Question for Savvy Vegetarian:

When cooking with quinoa would I consider this as a carb or a protein when dieting? It appears to be extremely high in carbs but is said to be 100% protein.

I am summer-sizing and must eliminate and combine foods properly. Please help. Thanks. – D.S.

Savvy Vegetarian Advice:

Hi D.S, with plant foods there isn’t a natural division between protein and carbs, they all have some of both in various quantities. So you have to look at your overall carb intake over a day, if that’s your concern. Same with protein. Do that by looking at nutrition data for all the different foods you eat.

Quinoa Nutrition:

Quinoa isn’t 100% protein. But cooked quinoa has 4 – 6 g complete protein per 1 cup serving, and you’re right – like most grains it’s high in carbs – and lots of other good stuff.

It’s better to get more of your carbs from nutrient dense foods like quinoa, and less from empty sources like white flour. All carbs are not created equal, is what I’m saying :-)

By the way, it’s not so much the carbs as the fats that make you fat. Consider this: 1 tsp oil averages 50 calories and not much else. 1 cup cooked quinoa has 155 calories, 30 g carbohydrate, 3 g fat, 3 g dietary fiber and 5.5 g protein. So my advice is eat the quinoa and veggies, and skip the oil, to summer-size effectively.

For more about cooking with quinoa, and quinoa nutrition, check out Savvy Vegetarian’s Basic Quinoa Recipe.

Hope that helps! Judith Kingsbury

Processed foods contain health hazards including genetically modified organisms, high fructose corn syrup, TVP, MSG and various ingredients which are other names for MSG

 
Humans have been processing their food in various ways for thousands of years, right? Freezing, drying, preserving and canning come to mind.

So what’s the problem? I recently sampled a brand of veggie burger which shall remain anonymous as there isn’t much to choose between the various brands.

I found the veggie burger tasty, then I dug deeply into the ingredient list. My research strengthened my resolve, never to eat a “processed food” that has more than three or four ingredients, ones that I know are safe for me to eat.

Take a look at the long list of ingredients on most packages of processed foods, and you won’t find much actual food. What food there is has had the life processed right out of it, beyond recognition. Then there are all the ingredients whose names we can’t pronounce, and hidden ingredients the manufacturers don’t want us to know about.

The 100% hidden ingredient in processed food is genetically modified organisms or GMOs:

The main GMO crops are soy and corn, abundant in most processed foods in various forms: e.g. HFCS or high fructose corn syrup, TVP (soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate), soy sauce, preservatives and flavor enhancers like modified corn starch, xanthan gum, yeast extract and maltodextrin.

Jeffrey M. Smith, Institute for Responsible Technology, Explains Why GMOs Are Bad For You:

“Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are the result of laboratory processes which artificially insert foreign genes into the DNA of food crops or animals. Those genes may come from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals or even humans. Although banned by food manufacturers in Europe and elsewhere, the FDA does not require any safety evaluations. Most Americans say they would not eat GMOs if labeled, but the U.S. does not require labeling. GMOs are not safe, but have been in the food supply since 1996 and are now present in the vast majority of processed foods in the US.”

“Genetically modified foods are linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals. (See summary in Jeffrey M. Smith’s book Genetic Roulette)

For more information on GMO’s, browse our Non-GMO Articles Index.

Another common ingredient,  mostly hidden, in processed foods is MSG:

That’s right, even if MSG isn’t listed on the processed food label, chances are very very good, it’s in there, and lots of it. How else could they get us to want to eat that stuff?

According to MSGTruth, the following, present in many processed foods, contain MSG: autolyzed yeast  extract (found in many processed AMERICAN foods), TVP or textured vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, soy sauce, carageenan, dough conditioners (e.g Microgard), mushrooms (naturally high in free glutamate), “natural flavors” (may contain up to 20% msg).

The Fit Shack tells why MSG is so bad for us and makes us fat:

“I first learned a little bit more about MSG while reading the book “You On A Diet“. There is a small side line about it on page 117 that states that MSG may influence the body’s metabolism in a negative way. It “over stimulates the glutamine receptors of the brain”, which means that it heightens the salty and sweet tastes of the dish containing MSG, while at the same time, it dampens the bitter and sour tastes. Interestingly enough, MSG “may cause us to eat more” (Remember my post on HFCS? It does the same thing), and it can also cause higher levels of insulin to be produced.”

1. MSG stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. As mentioned above, “You On A Diet” pointed this out, however on MSGTruth, it is made a bit clearer to me. You see, MSG stimulates the pancreas to release insulin into the blood stream even when there are not any carbohydrates in the dish for the insulin to act on.

Your blood sugar ends up dropping because of this flood of insulin, and then you end up hungry again an hour or so later. Reading this gave me a “Wow” moment because of that saying “No matter how much Chinese food you eat, you still end up hungry an hour later.” I never connected this with the additive MSG. This really gives you something to think about, especially if you are working on losing weight.

2. MSG tricks your body into thinking that the food you are eating is nutritious, even if it is not. The reason for this is that your taste buds detect the free glutamic acid that is in MSG. In “taste bud language”, this translates to “hey, there’s protein in this food I’m tasting!”. Therefore, your brain gets the signal that the food you are eating is actually nutritious, while more than likely, it is not.

The pervasive pairing of fat and salt:

Processed food, including fast food, often is loaded with fat and salt, because that’s what makes it taste so good. It’s also what makes you fat, clogs your arteries, and aggravates high blood pressure, putting you at risk for diabetes, heart disease and stroke. If you have a lot of processed foods in your diet, chances are very good that your intake of fat and salt is far beyond the recommended daily limit. 2400 mg of sodium is 100% of the RDA. So is 16 grams of saturated fat.   There is no RDA for trans fat – i.e. you shouldn’t eat any if you can help it.    In comparing a daily omnivore menu with a vegetarian menu - both reasonably healthy – we found that adding a hamburger and fries to  an otherwise reasonable healthy daily diet boosted fat and sodium into the danger zone. Substitute more processed and fast food at other meals, and you could easily get double or triple the RDA for fat and sodium. Read the labels, or save yourself the trouble and just say no to processed food.

And then, there’s High Fructose Corn Syrup:

Even though the veggie burgers I sampled didn’t have high fructose corn syrup, it’s in so many processed foods, I had to talk about it.

We all know by now that HFCS is bad for you, but we’re a little fuzzy on the details, and we don’t realize how widespread it’s use in processed foods. And HFCS is also a hidden food, often listed only as “sugars”. I searched onHFCS and here’s what I found out:

First of all, High Fructose Corn Syrup is made from GMO corn. See Institute for Responsible Technology for why this is bad. Second, during the manufacturing process,HFCS is contaminated by mercury, which puts you in danger of mercury poisoning if you eat a lot of processed foods containing HFCS. Children and pregnant women are especially vulnerable.

An excellent article, by Christopher R. Mohr, MS, RD, LDN provided a lot of useful information about HFCS.

Common Foods High in HFCS

• Regular soft drinks
• Fruit juice and fruit drinks that are not 100 percent juice
• Pancake syrups
• Popsicles
• Fruit-flavored yogurts
• Frozen yogurts
• Ketchup and BBQ sauces
• Jarred and canned pasta sauces
• Canned soups
• Canned fruits (if not in its own juice)
• Breakfast cereals
• Highly sweetened breakfast cereals

Problems Caused by Too Much HFCS

• It can lead to higher caloric intake
• It can lead to an increase in bodyweight
• It fools your body into thinking it’s hungry
• It increases the amount of processed foods you eat, thereby decreasing your intake of nutrient-dense foods
• It may increase insulin resistance and triglycerides

Here’s Chris Mohr’s advice on how to avoid HFCS:

If HFCS is one of the first ingredients listed on a food label, don’t eat it. Make a mental list of the worst culprits, such as regular soft drinks and many highly sweetened breakfast cereals. HFCS alone won’t make you fat, but when HFCS is high on the ingredient list, the food is not the best choice. As part of a lifestyle that has many of us eating too much and moving too little, we’re putting our health at risk if we don’t choose our foods carefully.

So what’s the answer? It’s easy. Avoid HFCS by reading food labels and shopping the grocery store’s perimeter: Produce is on one side, seafood, meat and poultry on another, and dairy products, eggs and bread on the third. Avoid the center aisles, which are mostly stocked with highly processed foods.

The more you stick to fresh whole foods and avoid commercial and highly processed foods, the less HFCS you will consume.

Savvy Veg Note: Eating a healthy vegetarian diet with lots of fresh fruit and veg, nuts & seeds, legumes and whole grains, is a great way to avoid not only HFCS, but also GMOs, MSG, and excessive fat and salt.

Question For Savvy Vegetarian:

My boyfriend and I recently made the decision to become vegetarians and while we are loving it, we have run into a little problem. I started tracking everything we were eating to make sure we were making good food decisions and not turning into “junk-food vegetarians”. We eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein, etc but I noticed the protein we were eating (nuts, seeds, beans, peanut butter, olive oil) were quickly putting us well over the 50 recommended grams of fat per day.

My question is, do the daily values recommended for the average person apply to vegetarians? Is it safe to be eating more than 50 grams a day if they are mostly good fats? And how much fat is too much? – M.C.
Advice From Savvy Vegetarian:

Hi M.C., I’m sorry to say, it is possible for vegetarians and vegans to get too much of a good thing! Nuts are a great source of ‘good fats’, they have concentrated nutrients you can’t find in large quantities in many foods, and they are a good source of protein. But the fat/protein ratio in nuts, compared to legumes, isn’t so good.

For example, a serving of 10 – 12 almonds (a small handful) has 60 calories, 7 grams of fat and 3 grams of protein. Protein is 9.6% of calories.

1 cup of cooked lentils, on the other hand, has 115 calories, 17 grams of protein, and only a trace of fat. Protein is 24% of calories.

1 cup of cooked brown rice has 216 calories, 5 grams of protein, 1.5 grams of fat. Protein is 7% of calories.

Measure for measure, legumes and whole grains are your best source of low-fat protein. Nuts are one of your best sources of ‘good fats’, but not THE best source of protein. Get more of your protein from legumes and whole grains, and eat nuts and seeds sparingly. A small handful or two per day is all you need.

For more information about protein sources, check out our plant food protein chart.

And here’s a good article I found about nut nutrition

Medical Disclaimer: Any changes that you make to your diet, and the results of those changes, are your decision and responsibility. I do not claim to be a health care professional, dietitian, or nutritionist. Savvy Vegetarian does not treat, or recommend treatment, for any illness or health condition – Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

All the best, Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegatarian

Question For Savvy Vegetarian:

I’ve recently been thinking about moving to a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet for a few reasons: because I’ve heard it’s cheap, healthy, and more environmentally friendly.

I just graduated University and during that time I picked up some pretty awful eating habits that include LOTS of Pepsi and other sugary items, which I know are not good for me (and may be harder to give up than meat!).

Assuming I’m being aware of getting a balanced nutrient diet as I slowly transition away from meat eating, what would be your biggest piece of advice as I move towards a veg lifestyle? Thanks! – J.W.

Savvy Vegetarian Advice:

Hi J.W., Darn! You only want one piece of advice? Don’t know if I can do that, but I’ll try.

I guess the most important thing is to make every calorie count, nutritionally. Yes, that does mean weaning yourself off the sugary junk food, laden with empty calories – which not only make you fat, but actually cause malnutrition. My theory is that since these calories are empty, they pull nutrients from your body on the way through your digestive system, replacing the good stuff in your cells with toxins and fat.

For most people on a typical North American fast food diet, that’s all that holding them together. That’s why I recommend that people transition gradually to a veg diet, to give their bodies a chance to detox slowly. If you’re going to continue eating garbage while going veg, you increase your risk of malnutrition considerably.

I don’t know if that’s ‘good science’, but it works for me!

I don’t mean you should never have a treat – you have to reward yourself for all that virtuous behavior. Maybe once a week you could eat a cookie and a pepsi.

To help you get started, download these two vegetarian reports: Vegetarian Nutrition and Ten Tips For Going Veg

Thanks for writing! :-) J.K