NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
May 18, 2000
Not having to worry about money can make life seem like the proverbial bowl of cherries, I suppose. But rather than having a pot full of money, I'd like to have a plateful of food--to be able to eat with a guilt-free conscience. I want life to be like a bowl of butterscotch pudding, a perpetual feast of favorite foods with none of the negative health consequences.
Of course, anyone who's made it beyond the toddler stage knows that such a wish is ridiculous. Life is a series of concessions and trade-offs, compromises and consensus. When it comes to eating for health, we need to subdue our cravings for the not-so-good-for-us foods.
But that doesn't mean we have to forsake all the pleasures of eating. A trick I've found involves substitution. Suppose I'm craving peanut butter. I could sink my teeth into some type of candy bar loaded with peanut butter, and probably chocolate and a lot of other high-calorie ingredients. Or, I could spread natural peanut butter (sans the added fats and sugar) on some celery sticks. Certainly not a novel idea, but sometimes I tend to overlook the obvious when it comes to eating more healthfully.
Instead of eating as many potato chips with dip or salsa-dunked deep-fried tortilla chips, I've taken to eating fat-free pretzels decorated with mustard (spicy mustard if there's some in the refrigerator). Besides taste and fewer calories, another benefit of my pretzel-mustard snack is that it produces no dirty dishes, just a mustard-stained paper towel that I toss in the garbage as I'm smacking my lips.
The recipe that follows is another lip-smacker relying on substitution. Absent are the eggs and sugar you might expect in a pudding-like dessert. Instead, anticipate a similar sweetness, along with textures ranging from creamy to crunchy--all for less calories per serving than most puddings.
Yogurt Parfait
An adapted recipe from SOARthe Searchable Online Archive of Recipes, University of California, Berkeley (http://soar.Berkeley.EDU/recipes/)
Yield: 8 servingsIngredients:
4 cups non-fat vanilla yogurt
2 cups canned pineapple chunks
1 cup frozen raspberries
1 medium banana, peeled and sliced
½ cup chopped dates
¼ cup sliced toasted almondsProcedure:
Alternately layer yogurt and fruit into eight sundae glasses or other tall glassware. Top each with between 1 and 2 teaspoons of toasted almonds and serve.
What's Your Take on This, Julie?
Yogurt Parfait moves you closer to 5-A-Day--the recommendation for five total servings of fruits and vegetables daily. A serving (about 1 cup) contains about 250 calories, 3.5 grams of fat and 3.6 grams of dietary fiber, plus 20 percent of the daily calcium recommendation.
Usually, we want to avoid bacteria in food, but the active cultures in yogurt are beneficial, as some recent research has pointed out. Researchers in New Zealand, Newfoundland and Canada recently tested the idea that yogurt can help the human body fight infection by comparing two groups of volunteers ages 60 and older. For six weeks, one group drank three-fourths cup of low-fat, low-lactose milk twice a day; this group's milk contained an added strain of healthful bacteria. The second group drank the same amount of the milk, but without the healthful bacteria. Both groups received blood tests measuring immune function three, six and 12 weeks after the study. Either type of milk boosted immune function, but those drinking the milk containing the active bacterial cultures showed particular improvement in their immune function.
If you're aiming for possible health benefits from yogurt, be sure to look for the words "active cultures" on product labels. Remember too that federal standards don't exist for nutrient content of frozen yogurt, so check the Nutrition Facts label to learn more about your choice.
Yogurt also is an excellent source of calcium, which scientists recently designated as a "super nutrient" after analyzing the results of 139 published research studies. A cup of plain non-fat yogurt contains about 450 milligrams of calcium--even more than skim milk, which contains about 300 milligrams per cup. Adequate calcium throughout life can reduce our chances for getting osteoporosis, a thinning of bones with age particularly common among women. Calcium also may provide some protection against colon cancer and functions to maintain our blood pressure at optimal levels.
A serving of Yogurt Parfait fits in well with a new type of diet. Researchers have found that a specific diet plan--Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)--may significantly lower blood pressure. While not a weight-loss diet, the DASH diet is high in fruits and vegetables (eight to 10 servings daily) and low-fat dairy products (two to three servings daily). It also contains about seven to eight servings of grains, two servings of meat, poultry or fish, and four to five servings of nuts, seeds or legumes. The DASH diet is high in potassium, magnesium and fiber but low in cholesterol.
About 50 million Americans--that's one in five older than age 6--have some degree of high blood pressure or hypertension. Nearly one-third of those affected don't know they have it because there are often no symptoms. If untreated, this silent killer makes the heart work harder and could lead to stroke, heart attack or even kidney failure. Since May is designated as National High Blood Pressure month, it's a good time to have your blood pressure checked by a health professional. If you have high blood pressure, continue to take your medication but consider discussing the DASH diet with your healthcare provider.
For more information on the DASH diet, contact your local county office of the NDSU Extension Service, or visit the DASH Web site (http://dash.bwh.harvard.edu/).
###
Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187
Click here for a pdf version of this graphic. (33KB b&w recipe graphic)