Food
Nutrition advice
Introduction
We answer some of the most common questions about the foods people eat every day.
Is fish better than meat? Should you always choose low-fat products? What's the case for nuts? We answer these and many other nutrition questions about meat, fish, fat, dairy products, nuts, vegetables and more.
Meat, fish and fat
Should I stop eating red meat?
The fat in red meat is bad for you. Fatty meats like sausages, some mince, stewing chops, many roasting joints, steak with the fat left on, salami and so on should be eaten sparingly.
But red meat is a valuable source of protein, zinc and vitamin B12, and is one of the best sources of dietary iron you can eat. This is particularly important for women. It makes sense to eat moderate amounts of lean red meat.
Isn't fish better?
Fish is definitely better - it's low in saturated fat but high in protein, vitamins and minerals. Fish with edible bones like sardines and salmon, are also good sources of calcium.
Many studies have shown groups of people who regularly eat a lot of fatty fish have lower rates of heart disease and stroke. This is because fatty fish contains omega 3 oils, which prevent blood cells sticking together and onto artery walls.
If you can, eat fish twice weekly especially oily varieties like tuna, kahawai, trevally, kingfish, John Dory, salmon, sardines and eel. Canned fish is a good alternative to fresh.
Choose low-fat products, right?
Not necessarily. "Low-fat" has become the mantra for marketing the healthiness of many foods, but it can be misleading.
Many low-fat foods are high in sugar and therefore provide more energy than you need. The excess may be converted to fat and stored in your body.
A Naturalea Smoothie, for example, is "99 percent fat free", but one serving has over 900 kilojoules and six teaspoons of sugar. That's about the same as a Crunchie bar, even though the chocolate has 17 percent fat.
Fat free does not mean healthy, if the food is high in energy. You need to check the nutrition information panel for energy and sugar content.
Okay, is the jury still out on butter?
No, the verdict has been in for ages - butter is bad for you.
Forget about butter being "natural". It's high in saturated fat and also has some naturally occurring trans fats.
Butter blends retain some of the taste of butter, but because they combine dairy and vegetable fat, they contain less saturated fat. The healthiest table spreads are those with a high proportion of monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats, and little or no trans fats and saturated fats. Canola and olive oil spreads fit the bill well.
Try them - or the oils themselves - in place of butter wherever you can. Olive oil tastes great in mashed potato, for example.
But remember to have as little as you need, rather than as much as you want - cutting back on table spreads is a fairly easy way to reduce your overall energy intake.
Eggs and dairy products
Are eggs high in cholesterol?
Egg yolks contain cholesterol, but it's "dietary" cholesterol and has only a small influence on your blood cholesterol levels compared to the saturated fat in your diet.
Eggs are a good source of protein, vitamin B12, and monounsaturated fats. Unless you already have a problem with your blood cholesterol levels, you don't need to restrict your egg intake. The healthiest ways to eat them are boiled or poached.
Is cheese good for calcium?
Yes, and it also provides other nutrients like phosphorus, vitamin A and riboflavin.
However, cheese is fattier than milk. Choose lower-fat cheeses - they include edam, mozzarella, cotttage cheese and low-fat cheddars.
Can we still scream for ice cream?
What a wonderful world it would be, if ice cream was a health food. Alas.
Most ice cream has a fat content of around 11 percent, and most of that is saturated. However, there are now many low-fat ice creams and ice-cream-style confections.
But ice cream, including most of the low-fat varieties, also has lots of sugar. The result: one cup of regular ice cream has more energy than a Mars bar.
Ice cream also contains less calcium than milk.
Carbohydrates
All bread is good but some bread is better - right?
According to some nutrition advice, the white bread on which you might spread your peanut butter is worse than the peanut butter itself. This is strongly disputed by other nutritionists.
Refined carbohydrates raise blood sugar levels quickly, which over time increases your risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity. One view is that this applies to white bread, pasta and white rice, as well as baked goods like cakes and biscuits.
But white bread is not a similar type of food to cakes and biscuits. Bread - all bread - is a good source of carbohydrate, protein, fibre and the B vitamins niacin, riboflavin, thiamin and folate.
What's more, white bread does not contain the high levels of sugar and trans fats (or butter) common to baked goods.
However, there's no denying that wholegrain bread is a better choice. It has more fibre and higher levels of vitamins and minerals, and is more filling. If your kids (or you) won't eat wholegrain bread, try fibre-enriched white.
So I have to eat brown rice now?
Brown rice has more nutrients than white rice because the bran layer and the germ of the rice grain are removed from white rice during milling.
But the same argument applies. Although brown rice is better for you, white rice is still a good source of fibre and vitamins. It's the same for pasta.
With rice and pasta, the more important issue may be what you put on top. Creamy and/or soft cheesy sauces are not a healthy choice.
But we need our potatoes!
That's fine. Potatoes are a good source of vitamins, minerals and fibre, especially if you eat the skins. They're also low in fat - provided you don't add lots of saturated fat in the form of butter or cheese.
Potatoes have a high GI so quickly raise blood-sugar levels. They are mainly starch, which is easily broken down to glucose. However, it's the total amount of carbohydrate in the meal, rather than the type, that determines the blood-sugar response. That potato is better for you than the sugary dessert to follow.
Eating potatoes with protein, vegetables and fibre will also help, because it slows the rise in blood-sugar levels.
Nuts and vegetables
What's the case for nuts?
There are good reasons for including nuts in your diet.
First, the oil in nuts is "good", because it's predominantly unsaturated. Second, nuts are very filling, so including them in your diet is a good way to help keep your overall intake down. Third, nuts contain vitamin E, fibre and other useful nutrients.
However, nuts aren't always good for you. If they're salted, coated in chocolate or mixed into a creamy pie, they can be a disaster.
Of course, some people have a severe allergic reaction to nuts, especially peanuts. They should continue to steer clear!
So what about peanut butter?
Peanut butter is high in fat - around 50 percent - but it's mostly unsaturated, so it won't raise your blood cholesterol levels.
Brands with no added sugar or salt are best - give them a try. And don't add ordinary butter to the bread.
Nutella has just over half the fat content of peanut butter. But it's not better for you, because it's stuffed full of sugar and therefore packs nearly the same kilojoule punch.
What about those oily avocados?
Avocados are good for you. They contain potassium, folate, fibre, B vitamins and vitamin C and E. They're low in salt and high in "good" unsaturated fat. Avocado makes an excellent substitute for a table spread.
Just don't eat too much!
What is the best way to cook vegetables?
Without heat. Seriously, raw veges contain more vitamins than when you cook them. Microwaving or light steaming are next-best. If you stir-fry, use a vegetable oil, not butter.
Special treats
I heard chocolate was good for you.
The cocoa beans used in chocolate contain "flavonoids", which reduce the "bad" cholesterol and increase the "good" cholesterol. Dark chocolate has more flavonoids than milk chocolate and white chocolate has none.
But chocolate is still not good for you. It contains 15 to 20 percent saturated fat and stacks of sugar. If you want flavonoids, eat fruit and vegetables - most of them are also rich in the substance.
So sugar is the new fat?
Sugar contains lots of energy but very few nutrients - it has what's called "empty kilojoules".
It's easy to eat and it tastes good - especially as it often comes packaged with tasty saturated fats and trans fats in highly refined treat foods. It's also present in high levels in otherwise healthy foods like fruit. You probably eat more than you think.
Sugar in itself doesn't make you overweight, because your body tends to use the energy it gets from sugar rather than store it. But eating sugar can easily contribute to your eating more energy than you need overall, and this will make you put on weight.
Your body will use up the sugar and convert the excess energy from other foods into fat for storage.
And last but by no means least, sugar causes tooth decay.
You're not going to ban takeaways ... completely?
Most takeaways are full of bad fats and salt, and lack nutritionally valuable vegetables as well. Two pieces of KFC chicken contain 30g of fat. A McDonald's Chicken Tandoori Delichoice gives you nearly half the adult upper daily limit for sodium.
And all that pressure to upsize the chips, the drink, the burger, the whole pack, just makes it worse. A larger drink gives you more energy in the form of sugar, with very few other nutrients.
Junk food should be eaten only occasionally. If you want to eat fast food more often, look for the healthier options. They do exist - vegetarian kebabs, Thai salads, even chicken chow mein. Choose food that is lower in fat and salt and full of vegetables.
Biscuits are bad but can I give the kids a few crackers?
It depends on the cracker. Some have just as much fat, weight for weight, as a Toffee Pop, and a fair amount of that is trans fat and saturated fat. Watch out especially for salty snack crackers, those made with flaky pastry, and even some old favourites like Meal Mates and Sesameal.
The better options include litebreads, rice crackers, corn and rice thins, some wholewheat crackers and water crackers. Check the label for fat and salt/sodium content.
Should I spare the salt?
You'll get as much salt as you need without trying. But too much sodium - one of the main constituents in salt - can raise blood pressure in some people. This can lead to strokes, heart disease and other health problems.
Most of the sodium we eat comes from processed foods, so check the labels. Look for low-salt options, choose snacks that are naturally low in salt (fruit and veges!) and limit the amount of salt you add to cooking and your meal. If you do add salt make sure it's iodised.
My husband drinks a "medicinal" four cans of beer a night.
A low-to-moderate intake of alcohol may help prevent heart disease, but four cans is too much.
Health guidelines say men should have no more than three standard drinks a day and women no more than two. But remember, a standard drink is less than you might regularly pour. It's also a good idea to have a couple of alcohol-free days a week.
The problem with fat
Eat less fat, be less fat - right? Well, it's not that simple. There are two main problems with eating a lot of fat.
1 Too much food
The first concerns overall food intakes. Fat is high in energy, but at the same time is not especially filling. The result is that when you eat fatty foods, it's easy to take in more energy than you need. And when you do that, the body stores what you don't need as fat.
For example: one meal of a large burger with fries, a big drink and ice cream-style dessert will contain so much fat (and sugar), it'll give you half a day's entire energy needs. But junk food like this may not even fill you up, so you'll soon want to eat more. That's why people who eat lots of fast food run a big risk of becoming obese.
Obesity is a major risk factor for (type 2) diabetes, heart disease and a range of other illnesses.
If you're serious about losing weight, you'll need to cut back on the amount of food energy (kilojoules) you eat overall. Cutting out the foods that pile on the kilojoules without filling you up is an obvious place to start.
This problem relates to all types of fat.
2 Good fat, bad fat
The second problem with fat concerns certain types of fat - the saturated and trans fats known as "bad" fats.
These fats are bad because they lead to an increase of fatty deposits in the arteries, which can cause heart disease and other illnesses. Saturated fats are mainly animal fats and some vegetable fats like palm and coconut oil. Trans fats are commonly found in takeaways and the commercial margarines used in cakes, muffins and the like.
But there are also "good" fats, which have the reverse effect of reducing the risk of fatty deposits in the bloodstream, and therefore lowering your risk of heart disease. Good fats are unsaturated and are found in vegetable oils like olive, canola and sunflower, and also in fish and nuts.
Eating "good" fats, provided they do not contribute to your eating too much overall, does not seem to be a health risk. But eating "bad" fats very definitely is.
Our advice
- If you're trying to watch your weight, eat less and exercise more - every day.
- To eat less, choose high-fibre foods and other foods that fill you up quickly. These include wholegrain breads and cereals, vegetables, lean protein and low-fat dairy products.
- Limit your intake of saturated and trans fats, sugar, salt and alcohol.