Author: Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

Adventures with vegetables

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

Sweet potato leaves: who knew they were so delicious (and good for you)?!

Sweet_potato_leaves

As part of our commitment to eat more local foods, (see my post “Six ways to make your diet healthier (for the planet)”), we joined a CSA this year.  Back in March, we paid a lump sum  to a local organic farmer in exchange for a share of this year’s crops.  Now that the growing season is underway, we get a  basket every week, full of whatever vegetables they’re harvesting that week.

It’s been a fun challenge to get through the weekly mound of fresh greens, lettuces, beets, and squash before the next one arrives.  This week’s basket included a vegetable I’d never had before: sweet potato greens, presumably plucked from the crown of sweet potatoes that we’ll be enjoying later this season.

Like most greens, sweet potato leaves are  very low in calories. Plus, they’re an excellent source of vitamin K. (You can read more about this little-known nutrient in this post on  Vitamin K and blood thinners.)

The farmer suggested sauteeing them in a bit of oil, salt and pepper (what doesn’t taste good that way?!).  So this morning I did just that and folded the lightly wilted greens into an omelet with a bit of Boursin cheese.  DELICIOUS!  Turns out that sweet potato greens are tender and mild –not at all bitter–and without that “chalky” feeling that spinach can leave on your teeth.  Check your local farmer’s market this weekend for this delectable treat!

Will Taking Vitamins Improve Your Health?

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

It’s a hotly debated question among health researchers. New studies come out every year but we don’t seem to be getting any closer to a definitive answer. About half the studies show that people who take vitamins are healthier and the other half find that taking vitamins makes no difference…or, in a few cases, actually make things worse. I have to admit that I’ve held, at various times in my career, different views on the question.

(See also this Nutrition Diva podcast episode on Multivitamins.)

We know that the nutrients in food play important roles in keeping us healthy. Calcium helps prevent osteoporosis, folic acid helps prevent neural tube defects, antioxidants repair cellular damage, and so on down an ever expanding list of nutrients and co-factors. It seems like supplementing an (imperfect) diet with additional nutrients is a reasonable way to make sure we’ve got our bases covered.

If we’re talking about a 25¢ one-a-day multivitamin, I guess the vitamin as insurance policy makes sense. But it’s gotten way more complicated than that. For one thing, the list of “basic” nutrients gets longer and longer. A multivitamin used to involve 15 or so nutrients (A, B, C, D, E, and a few minerals.) Now, a typical multi boasts several dozen compounds, from astaxanthan to vanadium. But it’s still not truly complete. Next to it on the shelf you’ll find the anti-oxidant booster, the bone health formula, the immune booster, plus the the formulas for your eyes, skin, nails, hair, memory, joints, and prostate. Before you know it, you’re forking out a couple hundred bucks and month and swallowing a fistful of vitamins every day. But are you getting your money’s worth?

Continue reading “Will Taking Vitamins Improve Your Health?” >

Tasty Ways to Get Your Vegetables

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

It’s not just kids who resist eating vegetables. The latest reports show that less than one-third of American adults are eating the recommended five servings fruits and vegetables every day.

Believe me, I know how this happens. Even as a professional nutritionist, I have sometimes struggled to follow my own advice! I’d load up my fridge with fresh produce with the best of intentions. But something always got in the way of actually eating them. I just never seemed to have time to make a salad for lunch. Then, we’d end up eating out for dinner while that day’s vegetables wilted in the fridge. On busy days, dinner is often the only meal that includes any vegetables at all, and how many servings of steamed broccoli can you eat at one meal?

But recently, I’ve discovered a couple of really simple strategies that have literally tripled the amount of fresh vegetables we eat every day. And I’m not talking about adding grated carrots to your oatmeal or switching from gin-and-tonics to Bloody Marys. Here’s what’s worked for us: Continue reading “Tasty Ways to Get Your Vegetables” >

Calorie burning sodas: are they for real?

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

envigaWhat’s better than zero-calorie soft drinks? Calorie-burning soft drinks! If you live in New York or Philadelphia, you’ve probably already seen the billboards. For the rest of us, the onslaught is scheduled to begin in 2007. But the buzz around Enviga, Coca-Cola’s new “negative-calorie” beverage, is already growing.

The calorie-burning claim for Enviga is based on two “active” ingredients, caffeine and EGCG, a green tea extract. In combination, these ingredients are purported to boost your metabolism and increase the number of calories you burn each day. (The artificially-sweetened soda contains about 5 calories per can.)

Enviga is not the first calorie-burning soda on the market. Elite FX introduced a similar product called Celsius in 2005, but the product never really pushed through into the mainstream. Coca-Cola’s massive marketing push for Enviga will change all that.

The burning question: Does it work?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest doesn’t think so. The plucky consumer watch-dog group is threatening to file a lawsuit against Coca-Cola, based on what it considers to be “fraudulent” claims for Enviga’s calorie-burning powers. Even big companies like Coca-Cola have to take the CSPI’s guerilla tactics seriously. Earlier this year, Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to change their recipe, in part due to the publicity surrounding a similar lawsuit filed against them by the CSPI.

But are the claims for Enviga truly fraudulent or merely exaggerated? Coca-Cola is basing their calorie-burning claim on unpublished research that it conducted in partnership with the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, showing that consuming 600mg of caffeine and 270 mg of EGCG can help you burn an extra 66 to 100 calories per day. Note that the study didn’t actually use Enviga. Instead, the subjects took a pill that contained 600 mg of caffeine and 270 mg of EGCG, the amount equivalent to 3 cans of Enviga. It’s also worth noting that none of the subjects were over-weight.

Those findings are in line with another small Canadian study that was published last year in the British Journal of Medicine, which found that daily consumption of caffeine and EGCG increased energy expenditure by about 180 calories per day. What’s interesting about the Canadian study that they compared the effects of different levels of EGCG, ranging from 270 to 1200 mg per day, plus a standard amount (600 mg) of caffeine. The amount of calories burned was the same regardless of how much EGCG the subjects consumed. It makes you wonder how much of the calorie burning effect is actually due to the caffeine.

Based on this research, I think we can tentatively conclude that the combination of caffeine and EGCG may lead to a small increase in calorie expenditure. You could get that combination from Enviga, from supplements, or even from drinking one cup of coffee followed by one cup of green tea, three times per day. But let’s put the benefit in perspective. If you burn an extra 80 calories per day, it would take you six weeks to lose one pound. It would also take 131 cans of Enviga, which as the suggested retail price of $1.29 a can would set you back around $170.

Or, you could burn the same number of calories by walking at a moderate pace for about 22 minutes every day for 6 weeks. (To see how easy it can be to burn a few calories, visit the ND Calories Burned Calculator)

But, hey, it’s your buck. And regardless of whether Enviga delivers any substantial benefit, I predict Coca-Cola is going to have a big commercial success with it. If you do decide to try Enviga, keep in mind that each can contains as much caffeine as a cup of strong coffee, about 5 times as much caffeine as a can of Coca-Cola. So you might not want to drink Enviga too close to bed time.

To mimic the effects of the research study, you might also want to take your caffeine + EGCG an empty stomach, 30 minutes before each meal.

 

Drugs Are No Substitute for a Healthy Lifesylte

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

Just for the record, I am not anti-drug. But when we view drugs as magic bullets, we can easily shoot ourselves in the foot. A recent medical study—funded by pharmaceutical company Amgen—is a perfect example.

The study tested the effects of a drug called Enbrel (entanercept) on subjects with metabolic syndrome. Folks with this syndrome tend to be overweight and the excess fat they carry around their waists produces inflammatory chemicals that increase their risk of heart disease. Enbrel is a potent anti-inflammatory drug that is approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis—an incurable condition that often brings crippling pain and disability. Continue reading “Drugs Are No Substitute for a Healthy Lifesylte” >

Important Information on Women and Alcohol

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

Is moderate alcohol consumption good for you or bad for you? For women, the research has been contradictory and confusing.

On the one hand, a wealth of evidence shows that moderate drinkers (one to two drinks a day) enjoy longer, healthier lives than either heavy drinkers or teetotalers. They are less likely to suffer from heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of senility, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Moderate drinkers even get fewer colds!

On the other hand, the same amount of alcohol has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer in women. A statistician would probably argue that the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption clearly outweigh the risks. Far more women die of heart disease than of breast cancer. Nonetheless, breast cancer is a source of great anxiety for many women. Continue reading “Important Information on Women and Alcohol” >

Why Cholesterol-Reducing Diets Sometimes Fail

by Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

If you have been diagnosed with high cholesterol, your doctor has probably recommended that you make dietary changes, such as reducing the amount of fat and cholesterol you eat. The problem is that this approach doesn’t seem to work for everyone. For some people, cholesterol levels remain high despite their best efforts on a cholesterol-lowering regime. When diet alone doesn’t work, cholesterol-lowering drugs are usually the next step.

But there may be another solution. A recent study has shed some light on why some people respond to a cholesterol-lowering diet and some do not. Researchers at Penn State discovered that people with high levels of inflammation are less likely to be successful with a cholesterol-lowering diet. Continue reading “Why Cholesterol-Reducing Diets Sometimes Fail” >