Foods to Eat When You Don’t Feel Well

(and they’re good for baby too!)

• Goldfish crackers – look for the whole grain ones (or rice crackers GF)
  

• Wheat toast w/ butter (or rice bread toast to be GF)
  

• (GF) Plain rice cake – try adding a little peanut butter too

• (GF) Unsweetened applesauce

• (GF) Chocolate pudding – “nonfat” is best

• (GF) Yogurt –some people tolerate it best if it’s frozen

• (GF) Strawberry banana smoothie

• Macaroni & cheese – try cooking the pasta w/ frozen green beans & add diced tomato for a balanced meal. (GF note: Annie’s makes a GF mac & cheese).
  

• (GF) Baked potato w/ cheese – try adding broccoli on top

• (GF) Eggs and rice – try adding some sautéed kale or spinach. Remember: no runny yolks for pregnancy!

More Ideas

• Try to eat a few bites every couple hours – dry carb foods are the most helpful to soak up that extra saliva!

• Sip on ginger or mint tea (read labels for teas without licorice root, hibiscus, or chamomile)

• Plenty of ice cold water
  

• Chew on gum to get rid of that yucky taste!

• Ask someone else to do the cooking when you don’t feel well

Tofu Shirataki Noodles

Recently I heard about a new type of “low-carb” noodles made out of tofu and yam flour.  When I realized that meant it was gluten free as well, I decided to give it a try.  The noodles are called Tofu Shirataki Noodles and you can find them in the fresh pasta section at some select grocery stores (click here to find where they are sold in your state).

Since it’s mainly made out of tofu, these noodles are packaged in water.  You just drain off the liquid , cook them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, drain, and serve like regular pasta.  The texture reminded me of cooked ramen noodles, and I would never have guessed they were made of TOFU!  These noodles don’t have much taste on their own, so I recommend serving it with a flavorful sauce or in a soup.

Besides being gluten free, these noodles are also low in calories and carbs (20 calories and 3 grams carb per 4 oz serving), so a lot of people are eating them in place of pasta to help with their weight loss goals (not that there’s anything wrong with carbs, but people do eat a little too much of them, right?)  Give them a try and let me know how you like it!

Do you have strange symptoms that may be allergy related?  Here is a list of the most common food sensitivity symptoms, and the foods which could be the culprit (as learned from my nutrition colleagues at Bastyr University):

Dairy – sinus problems, acne, gas, bloating, stomach aches, joint pain

Wheat/Gluten – depression, irritability, fatigue, gas, bloating, brain fog, weight gain

Corn – sinus problems, skin rash, asthma

Egg – skin rash, asthma

Soy – sinus problems, stomach aches, acne, fatigue

Citrus – skin rash

As you can see, there is some overlap between symptoms and possible trigger foods.  Therefore the elimination diet and challenge test is the best was to verify which food is the true problem.

Simply put, an elimination diet means avoiding all foods made from the possible trigger item for two weeks.  For my husband, we eliminated just dairy and gluten for two weeks.  This meant that he ate a lot of cream of rice or corn Chex with soy milk for breakfast, corn tortilla turkey wraps at lunch, and rice/potato with meat and vegetable for dinner.  We didn’t eat out during those two weeks either, as avoiding certain ingredients can be more difficult when someone else is cooking the meal for you.

At the end of the two weeks, he was feeling SO MUCH BETTER, so we knew it was one or both of those foods causing his symptoms.  But how could we know which one?  That’s where the challenge test comes in.  We first tried cheese, as it is a low lactose dairy product.  If he reacted to this, it would most likely be due to the dairy protein casein, which indicates a true dairy allergy.  Yep, once he ate the cheese, his sinus problems & stomach ache immediately returned.

So we waited three days to allow the cheese to clear his system and then tried the gluten challenge.  A simple piece of whole wheat bread sent him into such stomach pain that we had our answer – no more dairy or gluten for this guy!  If it hadn’t been an immediate reaction though, we would have continued to try wheat products for three days, and if all went smoothly, then we would know gluten was not the problem.

This pattern of challenging one food allergen at a time, interspersed with three days of rest in between each challenge, is a relatively easy and low-cost method to determining food sensitivities.  It by no means diagnoses a definitive allergy – that is best left to blood tests to check for antibody production in response to food allergen exposure.  And a true gluten allergy (aka Celiac Disease) is best diagnosed via biopsy of the intestine after prolonged gluten exposure in the diet.  The elimination diet is rather more a way to learn which foods that you as an individual are not easily able to digest and thereby avoid them to promote your increased health and well-being.

Further elimination diet examples can be found in the Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook (highly recommended!)  Also, I encourage people to contact me to further answer your elimination diet questions.

Insoluble fiber, also known as cellulose, is the part of a plant that can not be broken down by the body’s digestive process and therefore forms into stool to pass out of the body. By adding bulk to the stools, insoluble fiber acts like a scrub brush to help maintain the health of the intestines. Experts recommend 20 – 35 grams of total fiber daily, with the majority of it coming from insoluble fiber sources. The following foods have the highest insoluble fiber content.

Bran Flakes

There is a reason why Grandma swears by her daily bowl of All Bran. Containing nine grams of insoluble fiber per half cup serving, it is the single food with the highest amount of insoluble fiber. Try it with milk for breakfast, mixed with yogurt for a snack, or crumbled on top of a casserole at dinner. Note: not appropriate for those who need to avoid gluten! Read on for gluten-free sources of insoluble fiber.

Lentils

Lentils are a nearly perfect food as they are low in fat while high in protein, vitamins, and fiber, especially insoluble fiber. In a half cup of cooked lentils, there are seven grams of insoluble fiber, roughly 25 percent of your daily requirement.

Popcorn

Popcorn (unbuttered) is known as a dieter’s treat because it mainly consists of insoluble fiber. This means you can eat quite a bit of popcorn without absorbing many calories as the fiber just passes directly through the body and into the stool. In four cups of popcorn, there are three grams of insoluble fiber.

Root Vegetables

Insoluble fiber is concentrated in the skins of root vegetables, such as turnips, sweet potatoes and parsnips. When cooked with their skins, just a half cup serving of turnips contains three grams of insoluble fiber. A half cup serving of cooked sweet potatoes contains 2.5 grams, while the same amount of parsnips contains two grams of insoluble fiber.

Apples

Apples can vary in their content of insoluble fiber, depending on the size and variety of the apple. Most sources site a range of two to four grams of insoluble fiber in one apple. The insoluble fiber is in the skin of the apple, thus applesauce only has one gram of insoluble fiber in a half cup serving.

Almonds

In one ounce of almonds (equal to about twenty nuts), there are two grams of insoluble fiber. Nuts and seeds in general are good sources of both insoluble and soluble fibers, but exercise caution with the portion size as they also are dense in calories from fat.

]]> http://nutritionmassage.com/best-food-sources-of-insoluble-fiber/feed/ 0 http://nutritionmassage.com/the-best-protein-bars/ http://nutritionmassage.com/the-best-protein-bars/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:31:32 +0000 Melissa Olson http://nutritionmassage.com/?p=297

A quick perusal of the protein bars at your local store reveals a lot of brands to choose from. Some are packed with nutrition and make a perfect snack to satisfy your hunger, while others are just glorified candy bars.  Nutrition experts recommend looking carefully at the nutrition facts panel to guide your selection. The following tips will help you to distinguish the healthiest protein bar available.

Tip #1: Check For 250 Calories or Less

A protein bar should be a snack, and therefore not excessive in calories. For example, the Odwalla Super Protein Bar is satisfying without being overly caloric with just 230 calories. Protein bars registering over 250 calories may be due to their high content of oil or sugar.

Tip #2: Look For All Natural Ingredients

Azucena Gamarra, a registered dietitian in Bellevue, WA, recommends her clients look for all natural ingredients when choosing a protein bar. “My favorite brand is Kind Bar. They taste great and are made with unrefined ingredients like nuts, dried fruit, and honey”. She recommends avoiding high fructose corn syrup, palm kernel oil, and partially hydrogenated oils.   Bonus for celiac patients:  Kind Bars are gluten free!

Tip #3: Include Heart Healthy Fat Sources

When comparing the grams of saturated fat to the grams of total fat on the Nutrition Facts label, a good protein bar will have a low saturated fat ratio, ideally less than half to qualify as heart healthy. For example, Clif Bar Oatmeal Raisin Walnut contains 5 grams of total fat, but only 1 gram of saturated fat, because the walnuts are a source of heart healthy fats.

Tip #4: Energy From Protein, Not Just Sugar

Some protein bars are truly very low on the protein and mainly utilize sugar as a fuel source. In his book Eat This, Not That, author David Zinczenko gave the Kashi Go Lean Protein & Fiber Chocolate Peanut bar an A+ rating because the 12 grams of protein it provides is nearly equal to its 14 grams of sugar. A well-balanced bar will have its grams of protein equal to at least 50 percent of the sugar.

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