Foods high in starch include:
* starchy vegetables like peas, corn, lima beans, and potatoes
* dried beans, lentils, and peas such as pinto beans, kidney beans, black eyed peas, and split peas
* grains like oats, barley, and rice. (The majority of grain products in the US are made from wheat flour. These include pasta, bread, and crackers but the variety is expanding to include other grains as well.)
The grain group can be broken down even further into whole grain or
refined grain. A grain, let's take wheat for example, contains three parts. The parts are the bran, germ, and the endosperm. The bran is the outer hard shell of the grain. It is the part of the grain that provides the most fiber and most of the B vitamins and minerals. The germ is the next layer and is packed with nutrients including essential fatty acids and vitamin E. The endosperm is the soft part in the center of the grain. It contains the starch. Whole grain means that the entire grain kernel is in the food.
If you eat a whole grain food, it contains the bran, germ, and endosperm so you get all of the nutrients that whole grains have to offer. If you eat a refined grain food, it contains only the endosperm or the starchy part so you miss out on a lot of vitamins and minerals. Because whole grains contain the entire grain, they are much more nutritious than refined grains.
How can I tell the difference?
Picking out foods in the store that are whole grain can be confusing. You cannot tell by the color of the food. Some manufacturers add coloring to make pasta look brown for example. Reading the ingredient list is the easiest way to tell if a food is made from whole grains. Look for the first ingredient to be whole wheat flour, brown rice, rye flour, barley, or oats.
When you start reading ingredient lists, you will notice another term on most bread products made in the United States. It is enriched wheat flour. This is not the same thing as whole grain. In the United States, we enrich -- or add some vitamins and one mineral back into refined grains. For example, if a whole grain of wheat is ground into flour, you retain the vitamins, minerals, and fiber from all three parts of the grain. But when the germ and bran are removed before making it into flour (refined flour), your food will contain only the starchy part of the grain. So, wheat flour in the United States adds back a few of the nutrients that are removed. You lose about 11 vitamins and minerals, and five are added back. The nutrients added back are iron, and four of the B vitamins -- Niacin, Riboflavin, Thiamin, and folic acid.
Enriched wheat flour is a refined grain. You also see enriched wheat flour listed as all-purpose flour, cake flour, bleached flour, and bread flour. You find it in breads as well as baked products like cake, cookies, muffins, and snack bars. Other refined grains are white rice and white pasta. Often, products that used enriched wheat flour and have added sugar and fat are called processed foods. A good rule of thumb, especially for grains is that the further away a food is from its natural state, the less nutritious. For example brown rice contains more nutrients than a cookie.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment