This is a guest post by Melissa Marek, RD LD

Fiber is an extremely important part of your daily diet. Its best known benefit is its ability to help keep our bowels moving. Eating enough fiber will help prevent constipation. The added benefit is that it also plays a role in protecting against diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. If that isn’t enough reason to get a daily dose of fiber, it also helps with weight management by helping to keep you fuller longer.

In order to make sure you are getting enough fiber, it helps to understand where it comes from and where you can find it. Fiber comes mainly from plant cell walls, the parts that cannot be digested by the enzymes of the GI tract. For that reason, fiber can be found in plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, and grains.

To best benefit from fiber, the recommended daily amount is 21-25 grams per day for women and 30-38 grams per day for men. This is not a difficult goal to meet, but remember that when adding fiber to your diet, you will need to increase your fiber intake slowly and more importantly, increase your fluids. If you don’t drink enough fluids you may suffer from constipation, the very thing that fiber helps alleviate.

To better comprehend the benefits of fiber and how to best meet daily requirements, it helps to understand that there are different types of fiber. They come from different sources and, accordingly, help with different things.

SOLUBLE FIBER may help lower blood cholesterol, especially LDL (bad) cholesterol. It also helps control blood sugar in people with diabetes. You can get soluble fiber from oats, oat bran, dried beans and peas, nuts, barley, flax seed, oranges, apples, carrots, and psyllium husk.

INSOLUBLE FIBER moves bulk through the intestines, which helps prevent constipation. It also controls and balances the pH in your intestines. Insoluble fiber can be found in fruit skins, root vegetable skins, dark green leafy vegetables, whole wheat products, corn bran, seeds and nuts.

Soluble fiber, as it name alludes, becomes a jelly-like mass when mixed with water and ferments in the intestinal tract, but insoluble fiber just absorbs the water and bulks up stool.

The term DIETARY FIBER, which appears on nutrition facts labels is merely a sum of the soluble and insoluble fiber content in a product, per serving.

A common source of fiber is whole grain. Whole grain refers to the entire grain seed (bran, germ, & endosperm).  Whole grain foods are an important source of not only fiber, but also of vitamins, minerals and other health-promoting compounds that you won’t find in a refined grain.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I BE EATING?

According to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 3 or more ounce-equivalents of whole grain products per day is ideal. You can meet this requirement by adding barley, buckwheat, bulgur, corn, millet, rice, rye, oats, sorghum, wheat and wild rice to your daily diet.

What does a one-ounce equivalent of whole grains look like?

• 1 slice 100% whole grain bread
• 1/2 of a 100% whole grain English muffin or bagel
• ½ cup hot cooked oatmeal (Rolled oats or quick oats)
• 2 cups popped popcorn
• 1 ounce baked tortilla chips (About 15 chips)
• 1/3 cup cooked whole wheat pasta
• 1/3 cup cooked brown rice, bulgur, sorghum, or barley

TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR FIBER INTAKE:

• Sprinkle flax meal, wheat germ,  or nuts/seeds onto your cereal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or even frozen yogurt
• Add fresh or dried fruits to your cereal or yogurt
• Substitute whole wheat flour for at least 1/3 of the all purpose flour in baked goods
• Add frozen vegetables to soups or casseroles
• Add beans into a salad, soup, or stew
• Cut prunes into pieces and mix them into yogurt, cereal, or pancake mix

What to do at the supermarket:

Packaging for fiber rich foods now often contain a label promoting its fiber content. These labels make finding fiber-rich foods easy so shoppers don’t have to go through the hassle of checking out the food label or searching for the fiber content. But what do these regulated fiber claims mean exactly?

• 100% Whole Grain or 100% Whole Wheat: The product doesn’t have any refined white flour
• Good source of fiber:  There are at least 3g per serving
• Excellent source of fiber:  There are at least 5g per serving
• When reading the ingredient statement, a whole grain should be listed FIRST!

Here’s a handy list of fiber rich products:

• Oats
• Oat bran
• Grains (Barley, bulgur, Kasha, Amaranth, Quinoa, Couscous)
• Polenta
• Brown rice
• Whole wheat breads and pastas
• Fresh fruits (Oranges, pears, dried figs, apples, berries, raisins)
  —> Choose whole fruits (fresh, frozen, or dried) over juices, which have most of the fiber removed
• Fresh vegetables (Winter squash, peas, eggplant, beets, cabbage, broccoli, artichoke hearts, corn)
• Potatoes & sweet potatoes
• Dried beans
• Nuts

Melissa Marek is a graduate of Texas A&M University with degrees in both Nutritional Sciences and Food Science & Technology.  She has experience with recipe analysis for magazines and restaurants as well as with nutrition facts labeling for large corporations and private label companies. She is a registered dietitian at Axxya Systems, makers of Diet Analysis and Food Labeling software products. Contact her at mmarek [at] axxya [dot] com.

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The consumer watchdog group CSPI published [PDF] a provocative list of 10 healthy foods that have been involved in large scale contamination in the past few years:

1. LEAFY GREENS: 363 outbreaks involving 13,568 reported cases of illness
2. EGGS: 352 outbreaks , 11,163 illness
3. TUNA: 268 outbreaks , 2341 illness
4. OYSTERS: 132 outbreaks , 3409 illness
5. POTATOES: 108 outbreaks , 3659 illness
6. CHEESE: 83 outbreaks , 2761 illness
7. ICE CREAM: 74 outbreaks , 2594 illness
8. TOMATOES: 31 outbreaks , 3292 illness
9. SPROUTS: 31 outbreaks , 2022 illness
10. BERRIES: 25 outbreaks , 3397 illness

The group is not trying to scare us away from these foods, it is simply pointing out a fact that the FDA must do a better job of enforcing safety regulations on growers, shippers, and manufacturers. The FDA should be given the tools by law:

the United States Senate should follow the House and pass legislation that reforms our fossilized food safety laws

What you need to know:

Food Safety is something we take for granted when everything is OK. But a rushed trip to the emergency room, fevers, cramps, bloody stools, or worse remind us how fragile we are vs tiny contaminants that find their way into our food. And the grave responsibility of the entire supply chain in providing us safe food.

While we believe that most companies try to maintain high standards of safety, there is always room for improvement. Unfortunately, many times the pressure to cut costs is at odds with additional safety measures.

Just this past January the great peanut butter recall exposed how easy it is for one bad apple (or in this case peanut) to infiltrate hundreds of food items.

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Note: The following is a guest post by Andy Bellatti, MS. He is the creator of the Small Bites blog, where this post originally appeared.  Andy is on the Registered Dietitian track at New York University’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health.

Okay, quick.
You’re standing in front of a vending machine a few hours after having finished lunch, in search of a savory snack.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say you are at an all-day workshop in some random building, you didn’t bring a snack with you, and there’s another three hours until you get home and can fix yourself dinner.

The vending machine offers you the following options: plain potato chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, and crackers.

Which would you choose to get the most nutritional bang for your buck?  If you said potato chips — you are RIGHT.

Yes, you read correctly.  Let me explain.

A one-ounce bag of Lay’s potato chips contains:

• 150 calories
• 10 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
• 180 milligrams sodium

A one-ounce bag of tortilla chips provides:

• 140 calories
• 7 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
• 125 milligrams sodium

Let’s take a look at what a one-ounce bag of pretzels adds up to:

• 100 calories
• 0 grams fat
• 580 milligrams sodium

Finally, here is what you get from a one-ounce bag of crackers (i.e. Wheat Thins)

• 150 calories
• 6 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
• 280 milligrams sodium

Let’s discuss.

Although many people are automatically sold by their absence of fat, I have issues with pretzels.  I consider them to be a nutritionally lame snack.

Not only are most of them entirely comprised of refined white flour, they also lack the three nutrients that provide a feeling of satiety, or fullness: fat, protein, and fiber.

The problem with foods that offer negligible amounts of those three nutrients is that it takes quite a bit of their calories to feel satisfied.  Snacking on 150 calorie of almonds, for example (which contain fat, protein, and fiber), leaves you fuller for longer than that same amount of calories from pretzels.

Although crackers like Wheat Thins have some fat, they are mostly made with white flour.  Pass.

That brings us to tortilla chips and potato chips.

Calorically, they are almost equal.  Although both have the same amount of saturated fat, tortilla chips have a few less grams of total fat and a slightly lower sodium content.

However, it is what you don’t see on nutrition labels that gives potato chips the edge — potassium!

A one-ounce serving of potato chips provides, on average, 460 milligrams of potassium — as much as a medium banana.  That same amount of tortilla chips?  Sixty milligrams.

Remember, adequate potassium intake is a crucial tool against hypertension (cutting back on sodium is only part of the equation).  Coincidentally, the average US diet is too high in sodium and too low in potassium.

The additional 65 milligrams of sodium in potato chips (compared to corn chips) is a moot point when you consider they come bundled with that much potassium.

It also doesn’t hurt that the ingredient list for potato chips (such as Lay’s) is nice and basic: potatoes, oil, and salt.  No extra junk.

Let me be perfectly clear — this is not a recommendation to get your potassium from potato chips.  Nor am I christening potato chips as a healthy snack when you’re on the run.

However, nutrition is about making the most out of whatever choices you have available.  You aren’t always going to have fresh fruits, nuts, organic vegetables and whole grains at your disposal, so it’s always good to be prepared for moments like these.

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Still recovering from the most recent UK study showing that organic food is no more nutritious than conventional, we read in the Chicago Tribune that peaches contain excessive amounts of pesticides, some above government safe levels.

It seems that peaches’ delicate constitutions, fuzzy skins and susceptibility to mold and pests cause them to both need and retain pesticides at impressive rates.

So there you go. Even if organic isn’t more nutritious, it’s probably healthier with respect to poison residues your body wont’ get. That’s not to say you should switch to consuming organic food exclusively. Peaches are an extremely sensitive crop. Not all fruits and vegetables are such pushovers.

What to do at the supermarket:

Here’s a short list of the DIRTY DOZEN fruits and vegetables that you can start with.

Apples, Bell Peppers, Celery, Cherries, Grapes, Nectarines, Peaches, Pears, Potatoes, Raspberries, Spinach, Strawberries

And for these items, don’t spend more for organic:

Asparagus, Avocado, Bananas, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Corn, Garlic, Kiwi, Mangoes, Onions, Peas, Pineapples.

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1. Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide that is used as a food additive. A polysaccharide is a type of carbohydrate.

2. It appears as a white powder.

3. Maltodextrin is produced from starches of corn, wheat, potatoes or rice.

4. Its flavor can be slightly sweet or almost flavorless.

5. Maltodextrin is used as a bulking base for artificial sweeteners, for example in Jell-o it is used in conjunction with Aspartame and Acesulfame Potassium. It is also the bulking agent in Splenda.

6. It is also used as a thickener for soups, gravies, and salad dressings.

7. The plant source of maltodextrin in products is a pain point for people suffering from celiac disease or gluten intolerance. Wheat derived maltodextrin may contain traces of gluten. Other than this issue, maltodextrin is considered a safe product.

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Over the weekend, USA Today published a great piece about the cost of healthy eating. The bottom line is that for most people eating healthfully means paying more, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

The article comes at a time when more Americans are stretched for dollars, stressed out from the recession, and resorting more and more to comfort foods that are not always nutritious. As luck (?) would have it the cheapest most comforting foods are the ones that are the worst for our waistlines.

It’s a hard fact: Eating healthier can cost more. When you’re hungry, you go for what’s most filling, meaning calorie-dense foods with lots of added fat and sugar.

Dr. Adam Drewnowski, who directs the University of Washington Center for Public Health Nutrition has been researching the nutrition profiles of various foods for several years. He created algorithms to calculate the nutrient density of foods by examining each product’s nutrients to encourage (protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals) and nutrients to limit (saturated fats, sodium, added sugars). Running the calculations on database of thousands of foods showed unequivocally that nutrient dense foods tend to be more expensive.

However, there is hope.

Knowing how to eat well is based on “knowledge, money and time,” Drewnowski says. “If you’re trying to save money, you need to invest your knowledge and time into learning how to cook and finding the right foods.”

Here is a simple example – French fries are not a healthy choice, but the potato they come from is. Instead of getting fries at McDonald’s (saves time), why not bake potatoes (invest time in learning and cooking).

What you need to know:

Convenience is the key word here.

The entire fast food industry was born so that Americans could get food more conveniently an save time. TV Dinners were a great convenience to moms who joined the work force in the 1950’s and 60’s and no longer had time to cook at home. The tradition of convenience continues today with deli counters at the supermarket, precut salads, and ready made pasts sauces, soups, and whatnot.

These conveniences cost money. And if they are labeled as healthy conveniences, they’ll cost even more.

Granted, we need this convenience because we barely have enough hours in a day to survive, let alone spend them in the kitchen cooking.

But if we look at statistics, Americans are spending 2-4 hours a day in front of a screen, whether TV, Computer, or video game.

What if we took just 10% of that time and spent it on acquiring basic food preparation skills and employing them in our kitchen?

A trick that works for busy parents is to set aside a block of 3-5 hours on the weekend to cook for the entire upcoming week. Thank goodness for large freezers.

An important investment is teaching your kids to prepare foods. It can start with washing vegetables and drying them (preschool), continue with cutting (4th grade and up), and work on up to sautéing (junior high). Heck, by the time the kids are in highschool, not only are they helping you cook, they’re probably slimmer and healthier than their couch potato peers.  Not to mention the quality time spent together creating dishes.

Now let’s look at what ingredients you should to buy…

What to do at the supermarket:

As a rule, the less processed a food, the cheaper it is. Which means you should buy more fruits and veggies (even frozen or canned), bulk grains such as rice, and lean unprepared meats. Basic unsweetened dairy products such as yogurts are cheaper than the fruit flavored sugar laden kind. Adding a teaspoon of honey or a few chopped strawberries and spoonful of sugar is still going to be cheaper, not to mention healthier.

Most of what you’ll need is the in the perimeter of the store.

Here are some more suggestions in Fooducate’s Top Ten Tips for Nutritious Shopping in a Recession.

Good luck and bon apetit.

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Those giant shiny apples and tomatoes stacked neatly at the produce stand at the supermarket are a marvel of nature. With a lot of help from man. And man’s chemicals.

In order to keep pests from blemishing your fruits and vegetables, farmers spend a fare share of their time and budget on hundreds of chemical solutions. Here are some crazy facts from a group called Pesticide Action Network:

1. 888 million lbs of pesticide are applied each year in the US – about 3 lbs per person.

2. Atrazine, a pesticide that has been banned in Europe, is found in 71% of US drinking water. It’s a hormone disruptor.

3. An average Amercian child gets over 5 “servings” of pesticide residue in their food and water, daily

4. A single strawberry can contain 22 different pesticide residues.

What you need to know:

The problem with pesticides is that they are persistent, they stay in our food even after vigorous washing. Some accumulate in our bodies over years. Not to mention the environmental impact in the soil and water sources. Or the poor farm workers who get sick after handling these toxic chemicals on a daily basis.

The folks at Pesticide Action Network have put together a searchable database where you can see which chemicals are used on which products, and the effect on our bodies. Quite scary.

The effect these residues have on fetuses, infants, and young children is much greater than on adults, so parents should be especially wary.

But please, don’t let this be your excuse not to eat fruit and vegetables! When put into the right context, it is much riskier to your health not to get the nutrients from produce than to be exposed to the pesticide residue.

What to do at the supermarket:

So what’s a worried parent to do?

Switching to organic food seems like a great solution, only it’s out of reach for most people due to the very high price of most organic vegetables, and even higher prices for organic fruit.

An approach taken by many people is selective organic consumption, choosing to go organic for the most heavily chemically drenched products, while sticking to conventional for the rest.

Here are the “dirty dozen” which are simply put, pesticide coated produce. you should buy these organic:

Apples, Bell Peppers, Celery, Cherries, Grapes, Nectarines, Peaches, Pears, Potatoes, Raspberries, Spinach, Strawberries

And for these items, don’t spend more for organic:

Asparagus, Avocado, Bananas, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Corn, Garlic, Kiwi, Mangoes, Onions, Peas, Pineapples

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David Brancaccio of PBS’s Now show interviewed filmmaker Robert Kenner, the director of “Food, Inc.” a few days ago. The movie takes a very critical look at the modern food industry and helps viewers better understand why supermarket fare for the most part is crap, and why 67% of Americans are obese or overweight. The full interview is 24 minutes long. Here are some good tidbits:

1. 90% of supermarket food has corn or soy products in it. (That’s because soy and corn are subsidized by the government, making them cheap to produce).

2. Fast food chains were the original drivers of the industrialization of food. McDonald’s is and has been for years the largest buyer of ground beef, pork, chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes in the US. And it will only work with suppliers than can provide a steady, uniform, reliable product 24/7/365. Real food doesn’t work like that

3. Candy and Soda are cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables. What do you think poor people will choose to eat?

4. Food industry claims that consumers should show personal responsibility when choosing what to eat are insidious.

5. Food has not gotten safer over the years. Not if a single burger can have meat from one thousand cows in it.

6. Really sad – the federal government does not have the right to recall contaminated meat off of supermarket shelves.

7. A ray of light – consumers, through personal preference, convinced Wal-Mart to switch to milk from cows who did not receive growth hormones.

8. Watch out for “food libel laws” – Industry will sue you if you don’t talk nice about food products. Example: Oprah Winfrey was engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the meat industry for saying she’d consider abstaining from burgers at the height of the mad cow scare a decade ago.

9. The legal fees for the movie were 3 times higher than all his previous films combined.

What to do at the supermarket:

Your choices are what ultimately fuel the food industry. By buying unprocessed foods, mostly from the supermarket perimeter, you will avoid many of the pitfalls of modern industrialized food-like substances.

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The DivineCaroline site has a delicious list of cheap healthy foods, proving you don’t need to be rich to eat nutritiously.  From the divine:

Food prices are climbing, and some might be looking to fast foods and packaged foods for their cheap bites. But low cost doesn’t have to mean low quality. In fact, some of the most inexpensive things you can buy are the best things for you. At the grocery store, getting the most nutrition for the least amount of money means hanging out on the peripheries—near the fruits and veggies, the meat and dairy, and the bulk grains—while avoiding the expensive packaged interior. By doing so, not only will your kitchen be stocked with excellent foods, your wallet won’t be empty.

read it all…

The list includes nutritional benefits and links to easy recipes. Here is the quick rundown: oats, eggs, kale, potatoes, apples, nuts, bananas, garbanzo beans, broccoli, watermelon, wild rice, beets, butternut squash, whole grain pasta, sardines, spinach, tofu, lowfat milk, pumpkin seeds, and coffee(!).

What you need to know:

Unprocessed food is usually cheaper and healthier for you. But it does require time for meal preparation. Most people that start preparing food at home find the quick and easy recipes that work for them. Getting older children involved in preparation is a double reward.

What to do at the supermarket:

As the post suggests, sticking to the periphery of the supermarket will help you focus on the healthier, unprocessed foods.

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