Calories from Lipids (Fats), Carbohydrate, and Protein

The term we use to describe the energy derived from foods is Calorie. In other words, the terms energy and Calorie, when applied to foods, are synonymous. One calorie is defined as the quantity of heat necessary to raise one kg (1 liter) of water 1°C. What we call a calorie, therefore, is actually a kilogram calorie or kilocalorie, which is abbreviated kcal. If a food contained 100 kcal, then the energy the food contained would increase the temperature of 100 liters of water by 1°C. A capital C is used here, in the word Calorie, to indicate the kilocalorie, since one calorie would actually be the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C. For more on the calorie, and its problems, see Calorie Confusion.

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Glutinous Rice: Does That Have Gluten?

It makes sense that someone with Celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity might see glutinous rice on a menu and wonder whether this has something to do with gluten. But you don't need to worry. Glutinous rice is just a kind of rice, and like all rice, it does not contain any gluten. The word glutinous refers to the rice being sticky and gummy. It is also sometimes called waxy rice, sticky rice, or since it has a natural sweetness, sweet rice. This is the kind of rice used in the classic Thai dessert Sticky Rice with Mangoes and, if you've never tried it, you should. The two together are a perfect combo.

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Mistaken Reasons that People Take Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

Many people take vitamin and mineral supplements, not because they have a poor diet, but as added insurance against a lack of certain nutrients. This is probably not needed at all but the attitude is better safe than sorry and a little extra won't hurt. The fact is, extra will not likely do anything but cost you money. Still, many people have more specific reasons for taking supplements, usually because of ideas they have derived from nutrition misinformation. This article explores some of these reasons.

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Top Vitamin C Containing Fruits

Fruits are not the only vitamin C containing plant foods. In fact, red bell pepper beats out most fruits in the vitamin C department at 95mg per 1/2 cup and 3.5 ounces of parsley packs a vitamin C wallop of 125 to 300mg. Brocolli and Brussels sprouts are no slouches either. But most people don't want to snack on these foods and often wonder which fruits have the most vitamin C, besides oranges, which really are a great source but not the true champions. There is a lot more to good nutrition than individual vitamins and all these fruits have an abundance of other vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, not to mention fiber.

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Raw Food Claim: Your Body Has a Limited Amount of Enzymes to Digest Foods

One of the claims associated with the raw food movement is that you need the "living" enzymes in raw foods to help you digest food. And furthermore, you only have a finite amount of enzymes in your body, so these enzymes from raw plant foods become more and more important to your health as you age.

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Pica: Craving Nonfood Items

Pica is the craving and eating of nonfood items. It can develop in any person but seems to be most often experienced by African American women (data is limited) in the pregnancy and postpartum period. In the southern United States, 16 to 57 percent of pregnant African-American women admit to pica. It is also generally more common in persons with severe impairments and mental retardation, although no connection whatsoever between the latter and the former should be assumed, and the underlying causes are probably different.

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Splenda Kills Healthy Intestinal Bacteria?

Brief comment on a study out of Duke University that has lead to the speculation, and also conviction for some, that Splenda destroys healthy gut flora. I'm sure Mercola and others are all over this study. Thanks to Jeff Green for bringing this to my attention via his Facebook post. After that, I will move on the Mercola's little bombshell of Splenda being closer to DDT than sucrose.

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Nutrition Junk Science: Red Flags That Help You Spot It!

By Eric Troy

Nutrition for Health and Health Care has a list of junk science red flags attributed The Food and Nutrition Science Alliance (FANSA).Bibliography item whitney not found. I like this list so much I decided to make a blog post to do nothing more than list them, and I am not the first one to do so. They very well sum up how to be on guard against junk science in the nutrition world and, of course, junk science in the health industry and in the broader sense. Remember that a "red flag" does not automatically mean that something is amiss, it means that you should have your hackles raised a bit because you've encountered a warning sign. Now, the more red flags you see in one piece of information, the more you can be assured that it is junk. I will expand on some of them.

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Metabolic Pathway (Biochemical Pathway)

Metabolic Pathway: A metabolic pathway or biochemical pathway, is an orderly sequence of reactions within a cell that either breaks down large molecules or builds up larger compounds from smaller ones. These pathways can be linear or circular, and each step in a pathway has a specific enzyme acting upon it.

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What are Coenzymes?

A coenzyme is a small organic molecule that combines with an enzyme and causes that enzyme to become active or which facilitate its activity. In general, molecules that combine with enzymes in this way are called cofactors, but when the molecules are organic, rather than simple ions of elements, they are called coenzymes. Even though they are organic molecules, coenzymes are not proteins, as enzymes are, and they are not catalytically active themselves, which perhaps makes cosubstrate or cofactor a less confusing name for them. In many reactions catalyzed by enzymes, electrons or groups of atoms are transferred from one compound to another, and this usually involves a coenzyme, which temporarily accepts the group being transferred.

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Amount of Caffeine in Coffee, Tea, Soft Drink, and Other Beverages and Products

Several plants contain caffeine, such as the coffee bean, the tea leaf, the cocoa bean (cacao), and even the kola nut used for cola beverages. The amount of caffeine in a prepared beverage depends on the type of plant it is made from, the brewing method, and the grind used. Also, the growing conditions of the individual plants, the soils and climates, can effect the concentration of caffeine contained in the plant. Although much of the caffeine we consume occurs naturally in brewed beverages, a good deal of it is added. For instance, although the kola nut does contain caffeine, most of the caffeine in cola soft drinks is added, using purified caffeine obtained from decaffeinated coffee beans. Still, at least 10 percent of the caffeine in colas, and in pepper flavored soft drinks, is obtained from the cola nuts. This naturally occurring caffeine does not have to be listed on the ingredients label, if no other caffeine is added.

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Whey Protein Processing, Terms and Definitions: Countering the Misconceptions About Whey Protein Including 'Raw' Whey

By Eric Troy

There is so much obsession, confusion, and supplement company shenanigans concerning whey protein products, I thought that what everyone needed was a thorough overview of the whey manufacturing process. That is, the whey powder manufacturing process.

Supplement companies use our ignorance against us: our ignorance of what whey is, how it is processed, and what all the terms attached to it mean.

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Surprising New Nutrition Finding: Nutrition Articles on News Sites Suck

By Eric Troy

Not a week goes by when someone doesn't bring up his/her mistrust of science. No area of science has less trust these days than those associated with nutrition and health.

How can we trust science when science constantly contradicts itself? That is what people ask.

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The Aspartame Myth-information Campaign: You Can Live Without It

Aspartame gets such bad press and is the subject of a very intensive misinformation campaign. The myths about this non-nutritive sweetener are so ingrained that I doubt I can change many minds with this post. Well, that's okay. Why should I care whether you avoid aspartame? There is certainly nothing wrong with that. But wallowing in ignorance is an invitation to being easily victimized by money-grabbing gurus.

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Fish Oil: Just the Facts

If you have a few years under your belt, then you can still remember what I call the “Fat-Free 80’s.” Think back to a time when dietary fat was the enemy. Ah, yes… A time when fat-free products lined the outer shelves of the supermarket. A time when it was not a bad thing to get a box of Entemann’s cinnamon rolls, as long as they were the FAT-FREE cinnamon rolls. Health Valley made some positively disgusting fat-free cookies, along with a host of other fat-free products that tasted like sugary cardboard. And we can’t forget the 75% sugar weight gainer products, those were priceless. 1,000, 2000, 4,000 calories per serving, and all you had to do was mix about a cup of powder into your favourite drink. No worries though, these gainers were virtually fat-free! What we were led to believe was that fat-free products equated to fat-free physiques. Unfortunately, that was far from the truth.

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