Hot answers tagged nutrition
21
There's an old children's story about making Stone Soup. In it, a penniless begger offers to teach people how to make his favorite recipe: soup, made from a stone! He boils some water and drops a stone in, and while it's "cooking", keeps mentioning offhand things like "It'd go great with some carrots" or "Celery would be lovely in this". The townspeople rush ...
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It isn't really "absorbed" by the boiling water; more precisely, it is leached into the water. As kiamlaluno said, Vitamin C is water soluble. An important thing to note is that the leaching of vitamin C into water, by itself, doesn't destroy the vitamin C. It's still there; it's just in the water rather than the vegetable. If you consume the liquid you ...
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The simple answer is no, you cannot convert monounsaturated/polyunsaturated fats into saturated fats through cooking alone.
Before I can even begin to answer in detail, I have to start by pointing out that "saturated" and "unsaturated" fat is already an oversimplification. These are very rough classifications of fats and the chemical reality is far more ...
14
The boiling point of most cooking oils is much higher than their smoke points. The boiling point of olive oil, for example, is around 300°C (572°F), which is hotter than the temperature of a pan on a typical residential range/cooktop. With that said, alcohols and esters which make up the flavor and fragrance of the oil will have lower boiling points and ...
14
This phenomenon affects fruits much worse than vegetables actually. The FDA published a report that cut or peeled fruits will lose half their vitamin C content in 1-2 weeks. Over 10-25% of this loss will occur in fruits in only 5 days.
For vegetables there exists a similar, albeit less pronounced effect. When cut the flesh inside of the vegetable is exposed ...
12
Anything that breaks down due to heat is going to break down no matter HOW you cook it. Boiling only "destroys" nutrients by leaching them away into the water, which is the same reason that other people say that steaming/microwaving is better.
Thiamine, for example, is highly water soluble, so boiling is out. But it also breaks down at 100C, so you can't ...
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Sounds like you want Nutraloaf. If you search google you will undoubtedly find recipes for this abomination. It is designed to meet nutritional needs while minimizing the need for utensils. You did say taste and texture weren't important.
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If you are interested in the theory, the answer is yes, there is a change. If you are interested in dieting, the answer is still yes, but it is quite irrelevant to you.
There are two types of browning reactions, Maillard and caramelization. Both start with highly complicated molecules and end with different kinds of highly complicated molecules. For a very ...
11
The US Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR 101.4) states that ingredients must be listed in descending order of predominance based on weight. The following exception is made in 21 CFR 101.4(2):
The descending order of predominance requirements of paragraph (a)(1) of this section do not apply to ingredients present in amounts of 2 percent or less by ...
11
Both contain protein. The amount varies by the type for cheese, although it appears to be about 20% - 35%. All dairy contains protein. There may also be milk or cream in the sauce, which would also be a contributing ingredient.
Pasta also contains protein, but less than cheese. The amount depends on the type of flour used. It will also increase if egg is ...
10
Kosher salt is the same thing (though I'm pretty sure it's not iodized), but the crystals are less dense and larger. There's more air in each piece, and they don't pack together as tightly. That means you have to put a larger volume of kosher to get the same amount of actual sodium chloride (salt).
Think of it as the difference between ice cubes (regular ...
10
Green vegetables are a good source of calcium, in particular, artichokes, broccoli, and greens (like turnip greens). Other sources of dietary calcium include sardines, canned salmon, raisins, almonds, sesame seeds, and soy beans.
ETA: The daily recommended intake of calcium for an adult is 500-1000 mg. If you're curious about how much calcium a particular ...
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Can you get leached iron from cast iron? Yes
Is it consistent in the amount that you get? No
Is it dependent on the food in the pan? Yes
How much? It varies hugely dependent on the food. More liquid, acidic foods leach more. How long its in the pan also plays a role. 3 oz of spaghetti sauce could leach as much as 5mg - that's almost 1/3 of the ...
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The version of the story that many Americans know comes from the book Stone Soup, in which three weary soldiers enter a village and convince the suspicious villagers to share their supplies by showing them how to make soup from stones. A big pot, some water, and three smooth stones is all you need for the soup, but it's much better if you add vegetables, ...
9
Your question implies that cholesterol only comes from animal products. This is not correct. Cholesterol is present in many plants.
Other answers and comments claim that only amounts "less than 0.5" (units omitted) of cholesterol is permitted to be listed as 0, and that "no cholesterol" is an added claim that a product is truly cholesterol free. This too ...
7
I'm going to risk downvotes and say this:
If you are concerned about the impact of whatever difference in calorie count cooked vs. raw makes, you are cutting it pretty fine. The margin for error is likely very small--probably smaller than your measuring errors, or the inaccuracy of your kitchen (or bathroom) scale.
Keeping an eye on calories is fine for ...
7
You should generally trust the USDA. They've put a lot of effort into getting everything accurately measured for nutrition labeling, and in the US at least, pretty much everyone gets their nutrition data from them.
That's true in this case: the bodybuilding.com nutrition page says "This database contains data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ...
6
Here's a quick and dirty table to help you get a rough idea of the calorie content of what you are cooking. Keep in mind that this will only give you an estimation of your meal's calorie count.
--------------------------------------
| Food Component | Calories per gram |
|----------------|-------------------|
| fat | 9 |
| ...
6
Without answering the question I would like to make a brief digression into physics:
Microwaves work by exciting the rotational modes of water molecules, after which the energy is distributed into all the available kinetic modes (this is called the equipartition theorem and is very well established). That randomized kinetic energy is called "heat".
The ...
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I normally make cookies using 1 cup almond butter, 1 egg, 1 c. sugar, perhaps you can substitute some of the sugar for protein powder and see how it goes? Now I'm somewhat interested in trying that myself!
According to nutrional data it looks like protein powder and egg whites have the most amount of protein in them, the list Foods highest in Protein may ...
6
Actually, vitamin C degrades with heat. The following, by dietician Jill Irvin, says it all:
Vitamin C is one of the least stable of all vitamins in solution
and is oxidized readily in light, air and when heated. It is also
water soluble. This means that heating in water, (like cooking
broccoli in boiling water) causes the vitamin to leach out of ...
6
I learned this trick from an old friend of my Grandmother more than 50 years ago. She put three rounded stones in the pot when cooking soup so they would move about and stop the vegetables and grains from settling and burning on the bottom of the pot. Molly did all of her cooking on a wood/coal fired oven. Many people of my Mother's generation used to ...
5
The calorie intake is the same; a gram of fat has 9 calories.
As far as "health" goes, some people consider saturated fats to be worse for you (increases cholesterol). However, we've recently discovered that the trans fats we used to replace saturated fats in a lot of foods are even WORSE. Personally, I wouldn't worry about the other health effects, as long ...
5
Do a search for Pemmican recipes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemmican
Done correctly, you can balance the proteins, fat, carbs, etc. needed for a high calorie diet required for living in the cold outdoors. Does it taste good? It really depends on the recipe used.
5
Fats don't generally change structure as a result of cooking. As you heat up a fat, it's structure loosens, but doesn't fundamentally change. (Cocoa fat is an exception.) So no, how you cook your food will not create more unsaturated fat (unless you're cooking it in unsaturated fat).
I think deep frying makes foods harder to digest not because it makes ...
5
The vitamin loss is due primarily to the puree'ing. The viramin A in mangoes comes from beta-carotene, and beta-carotene breaks down easily due to oxidation. On a similar note, I've seen recommendations that carrots (another good source of beta-carotene) not be chopped into small pieces before canning to preserve their vitamin content.
Lots of vitamins are ...
5
I do not have any information on the change itself, but neither does that claim in Wikipedia.
However, I would refer you to the discussion page of lentil's and read over the community's discussion regarding the article's nutrition claims generally. They are not pleased with many of the claims, and have been active in moderating it. Also of note, the claim ...
5
Iceberg Lettuce, as it is also very low in vitamins and minerals like celery and has a good crunch. According to the USDA's "MyPlate", 1 cup of iceberg is 1/2 serving vegetables, and 1 stalk of celery is 1/2 serving vegetables, so to get equivalent nutritional value for 2 stalks would take 2 cups shredded.
You could add more vitamins and minerals by ...
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In many cases, wheat and spelt flour can be used in the same way, but as spiceyokooko already mentioned, spelt gluten is not as stable as wheat gluten, making it allegedly more difficult to make e.g. fluffy yeast doughs. I usually don't have any problems with that either, but you should be careful not to work the dough too hard or too long.
Dietary issues ...
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Spelt is just one kind of wheat: Triticum Spelta. It's some sort of a ancient variety, which hasn't been genetically selected as other varieties that were more productive per surface unit. That made those other species being more cultivated, and evolved in being more productive, easier to husk off, or easier to make bread dough with them. It has survived ...
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