats (saturated and trans) and additives, but have few essential nutrients (including none) needed for health. In conclusion, they add lots of calories but do not satisfy the appetite or cover nutritional needs.
Usually associated with overweight because they provide many simple carbohydrates, rapidly absorbed and unhealthy fats that promote weight gain. The empty calories may promote increased cholesterol, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Recent studies say that people who eat lots of fat and empty calories are more likely to be obese in the future, but for now do not experience rapid weight gain.
When the diet is based on these products, often stopping foods are healthy nutrients (vitamins, minerals and fiber), resulting in a vicious circle because more sugar and fat consumed, the more need is the body of B vitamins to metabolize them. That is why part of obese people have serious nutritional deficiencies.
Foods that are empty calories are mainly industrial pastries and cakes, sweets, alcoholic beverages (except fermented as wine, beer or cider, which does result in healthy nutrients), snack or most fast food. Instead of making pastries for breakfast and snacks opt for a full sandwich, a skimmed milk or fruit drinks sweetened with sweetener and choose products low in fat sugar.
Posted in Food and Nutrient | 
Tags: calories, empty calories, essential nutrients, fiber, healthy foods, minerals, vitamins, weight gain | 
No Comments »
The Bread is not Fattening
The decrease in consumption of bread – about 10 percent in just the last year – is due in large measure, the little knowledge about the nutritional benefits of this product and poor medical guidance which was devoted to extending mistakenly believing that bread is fattening.
Experts meeting in Madrid on the occasion of the presentation of the ‘White Paper Pan’ stated that, undoubtedly, the bread is the food that contributes to better nutritional balance, as it provides an important part of carbohydrate of dietary fiber, minerals and vitamins.
Not to mention that this is not a diet rich in fats or sugars, so that the bread itself is not fattening not only provided the diet and living habits are good, but contributes to a healthier diet.
The meeting, organized by the Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Professor of Medina and Public Health, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and one of the authors of the book, Dr. Luis Serra, recalled that he is missing Mediterranean diet largely because “it is losing one of its promoters is the bread, one of the core, along with olive oil, the Mediterranean diet. In his view we must try to reverse this process as their nutritional value makes it “indispensable” in the diet.
The countries that have increased the consumption of bread in the global context, are not the countries with highest rate of obesity, so it’s time to defend the Mediterranean diet and bread.
For its part, the other author of White Paper, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Dr. Angel Gil, recalled that “bread is a staple for children, and taken into adequate amounts is essential to our health. ”
In addition, bread consumption is associated with decreased risk of many diseases. “The scientific reality shows that consumption in adequate amounts, including breads, is the decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers such as colon and breast cancer,” he said.