More Healthy Eating Info

Harvard School of Public Health

 Nutrition A-Z

Q: What should I Eat?
A: Eat a plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; choose foods with healthy fats, like olive and canola oil, nuts and fatty fish; limit red meat and foods that are high in saturated fat; and avoid foods that contain trans fats. Drink water and other healthy beverages, and limit sugary drinks and salt. Most important of all is keeping calories in check, so you can avoid weight gain, which makes exercise a key partner to a healthy diet.

It’s time to end the low-fat myth. That’s because the percentage of calories from fat that  you eat, whether high or low, isn't really linked with disease. What really matters is the type of fat you eat.
"Good" fats—monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats—lower disease risk.  "Bad" fats—saturated and, especially, trans fats—increase disease risk. Foods high in good fats include vegetable oils (such as olive, canola, sunflower, soy, and corn), nuts, seeds, and fish.  Foods high in bad fats include red meat, butter, cheese, and ice cream, as well as processed foods made with trans fat from partially hydrogenated oil. The key to a healthy diet is to choose foods that have more good fats than bad fats—vegetable oils instead of butter, salmon instead of steak—and that don’t contain any trans fat.
“Low-fat,” “reduced fat,” or “fat-free” processed foods are not necessarily “healthy,” nor is it automatically healthier to follow a low-fat diet. One problem with a generic lower-fat diet is that it prompts most people to stop eating fats that are good for the heart along with those that are bad for it.  And low-fat diets are often higher in refined carbohydrates and starches from foods like white rice, white bread, potatoes, and sugary drinks. Similarly, when food manufacturers take out fat, they often replace it with carbohydrates from sugar, refined grains, or starch. Our bodies digest these refined carbohydrates and starches very quickly, causing blood sugar and insulin levels to spike and then dip, which in turn leads to hunger, overeating, and weight gain. Over time, eating lots of “fast carbs” can raise the risk of heart disease and diabetes as much as—or more than—eating too much saturated fat.

So when you cut back on foods like red meat and butter, replace them with fish, beans, nuts, and healthy oils—not with white bread, white rice, potatoes, sugary drinks, or other refined carbohydrates.

Although it is still important to limit the amount of cholesterol you eat, especially if you have diabetes, for most people dietary cholesterol isn't nearly the villain it's been portrayed to be. Cholesterol in the bloodstream, specifically the bad LDL cholesterol, is what's most important. And the biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats and carbohydrates in your diet—not the amount of cholesterol you eat from food.

Q: Can I eat Carbs:
A:  Quick answer is YES!!!

Try these five quick tips for adding good carbs to your diet:

1. Start the day with whole grains. Try a hot cereal, like steel cut oats, or a cold cereal that lists a whole grain first on the ingredient list and is low in sugar. But finding sugar in cereals takes a bit of detective work. Learn how to be a savvy reader of breakfast cereal labels.

2. Use whole grain breads for lunch or snacks. Confused about how to find a whole-grain bread? Look for bread that lists as the first ingredient whole wheat, whole rye, or some other whole grain —and even better, one that is made with only whole grains, such as 100 percent whole wheat bread. Or try this recipe for hearty whole grain bread.

3. Bag the potatoes. Instead, try brown rice, bulgur, wheat berries, whole wheat pasta, or another whole grain with your dinner. Read "Health Gains from Whole Grains" for a list of whole grains and their health benefits, or check out these whole grain recipes. 

4. Choose whole fruit instead of juice. An orange has two times as much fiber and half as much sugar as a 12-ounce glass of orange juice. Looking for juice alternatives? See six ideas for low-sugar drinks, a recipe for a low-sugar fruit cooler, and a recipe for sugar-free sparkling iced tea.

5. Bring on the beans. Beans are an excellent source of slowly digested carbohydrates as well as a great source of protein.

This Is Your Body on Cake

When it comes to celebrating, nothing completes the occasion like a rich, perfectly sweet slice of cake. Each bite tastes great going down, but the effects it has on our insides are far less appetizing. 

1. Energy Spike and Crash
We digest cake almost immediately because it’s composed primarily of  simple sugars  that require little breakdown. Consuming a bunch of them causes a huge rush of glucose (what sugar is broken down to) into the blood, and the pancreas releases extra insulin to turn the glucose into glycogen, which the liver and muscles use up. 
After the sugar rush, blood sugar levels drop dramatically, triggering the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to activate stored sugar supplies. Stress hormones raise our heart rate, make our stomachs clench in anticipation of an attack, and leave us shaky and nauseated once our bodies realize there’s no danger to respond to. 

2. Lowered Immunity
The amount of sugar in a couple of twelve-ounce sodas might be enough to increase disease susceptibility. That’s according to a study published in the  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , in which researchers found that people’s white blood cell counts were reduced for up to five hours after they ate one hundred grams of sugar. 

3. Fat Conversion
If there’s any glycogen left over after your liver and muscles become full -- and chances are, there will be, unless you were physically active before eating the cake and your raised metabolism can burn through all that sugar -- that extra glycogen gets converted into fat. People mistakenly believe that eating fat-free foods prevents weight gain, but since they’re usually supplemented by extra sugar, those foods can be just as fattening. 

4. Impaired Cardiovascular Function
A 2007 study conducted at the University of Calgary and published in the  American Society for Nutrition  found that eating just one high-fat meal increased blood pressure and made participants’ hearts work harder. 

5. Memory Loss
People with Type 2 diabetes must be especially careful when eating cake because of all the sugar, but one study indicates that the butter and oil in the cake might be problematic, too. At the Baycare Centre for Geriatric Care in 2008, researchers tested the memory recall of volunteers with this disease after feeding them fat-filled meals, low-fat meals, or water. Those who ate the heavier meals showed more memory loss afterward than everyone else.