Healthy Foods Continued

Next in my list of health foods is cabbage. Usually the only way people will eat cabbage is as cole slaw - beware of the dressing. Cabbage is one vegetable that if you are going to cook it, be extra careful not to over cook it. Not only will it smell bad, but you have cooked all of the good parts out of it.

Cabbage contains lots of fiber and very few calories. In addition to the fiber, cabbage is loaded with phytonutrients, minerals, and vitamins. These nutrients can help you reduce your risk of cancer and protect your brain.

Some of you may be thinking, well what about sauerkraut and kimchi, aren't they from cabbage. Yes indeed they are. Sauerkraut is an excellent non-dairy source of probiotics or bacteria that have a health benefit. The lactic acid in sauerkraut helps in the absorption of iron.

Nutrients That Make Your Body Work #3

One of the most critical nutrient necessary for our bodies is minerals. We used to absorb alot of minerals through our skin when we went barefoot. Now we rarely go barefoot and the next best source of minerals for us comes from soil and water and are absorbed by plants or eaten by animals. But unless plants are organically grown, the soil and water may be robbed of most of the mineral content. Animals that are grown in feedlots or are never let out of the nest, also don't get the opportunity to eat natural vegetation and many minerals are lost and not available to us when we eat the animals.

Minerals are essential for vitamins to do their work in making the immune system stronger. We need minerals for growth and maintenance of body structures. Minerals are what helps our body maintain fluids in and around cells. Minerals also help us to build tissues such as bone and regulate the metabolic activities.

Soy Beans and Phytic Acid

You may be asking what is phytic acid and why should I even be concerned about it. Phytic acid is present in the hulls and bran of all seeds and beans. Phytic acid is also referred to as phytates. Phytates block the body's ability to absorb esstentials minerals like zinc, calcium, magnesium and iron. Unfortunately, soy contains the highest amounts of phytates and are pretty resistant to the ways that we have to remove phystates such as long slow cooking.

What does decrease the phytates is a long fermentation process. This is what occurs in the production of miso and tempeh. If you have eaten in a Japanese restaurant you may be familiar with miso soup. Miso is a paste made from fermented soy beans. Koji which is a yeast mold is added to soy beans and other ingredients which then are allowed to ferment.

Tempeh is made by cooking soy beans and dehulling them. The beans them have a culturing agent like rhizopus oligosporus added and they are left to ferment. This agent is a fungus which helps to break down some of the less desirable components in soy beans.

Sources of CLA

I've mentioned that beef is one of the main sources of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). The problem being that in order for cows to produce CLA they need to be grass fed. Hay and silage fed cows do not produce as much CLA. Other grass fed ruminants such as sheep, goats, deer, antelope and buffalo also produce higher levels of CLA.

Another source of CLA is eggs, but they should be coming from free range chickens.

Because most of food supply is not free range animals these days, supplementation is often necessary for us to get good amounts of CLA. I've found a great source for the supplement CLA, just click here.

Milk and Vitamin D

Vitamin D is essential for you to actually absorb calcium and assimilate it into bone. That is why you see milk fortified with Vitamin D. I won't get into all of the physiologic components here, but there are several components to vitamin D which are required to process calcium into our bones.

The natural source of vitamin D are fish, egg yolks and liver. These are usually not in everyone's diet on a regular basis. Supplementation is helpful to ensure that you get vitamin D to help with the processing of calcium in the body.

You may recall from your health class that Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. This occurs naturally through the skin. It only takes about 20 minutes of sun exposure to produce enough Vitamin D. Remember, if you live in a cold climate and you are bundled up in the winter time, you may not get the 20 minutes of exposure. Also if you have darker skin ( more melanin pigment in the skin), you will need more than 20 minutes.

Why Milk?

Here is another thought on milk for you to ponder. Why do we drink milk as adults? Yes it is a good thing, but the main reason that most of us give for drinking milk is that it is a great source of calcium. Actually this is not true. There are better sources of calcium such as black strap molasses which contains other important minerals as well. Two Tablespoons of molasses gives you more absorbable calcium than 1 cup of milk. Also, remember form yesterday, what pasteurization does to calcium.

The best source of calcium is Tofu.

If you think about the animal world, once an animal is weaned, they don't drink milk. Of course they will if we give it to them, but the rest of the animal world gets along just fine without it after weaning. One thing to consider is that drinking milk is far better than drinking a carbonated soft drink!

Raw Milk - Raw Deal?

I just read an article about raw milk and the FDA saying that there are "dangerous pathogens" in raw milk. I grew up on raw milk from the farm. Although I wasn't raised on the farm, we used to drive out to the country and get milk from the farm twice a week. Sometimes it was so fresh it was still warm when we got it.

So why do we "have to have pasteurized milk?" If you look at what pasteurization does, it actually makes milk more difficult to digest. Specifically we usually hear about drinking milk so we can "get our calcium" so we don't develop osteoporosis. The pasteurization process renders calcium more difficult for the body to absorb. That's helpful don't you think?

Another thought here is, those who are lactose intolerant can actually drink raw milk. Pasteurization breaks down lactase. Lactase is an enzyme that helps digest the milk sugar lactose. So if lactase is broken down it is not there to help with the digestion and lactose intolerant individuals will have difficulty with the milk. Raw milk still contains lactase and assists in the digestion of the lactose, thereby allowing lactose intolerant individuals to drink it.