- A Nutrition Primer
- Cooking Tip: Rice
- Site of the Month: VegSource.com
- Recipe Update
- General News and Site Update
- Amanda's Kitchen is doing a workshop on Vegetarian Nutrition, at Le Frigo Vert, at 2130 MacKay on Thursday March 1st at 6:30 pm. For more information call 848-7586.
- Earthsave Montreal is hosting a vegetarian conference on Sunday March 4, 2001 at Concordia university, Room H110. Speakers include Daniel Cridafi (noon), Michael Allen Fox (3:00 pm) and Howard Lyman (4:30 pm). Entrance is $5-10.
- New books have been added to the Veggie Reading section.
- A brief page on Vegetarianism and Religion has been added to the Vegetarian Issues collection.
- The Canadian and American Dietitic associations have updated their position paper on nutrition and athletic performance. The new link has been added to Vegetarian Athletes section of the Vegetarian Issues collection.
- Added a Writer's Guidelines section for people interested in contributing to Amanda's Kitchen
February 2001
In this issue:
A
Nutrition Primer
More and more studies are showing that a
well-balanced vegetarian diet is a powerful way to protect health.
Vegetarians, in general, have lower rates of cancer, heart disease. hypertension,
kidney disease, diabetes and obesity. some possible dietary explanations
are that vegetarians generally eat less fat, especially saturated fat,
and eat more fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals than meat-eaters.
Also, plant protein may have some health benefits over animal protein.
Meat-eaters can reap some of the benefits of a vegetarian diet by reducing
their fat intake and consuming more fruits, vegetables and whole grains,
but current studies seem to suggest that the vegetarians, and especially
vegans, still has the healthful edge.
Nutrients are the substances in foods that the body needs for the maintenance, repair and growth of body issues. The superiour health of vegetarians seems to be because their nutrient intake is properly balanced with the body’s needs. The six main categories of nutrients are:
Carbohydrates: Provide energy to the body; there are two kinds of carbohydrates, simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are sugars, which are naturally occurring in fruits, plant foods and milk, and are rapidly absorbed by the body. Complex carbohydrates are more slowly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and include starches and fiber.
Proteins: Protein is made up from amino acids which are needed for the structural parts of the body (i.e., bones and muscle) as well as the many enzymes and hormones that your body needs to perform and regulate the processes that support life.
Fats: Fats are oils. There are three types of dietary fat, saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. The body uses fats as alternate energy sources, as well as to make some of structural parts of our body cells and hormones. Two fats are essential in our diet, omega-6 fats found in many vegetable oils, and omega- fats found in fish oil and soybeans, flax seed, walnuts, and others.
Vitamins: Vitamins are nutrients that are directly involved in bodily processes. They have a wide variety of functions.
Minerals: Minerals are indestructible elements I foods that the body needs or the structure of body cells, and sometimes as cofactors in bodily enzymatic reactions.
Water: About two thirds of the body is water. Water is use and produced by a variety of bodily processes. Without water, he body will die in as little as three days.
Some nutritionists also add phytochemicals to the list of nutrients that the body needs to thrive. But while it’s becoming increasingly evident that phytochemicals can help to prevent and even treat disease, they have not been shown to be necessary for life itself.
References:
Virginia Messina,
MPH, RD and Mark Messina, PhD. The Vegetarian Way - Total Health
for You and Your Family. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996.
Cooking
Tip of the Month
Rice, Rice, Rice
There are many varieties of rice.
Brown rice is the most balanced of all the cereal grains. All types of
whole grains such as millet, barley, buckwheat, corn, oats, quinoa, rye
and wheat berries contain carbohydrates, fat, protein and minerals. Unpolished
brown rice is higher in minerals, protein and flavor than white rice, which
is mostly starch. Here's a few of the types of brown rice available:
Short grain brown rice is a small oval shaped
grain best for cooler climates or wintertime cooking. Medium grain brown
rice is an excellent year round grain. A little lighter than short grain
rice. Long grain brown rice is the lightest and fluffiest of the three.
It is closest to white rice in texture and best used in warmer weather.
Sweet brown rice is like a sticky rice and better used combined with the
other brown rices or other grains. Wild rice is also great combined with
other grains. It has astrong nutty flavor. Basmati rice is a aromatic rice
that is similar to long grain. (Adapted from Cooking
Tips with Ann Gentry)
Site
of the Month
VegSource.com
(http://vegsource.com/)
A great site full of news, articles, discussion
boards and other useful information. There's a lot of information
on this site, so expect to spend a bit of time going through it.
Vegource also hosts the webpages of many well-known and respected vegetarian
authours and including Joanne Stepaniuk, Howard Lyman, Dr. Ruth Heidrich,
Erik Marcus, and Rynn Berry.
Sorry, no new recipes this month.
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Disclaimer: This newsletter and the Amanda's Kitchen web site are not prepared by a registered dietician, nurse, doctor or other medically-qualified individual. Any health and nutrition information provided by Amanda's Kitchen is designed to support, not replace, information provided by a registered dietician or healthcare provider. Where appropriate, Amanda's Kitchen has endeavoured to support information contained on the site and newsletter by providing references to source data and, where possible, specific HTML links.
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