Many vitamins are readily destroyed or lost when foods are pre­served, stored, and cooked. With the current emphasis on highly refined and precooked convenience foods and the great distances fresh foods must travel before they reach the consumer’s table, the modern American diet may shortchange some people.

Much of the following advice on how to get the most vitamins for your food dollar is derived from research cited in Nutritional Evaluation of Food Processing.

• Eat whole grain rather than refined breads and cereals and brown rice instead of white. Enriched breads, pasta, cereals, and rice are second best. Parboiled or converted rice has more vitamins than polished rice.

• Use fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables instead of canned ones. During canning, the amount of many vitamins is reduced by half or more, and further losses occur during storage of the canned goods. Freezing, followed by storage and cooking, also reduces the vitamin content, but much less than does canning. Boil-in-the-bag frozen foods are preferred for their vitamin content. Don’t thaw frozen vegetables before cooking.

• Storage of fresh foods in your refrigerator for one or more days leads to considerable vitamin loss. For those who cannot shop often, frozen fruits and vegetables may be as nutritious as the fresh. Foods that are frozen are picked ripe and processed rapidly, whereas days or weeks may elapse before fresh produce is consumed.

• Fruits and vegetables ripened on the plant (except for pineapples) and in the sun have considerably more vitamin C than those picked green or grown in shade. To preserve vitamin C, fruit should be chilled immediately after being picked and kept cold and uncut until eaten. Most of the vitamin C in fruit is in and just under the skin, so paring fruit results in a considerable loss.

• Avoid prolonged soaking of fresh vegetables, or you’ll wash the B vitamins and vitamin C down the drain.

• Prepare salads just before they are to be eaten. Delay the cutting up and preparation of foods until shortly before they are to be cooked and eaten.

• Keep all fresh, cut, and cooked foods well wrapped in the refrigerator.

• In cooking vegetables, pressure cooking is least detrimental to vitamins. Steaming is second best. If boiling a vegetable, use as little water as possible – just enough so that nearly all is reabsorbed by the time the vegetable is done. Or use the cooking water, which will be rich in vitamins, in your recipe or to make a soup or stew.

• Toasting bread destroys much of one of the B vitamins, thiamine. Bread crust has less thiamine than the soft crumb.

• Potatoes baked in the skin retain most of their nutrients. Boiling potatoes in their skins is better than paring and cutting them up. In general, the more a vegetable is cut up before cooking, the greater the vitamin loss.

• Glass, stain Jess steel, aluminum, enamel, and similar pots and pans do not affect nutrient content. But cooking in iron pots, an advantage to those who need extra iron in their diets, can destroy some of the vitamin C. So can unlined copper, brass, and monel (a nickel alloy). Copper also destroys folic acid and vitamin E.

• Don’t cook vegetables with baking soda; it destroys thiamine and vitamin C.

• Use the vitamin-rich syrup in canned fruits to make your own gelatin dessert. Make gravy from the defatted juices that drain from meats during thawing and cooking.

• Riboflavin and vitamins A and D are readily decomposed by light. Keep milk and breads in opaque containers.

• Buy milk and margarine that are fortified with vitamin A. Milk should also contain vitamin D.

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Throughout most of evolution, food was our only source of vitamins and minerals. Today, however, the “one-a-day” multivitamin-mineral tablet is a kind of nutritional insurance policy for millions of Americans, whether they need it or not. In recent years it has been eclipsed by megadose formulations of individual micro nutrients supposedly capable of performing health miracles far beyond warding off the well-known deficiency diseases.

The Lift Sustaining Vitamins

Even as millions down a veritable alphabet soup’s worth of vitamin supplements each day, confusion and controversy surround these nutrients. There’s only one fact about which there is no argument: Vitamins are essential to good health. But which ones, for whom, and how much?

Vitamins are organic substances that are required in the diet in tiny amounts – altogether, less than an eighth of a teaspoon a day – to assist in your body’s processing of other major nutrients, protein, fats, and carbohydrates. In addition, certain vitamins participate in the formation of blood cells, hormones, nervous system chemicals, and genetic material. Most vitamins function as aids to enzymes. When a particular vitamin is missing from the diet or is present in inadequate amounts, characteristic deficiency symptoms develop.

The amount of each vitamin that the federal government recommends for daily consumption is based on how much is required to avoid any signs of deficiency in the average person, plus a substantial safety margin to take into account natural variations in individual needs and abilities to absorb consumed vitamins. However, a number of circumstances, including cigarette smoking, the use of certain drugs, various illnesses, old age, heavy use of alcohol, and pregnancy and lactation may increase a person’s need for certain vitamins beyond ordinary recommended amounts.

Users of oral contraceptives, for example, need extra B vitamins ­ thiamine, niacin, pyridoxine, and B12 – and vitamin C. Heavy smokers need additional C, and heavy drinkers require more thiamine, niacin, pyridoxine, and folic acid than other people, even if they eat otherwise good diets. The elderly tend to absorb less of the B vitamins and vitamin C and so may need to consume extra amounts. Persons with obstructive jaundice, bowel diseases, or chronic diarrhea may absorb little of vitamins A, D, E, and K. Prolonged use of antibiotics can destroy the intestinal bacteria that normally produce several of our B vitamins and vitamin K. Following surgery, illness, injury, or extensive bums, the body’s need for vitamin C is increased.

It is commonly asserted that anyone who eats a “well-balanced diet” doesn’t need additional vitamins. Such a diet is described as including, each day, at least four servings of grain and cereal products, four or more servings of a variety of fruits and vegetables, two servings of dairy products, and two of meat, fish, poultry, or protein-rich legumes. Although this particular balance of foods certainly does not offer the only way to consume adequate vitamins, it is considered a reasonable guide for the average person.

Obviously we all don’t eat this way. For some people, such as those who eat erratically, those on strict low-calorie diets, those who rely primarily on heavily processed and canned foods, picky eaters, and vegetarians, a diet containing adequate amounts of vitamins may not be consumed. In these cases supplementing the diet with a multivitamin pill may be advisable.

However, improving one’s diet is clearly the preferred route to obtaining essential nutrients, since there is no pill that can completely compensate for the deficiencies in an inadequate or poorly balanced diet. And don’t assume that you don’t have to worry about what else you eat because you start each day with a vitamin-packed cereal. You can’t be sure how many of the vitamins in your bowl actually get into your body, and no cereal contains all the required vitamins in the needed proportions.

If you do need a vitamin supplement, with the exception of vitamin E, it matters not (except to the income of the seller) whether you buy “natural” or synthetic vitamins. The body can’t tell them apart. A mole­cule of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is the same whether it originated in a rose hip or a chemistry lab. For vitamin E, the natural form is chemically different and slightly more active than synthetic versions.

There are thirteen undisputed vitamins – four that are soluble in fat and nine that are soluble in water – plus one to five other substances (including choline and inositol) that some assert are vitamins but that others say are not, since they are produced in the body in adequate amounts and no deficiency symptoms are associated with their absence in the diet.

The fat-soluble vitamins – A, D, E, and K – are generally consumed along with fat-containing foods. They are absorbed through the intestines with the aid of bile produced by the liver or fats in the diet. Because they are stored in your body’s fat , they do not necessarily have to be consumed each day.

Thus, a cooked carrot every other day, a cup of spinach every five days, or two ounces of beef liver once a week can fulfill an adult’s need for vitamin A. But also because they are stored, there is a danger of overdosing yourself with fat-soluble vitamins.

Water-soluble vitamins – eight B vitamins and C – present the opposite problem. The body has no storage depot for most of them, and they are continually being washed out with urine and sweat. Therefore, they should be consumed daily in adequate amounts to meet the body’s needs.

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Fiber is hardly the cure-all some have suggested. But neither does fiber belong at the bottom of the nutritional totem pole, where it resided for more than a century as a nonessential dietary ingredient. There is good evidence, for example, that certain dietary fibers can lower blood cholesterol levels and improve the processing of blood sugar by diabetics.

Although the evidence is conflicting, high-fiber diets have been helpful to many patients with chronic intestinal disorders, such as constipation, spastic colon, diverticular disease, and even Crohn’s disease (regional enteritis or ileitis). And there is some evidence that fiber can help to lower blood pressure and ward off gallstones.

But many of the more dramatic claims about fiber – such as its purported ability to prevent the development of intestinal disorders, hemorrhoids, appendicitis, varicose veins, obesity, colon cancer, and heart disease – are as yet untested and unproved. Furthermore, excessive consumption of fiber can be harmful, producing painful intestinal gas, flatulence, nausea, and vomiting and perhaps interfering with your body’s ability to absorb certain essential minerals (though this is not a problem if your diet is balanced and your fiber consumption moderate).

Fiber is best consumed as an integral part of foods – whole grain cereals and breads, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables – rather than as a dietary supplement. Fiber “pills” are of no known benefit. The different fibrous substances have different – and sometimes even opposing – effects. Pretreatment of a fibrous food – whether, for example, it is coarsely or finely ground, whole or minced, raw or cooked – can change how it affects the person who consumes it.

Therefore, it pays to know what fiber can and cannot do, both good and bad, before you make dramatic changes in your diet. No matter what you hear or read about fiber’s benefits, people with diet-related disorders should never attempt self-treatment with fiber without first consulting their physicians.

Gastrointestinal effects. Fiber substances can absorb many times their weight in water, and most pass through the human digestive tract undigested, resulting in softer and bulkier stools.

Bran, which is mostly cellulose, is the best bet for relieving constipation. It holds a lot of water, softening the stool, increasing its volume, and making it easier to pass, and it speeds the elimination of food wastes. Apples (unpeeled), fresh carrots, and cabbage are also useful in countering constipation, as are bulk laxatives like Metamucil (hemicellulose and gum extracted from psyllium seeds).

Dr. Peter Van Soest, nutrition researcher at Cornell University, has shown that although coarse bran and cellulose have a laxative effect, finely ground bran and wood cellulose (which is also a fine fiber) induce constipation. In fact, he has found that eating bread made solely from wood cellulose kills off bacteria normally present in the gut that detoxify potentially harmful chemicals. However, Dr. Van Soest says, commercial breads made with wood cellulose also contain wheat bran and other fibers that probably counter this effect.

Weight control. Before it gets to the large intestine, fiber swells and creates a feeling of fullness that may help you cut back on the amount of food you consume and lengthen the time between meals. Young men on a diet that included twelve slices of bread a day lost more weight eating whole grain (high-fiber) bread than refined white bread.

An apple, with all its natural fiber intact, is more satisfying than applesauce, which in turn is more satisfying than apple juice, a study showed. In another study, volunteers who ate most of their carbohydrates as refined sugars often felt hungry, whereas those fed the like amount of carbohydrates as vegetable and cereal starches complained of being “stuffed.”

Many fibrous foods also take longer to chew and thus force you to eat more slowly and give your brain time to register satiety before you overconsume calories.

Diabetes. When placed on a diet high in fiber-rich carbohydrate foods but very low in fat and sugar, diabetics can greatly improve control of their blood sugar, according to studies by Dr. James W. Anderson of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Many patients are able to stop using antidiabetic drugs, including insulin, or they can significantly reduce the dosage of such drugs, he reports. Pectins and gums have the most striking immediate effect on blood sugar, whereas wheat bran (cellulose) seems to offer some long-term benefits.

Dr. David J. A. Jenkins of Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, showed that fiber delays the passage of food from the stomach to the intestine. This slows the conversion of starches to the blood sugar glucose, which in turn reduces the need for a large output of insulin, the hormone that functions improperly in diabetes. This benefit of fiber is obtained only if high-fiber foods are included in a meal, not as a between-meal supplement.

Blood fats. High levels of blood fats are associated with an increased risk of heart disease, and certain fibers can reduce the amount of fatty substances – cholesterol and triglycerides – in the blood. Here again, the soluble fibers – pectins and gums – are most effective, whereas wheat bran offers no benefit.

Blood cholesterol reductions of 13 to 22 percent have been achieved simply by adding foods rich in soluble fibers, such as whole oats, oat bran, carrots, or guar crisp bread, to the diet. But the greatest improvement results from simultaneously eating less fats and cholesterol and more starchy carbohydrates. Dr. Anderson got nearly a 60 percent reduction in triglyceride levels in people with abnormally high triglycerides by putting them on a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet rich in soluble fibers.

The risks. High-fiber diets can also have some undesirable effects. The most common is a temporary increase in flatulence and bloating, usually lasting about three weeks but in some cases for two or more months. Fibrous foods may impair the absorption of other nutrients, including iron and zinc, but this is thought to be no problem among otherwise well-nourished people.

Eating very large amounts of fiber, more than people could, can cause sigmoid volvulus, an enlargement and twisting of the sigmoid colon. Ulcerative colitis or regional ileitis may be aggravated by fiber, and people with these conditions should consult their physicians before increasing their fiber intake. To prevent blockage of the gastrointestinal tract, cereal fibers such as bran are best consumed with liquid.

Those who decide to leap on the fiber bandwagon are advised to proceed with care since the gastrointestinal tract may rebel at a sudden, large increase in fiber. The amount of added fiber to work up to is about two to four grams of crude fiber a day (Americans already eat about four grams of crude fiber daily), or about forty grams of dietary fiber.

One cup of all-bran cereal contains two grams of crude fiber. Three raw carrots or three apples a day are good alternatives. Mangoes, turnips, dried beans and peas, and leafy vegetables are other good fiber sources. Because bran has no effect on cholesterol levels, a number of experts recommend putting more emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables than on grains.

A longtime student of dietary fiber, Dr. David Kritchevsky, associate director of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, concludes that increasing the fiber content of the typical American diet “can’t hurt and probably will help as long as you pay attention to whatever else you eat.

“Fiber,” he says, “is not a panacea – you can’t simply add it to a bad diet and expect to get good results.”

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Dietary fibers come only from plants. They are the chemical substances in the cell walls that give plants structure and stability. Fibers in elude cellulose, polysaccharides, hemicelluloses, pectins, gums, mucilages, and lignin.

Different kinds of plants contain different fibers. Even within a species, the fiber content may vary according to growing conditions and maturity at harvest. Bran is almost entirely cellulose; apples, grapes, and some other fruits are high in pectin.

Fibers are not digested by human digestive enzymes. However, many are partially or completely digested by bacteria that reside in the gut, resulting in the production of gases.

Some fibers, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, are not soluble in water, although most can absorb several times their weight in water. Insoluble fibers predominate in grains. Others, such as pectin (used to make jelly), gums, and mucilages, are water-soluble and can leach out into cooking water. They are found naturally in fruits and vegetables, beans, and whole oats and are used as additives in processed foods.

Old methods of analyzing for “crude fiber” greatly underestimate the actual amount of dietary fiber present in a food. Newer, more accurate – but still imperfect – methods of analysis are quite cumbersome and not yet widely used by the food industry, although a few researchers have used them to determine “total dietary fiber” for a number of fresh and processed foods. Crude fiber listings on food labels are considered useless by fiber experts; some food packages now also list “dietary fiber.”

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Today, more than sixty years later, similar high-fiber diets are being advocated as capable of preventing or curing everything from constipation, hemorrhoids, and colon cancer, to heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and schizophrenia. Although many researchers have been studying fiber for years, the current fad was triggered in 1970 by Dr. Denis Burkitt, a British physician.

He reported that countries where large amounts of fiber are regularly consumed had low rates of colon-rectal cancer, benign diseases of the colon (such as diverticulosis), appendicitis, varicose veins, gallstones, and heart disease. Popular books and articles soon followed, vastly exaggerating the health claims for dietary fiber.

Now supermarkets offer a wide range of high-fiber breads and cereals. People who once described bran as the closest thing to cattle feed are happily eating like their four -legged friends. In the mid-seventies the fiber fad resulted in a shortage of bran in the United States. High-fiber breads and cereals continue to push the overly refined, pasty white stuff off the shelves as millions of Americans discover that those coarse, nutty flavored grains rejected a century ago in the name of lily-white gentility may actually be good for you.

With the fiber fad in its second decade, scientists and physicians continue to discover healthful new facts – and cautionary refinements on some old facts – about this “nonnutrient.” All the necessary data are by no means in, but the available facts show that fiber can have important health-promoting effects and that many of these effects are more prominently associated with the fibers in fruits and vegetables than with those in bran and other cereal grains. At the same time the findings demand that fiber be treated with intelligence and discretion, and not sprinkled indiscriminately on everything you eat.

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As for sugar’s reputed adverse health effects, the following can be said on the basis of available evidence:

Obesity. Sugar supplies 4 calories per gram (113 per ounce) – the same as protein and less than half that of fat, which provides 9 calories per gram. Excess calorie intake, not sugar, causes obesity. But since calories can be highly concentrated in sugar-sweetened foods, you may eat many more calories than you need of such foods before you feel full or even realize how much you have consumed. Compare the satiety value of, say, three bananas with that of a two-ounce candy bar; both have about the same carbohydrate content. Fructose, the primary sugar in fruits, is 50 percent sweeter than sucrose, and so fewer fructose calories are needed to obtain the same degree of sweetness. However, the use of fructose in nutritionally deficient sweet foods does little to improve their health value.

Tooth decay. Sugar definitely promotes the development of dental caries. Bacteria in the mouth digest the sugar on tooth surfaces and produce acid, which etches the protective tooth enamel and fosters periodontal disease. It is the frequency of sugar consumption and the amount of time sugar remains on the teeth, rather than the total quantity of sugar eaten, that makes the difference.

Thus, chewy candies, sucking candies, and sweetened cereals (whether sweetened by sugar or honey) are far more harmful to the teeth than a sweet drink or ice cream. Sweet, chewy granolas, the latest rage in breakfast cereals, are bad actors as far as teeth are concerned. (They also are not sufficiently more nourishing than regular cereals to justify their high calorie and sugar content.) To reduce the risk of decay, dentists recommend that you rinse your mouth or brush your teeth after consuming anything sweet and that you avoid eating sweets between meals.

Diabetes. In diabetes, the pancreas fails to produce adequate amounts of insulin to clear the blood of excess glucose. Thus, diabetics are told to curb their intake of sweets lest their blood sugar rise dangerously high. Eating a lot of starch, however, is not harmful to diabetics. The most important dietary factor in diabetes is controlling body weight.

There is some evidence that a high-sugar diet may promote the development of diabetes in people who are genetically predisposed to the disease. In laboratory experiments, rats prone to diabetes develop the disease on a high-sugar diet, but not on a sugar-free diet. When Yemenites, who ordinarily eat little sugar and have no diabetes, emigrate to Israel and adopt a sugar-rich diet, they frequently develop obesity and diabetes. However, other populations with high-sugar diets have lowrates of diabetes, perhaps because they are not overweight.

Heart Disease. The theory that diets high in sugar are an important cause of atherosclerosis and heart disease does not have wide support among experts in the field, who say that fats and cholesterol are the more likely culprits. Although most of the countries that consume a lot of sugar have a high incidence of heart disease, these are the same countries where consumption of animal fats and cholesterol is very high. There is a much stronger correlation worldwide between fat consumption and heart disease.

Well-controlled studies have shown that people who developed heart disease did not consume excessive sugar compared with those free of heart disease. A high-sugar diet does not cause heart disease in experimental animals, whereas a high-fat diet does.

Some people are said to be carbohydrate-sensitive – they have a tendency to develop high blood levels of fatty substances called triglycerides, which may promote atherosclerosis. They are often advised to reduce their intake of sugar, but reducing dietary fat and losing weight are most important to lowering their triglyceride level. Diets free of sucrose can lower abnormally high blood fat levels, but they have been found to have no effect on fat levels that are acceptable to begin with.

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Sugar proponents call it quick energy, opponents say it’s empty calories. To the average American, who consumes a third of a pound of it each day, sugar is mostly an irresistibly good taste. Human societies have long equated sweetness with goodness – sweet mystery of life, sweet smell of success, sweetheart – and that enhances the attraction.

People seem to have an innate “sweet tooth.” If saccharin is injected into the womb, the fetus will increase its swallowing of the sweet­ened amniotic fluid. Newborn rats given a choice will consume sugar water in preference to a nutritious diet, even to the point of malnutrition and death.

Cited for such evils as distracting youngsters from more nutritious foodstuffs, enhancing obesity, ruining teeth, and possibly contributing to diabetes and heart disease, sugar has become the most maligned of the main components of the American diet. Since many of the more vocal accusers and defenders of sugar have links to industries that stand to benefit from their views, the public is hard put to sort fact from fiction, evidence from opinion.

Sugar, like starch, is a carbohydrate. The many types of sugars inc1ude sucrose (table sugar refined from sugarcane or beets), lactose (milk sugar), fructose (fruit sugar), glucose (blood sugar), dextrose, maltose, and galactose.

Seventy percent of the sugar in today’s American diet is “hidden” in processed foods. Check the labels of the packaged soups, cereals, salad dressings, soft drinks, ketchup, sauces, peanut butter, dessert mixes, and what-have-you in your pantry and see how many list sugar (or corn syrup) as a main ingredient.

At the turn of the century the average American consumed about 77 pounds of sugar a year (65 of them as sucrose), and starches formed two-thirds of American dietary carbohydrates; today sugar consumption hovers around 128 pounds per capita (98 of them as sucrose), and sugar represents more than half the carbohydrate calories and about 20 percent of the total calories eaten by Americans – 500 calories of sugar each day. Even the widespread use of artificial sweeteners has done little to curb Americans’ appetite for sugar.

In relying on processed sucrose-sweetened foods as a main carbohydrate source, Americans may miss the bulk, satiety, and essential nutrients found in other carbohydrate foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, breads, and pasta, which contain fiber, water, vitamins, and minerals as well as calories. Refined sucrose, as such, is nothing but calories (and unrefined sugar doesn’t contain enough trace nutrients to make a difference), and the foods in which it is used most heavily rarely contain enough other nutrients to counter the pejorative label of “empty calories.”

The body has no physiological need for sucrose that cannot be satisfied by other more nutritious foods. The body can convert starches to sugar or use the sugar in fruits and vegetables for energy. In fact, experts in carbohydrate nutrition say that even the purported need for sugar as quick energy is a myth except in a few rare situations, such as a diabetic in insulin shock.

If you eat a concentrated source of sugar on an empty stomach, the level of glucose in the blood rises within half an hour and insulin’ is rapidly released to move the glucose out of the blood and into storage as glycogen in the liver or fatty acids in the fat depots. The blood glucose level falls rapidly, and in two hours it is back to normal

During exercise the body calls upon its reserve of glycogen (and, if that runs out, fatty acids) to supply the muscles with needed energy. If you eat sugar before exercising, your body simply stores it. Only if “slugs” of sugar were consumed intermittently during prolonged, strenuous exercise would they help to maintain an elevated blood sugar level to fuel the muscles.

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Here is a dietary guide to the good carbohydrates.

Potatoes. As they come from the ground, potatoes are relatively low in calories (150 for a large baking potato) and high in nutrients, including some protein. An adult could derive nearly all needed nutrients from potatoes. Baked, steamed, or boiled, they are an excellent food. But a single pat of butter or margarine increases the calorie content of a medium-sized potato by a third.

Deep-frying destroys some vitamins and adds astronomically to calories. Of the calories in french fries, 70 percent are from fat. Potato chips are also mostly fat (and high in salt) – 150 calories per ounce, 90 of them from fat. About nine chips add up to 100 calories.

Flours. Grains consist of three parts: the starchy endosperm containing the nutrients needed to sustain a seedling, including 70 percent of the kernel’s protein; the vitamin-rich germ, which will form the first leaves and roots; and the bran, the protective outer coat that provides undigestible roughage for the human diet.

Milling techniques used in the United States to produce white flour remove the bran and germ, leaving mostly starch behind. In enriched flours, only four of the twenty­six removed nutrients and none of the fiber are added back. Bleaching of flour destroys all the vitamin E. Whole wheat flour (particularly if stone-ground) retains most of the original nutrients and has more B vitamins, vitamin E, and trace nutrients such as copper and manganese, than enriched white flour .

Bread. You’ll get the most nutrients for your money from whole grain (unrefined) bread made from stone-ground flour; the next best is 100 percent whole wheat or whole’ grain, which can be so called even though 5 percent of the kernel, particularly some of the wheat germ, is lost. It’s impossible to know how much rye flour may be in rye bread and the flour used is often refined. Brown breads may contain little or no whole grains, merely molasses for coloring. If you buy white bread, be sure it’s enriched.

The recently introduced high-fiber breads are lower in calories because a large percentage of their bulk is undigestible fiber (usually cellulose, which is what bran is). One popular brand, Fresh Horizons, uses wood fiber as its source of cellulose. There’s no known harm in that, so long as you know that what you’re paying for isn’t grain. A slice of bread, depending on the type and thickness, ranges from 50 to 80 calories.

Cereals. Here again, the most nutritious are the whole grain cereals. If you buy farina, be sure it’s enriched. Steel-cut or rolled oats (not the instant, but the old-fashioned kind) give the best food value since oats are the highest in protein of the commonly consumed grains and these milling techniques do least damage to the natural nutrients.
Cooking hot cereals with milk as part of the liquid greatly improves their nutritional value.

Among cold cereals, shredded wheat is made from whole grain, without added sugar. Grape-Nuts and the new Nutri-Grain cereals also rely on the inherent sweet flavor derived from grains. Puffed cereals provide more air than nutrition, though they are low in fat , sugar, and calories. Sugar-coated cereals, some of which contain more sugar than any other ingredient, teach children bad nutritional habits and leave deposits on teeth that may encourage tooth decay and decay-causing bacteria.

Granolas, which swept the market in the wake of the health food revolution, are high in calories , fats, and sugars, although they do have more protein and vitamins than most other packaged cereals. If granola is keeping you away from bacon and eggs for breakfast, you might try making your own, using fewer sweeteners and less oil than the commercial granolas and leaving out the cholesterol-raising coconut and coconut oil. Or try just a handful of commercial granola to add crunch to some other packaged cereal.

Before the milk is added, most cold cereals provide 110 to 140 calories a serving, which ranges from one-fourth cup to one and a fourth cups, depending on how dense the cereal is.

Rice. Brown rice contains nearly all the nutrients in the original rice grain. Polishing removes the brown coat and the germ that contains most of the B vitamins and minerals, but it renders the protein in the grain more digestible. A better buy is parboiled or converted white rice; the process forces many of the nutrients into the white kernel. Instant and minute rice are least nutritious. Avoid washing rice unless it’s coated with talc, since some vitamins may wash away. A cup of cooked rice contains 223 calories.

Pasta. Spaghetti and noodles of all sorts can be purchased enriched. Many are now readily available in a high-protein form, in which protein-rich soy flour or artichoke powder has been used. You should also be able to get whole wheat spaghetti; some people prefer it mixed half and half with the regular kind. There are also spinach pastas (green noodles), which have more vitamins and minerals than white enriched. A cup of cooked pasta has 198 calories; home-made pasta somewhat more.

Legumes and seeds. Dried peas and beans, seeds, and nuts are rich sources of protein, vitamins, and minerals. Seeds and nuts contain considerable amounts of fat, albeit polyunsaturated vegetable oils, which bolster their calorie count. The beans and peas vary in fat content, with soybeans containing more fat than lentils, for example. A cup of soybeans contains 234 calories; lentils, 212; and kidney beans, 218. There are 322 calories in 10 large walnuts. A tablespoon of sesame or sunflower seeds has about 50 calories.

Fruits and vegetables. Although most are not high in starch, these carbohydrate foods are vital sources of vitamins and minerals and excellent sources of fiber. Many contain small but significant amounts of protein as well . Their fiber and water content add satisfying bulk and volume to the diet and help ward off overeating .

Fruits and many vegetables contain simple carbohydrates (sugars), but since these are “packaged” in a nutrient-laden edible that is relatively low in calories, nutritionists do not consider them empty calories. One medium apple contains 80 calories; a carrot, 30.

Milk products. Skimmed milk, buttermilk (which, despite its fatty name, is really made from skimmed milk), and yogurt prepared from low-fat milk are also nutrient laden foods in which simple carbohydrates provide the bulk of calories. They are excellent sources of protein. In whole milk products, however, fat calories predominate.

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Carbohydrates, both simple and complex, are the body’s main source of energy. They are readily digested and converted into the blood sugar glucose, which fuels the brain and muscles. Without carbohydrates, the body must rely on fats and protein for energy. Fats bum inefficiently in the absence of carbohydrates and leave the kidneys with the burden of excreting large amounts of toxic metabolic chemicals called ketone bodies. These can build up in the blood and cause nausea, fatigue, and apathy, a common effect among those who adhere to the faddish low­carbohydrate diets.

When protein is used for energy, the body is deprived of this crucial nutrient for building and replacing tissues, and the kidneys have to get rid of the unused nitrogen that’s left over. That’s why on high-protein diets you must drink lots of water to help flush out your kidneys.

Athletes and exercise enthusiasts need a diet rich in carbohydrates to fuel their hardworking muscles. If you exercise vigorously, a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet can actually be dangerous because it’s hard to take in enough water to meet the needs of your kidneys. Tests of athletic performance have clearly demonstrated an advantage to a high-carbohydrate diet before prolonged exercise. Athletes eating mostly protein and fat scored only half as well as those on a high-carbohydrate diet. Many runners have discovered that pasta is the best supper to eat the night before a race.

Since the turn of the century Americans have cut way back on their consumption of carbohydrates, particularly the “low-prestige” items like flour and cereal grains and potatoes. The falloff has been greatest for the more nourishing complex carbohydrates. It was accompanied by an increase in refined sugars, usually found in foods that are high in calories and low in nutrients.

The net result is that whereas Americans once ate mostly complex carbohydrates laden with important nutrients, now their carbohydrates are mainly the relatively “empty” calories of highly refined and sweetened foods like cakes, cookies, soft drinks, and sugar-coated cereals. (In some of these cereals, sugar is the leading ingredient.) If not for our habituation to the sweet taste, our bodies have no need for sugar, as long as they’re provided with starch for fuel.

In 1977 the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs recommended a sizable increase in our consumption of carbohydrates – particularly the complex starches and naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables. These should claim a 60 percent share of our daily calorie intake, the committee recommended. Other experts go even higher – to 70 or 80 percent carbohydrates. Currently carbohydrates represent 45 percent of the calories in the typical American diet, and more than a third of those calories come from low-nutrient refined and processed sugars. Most Americans eat their weight in sugar every year.

The committee suggested that we replace some of the animal fats in our current diet, which have been linked to a high risk of heart disease and certain cancers, with more innocuous and nutritious carbohydrates. Since the average American already eats twice as much protein as is really needed, and since most of that protein comes laden with saturated animal fats and cholesterol, many nutritionists believe we would be better off if we replaced some of those protein foods with complex carbohydrates.

In most countries where heart disease is rare, the people derive between 65 and 85 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, mainly whole grains and tubers. Contrary to popular belief, diets high in complex carbohydrates have been shown to reduce the insulin requirements of diabetics and may help stave off the artery-clogging diseases to which they are especially prone.

Complex carbohydrates and fruits can also replace processed sweets, such as baked goods, candy, and soft drinks, which contribute to tooth decay and obesity and add little of nutritive value to the diet. Alcohol, which the body processes as a carbohydrate (yielding 7 calories to the gram, as opposed to 4 per gram of regular carbohydrates), is another source of nutritionally empty calories.

The complex carbohydrates are the only major nutrients not associated with any long-term health risks.

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• A Simple Guide to Complex Carbohydrates
• The Health Effects of Fiber
• What Is Fiber?
• Sugar : Too Much of a Bad Thing
• Starches: Not Fattening and Good for You
• The Evidence Against Cholesterol

There’s one simple way to save calories and money in your daily food budget: Eat the potatoes. Also the rice, pasta, corn, beans, and bread. Strange advice, coming in a book on healthful living? Aren’t these the starchy foods, high in calories and low in nutrients, that our forefathers were forced to live on but that we, in our late-twentieth-century affluence and abundance, can afford to pass up or merely sample now and again?

The answer is yes – and no. Yes, these are starchy foods, laden with so-called complex carbohydrates (as opposed to sugars, which are simple carbohydrates). No, they are not high in calories. Ounce for ounce, they have no more calories than pure protein, and they have fewer than half the calories in fat.

A five-ounce potato, without butter or sour cream, has 110 calories, whereas a five-ounce T-bone steak has about 550. That’s because the steak h as more fat than protein, and fat is our most calorie-laden nutrient. Yet, those watching their weight are likely to leave the potato on the plate and down every morsel of the meat. Dieters also pass up the rice (154 calories in five ounces) and the pasta (210 calories). Even five ounces of bread, at 390 calories, are less fattening than the steak.

In addition to saving you calories, the starchy carbohydrates can save you money if you eat them in place of some of the more costly fat rich protein foods that most Americans consume to great excess.

Experiments with high-carbohydrate diets have shown that they can produce painless weight loss because the dieter feels satisfied without eating too many calories. In one such study, overweight college students consumed twelve slices of bread a day as part of their regular meals and lost, on the average, sixteen pounds in eight weeks. Those eating a high fiber bread lost the most. The bulk provided by many complex carbohydrate foods, particularly fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, can f ill the dieter far better than calorie-dense fats and sweets.

And no, starchy foods are not necessarily low in nutrients. Most starchy foods, particularly those made from whole grains and beans, are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, and trace nutrients. The potato, for example, is a nutritional bargain in terms of its calories. It supplies, among other nutrients, nearly 5 percent of the protein, 5 percent of the iron, 8 percent of the phosphorus, 10 percent of the thiamin, 11 percent of the niacin, and 50 percent of the vitamin C needed in an adult’s daily diet, but only 4 to 5 percent of the calories. Starchy foods also contain fiber, or roughage, the noncaloric, undigestible plant materials that are important aids to digestion and may help prevent various diseases of the colon, including cancer. And like the potato, most starchy foods contain small but significant amounts of protein. The protein content of some beans, in fact, is on a par with meat.

Related Posts

• The Health Effects of Fiber
• What Is Fiber?
• Sugar : Too Much of a Bad Thing
• A Simple Guide to Complex Carbohydrates
• The Body’s Main Fuel
• The Evidence Against Cholesterol