Knowing Nutrition

Posts tagged healthy eating

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Want to lower your weekly food bill and improve your health?

Opting to include three to four plant based meals during the week can lower your food bill significantly! Not only that, but lowering your meat consumption and increasing plant food intake can also have a positive effect on your health and lower your risk of developing health problems such as heart disease and cancer.

How about starting off with this delicious meal:

AND IT ONLY COSTS NZ$3.07 PER SERVE!

A close up of the nutrition information panel is below. In addition to what you usually find on nutrition information panels, I have included some vitamins and minerals of interest.

Tracey @ Knowing Nutrition

Filed under knowing nutrition Nutrition nutritionist vegetarian plant based health health food healthy eating heart health healthy living recipes

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This week is world action on salt week!

It is widely recognised that a high salt intake causes high blood pressure and is linked to a huge number of conditions and diseases, including stroke, heart disease, kidney problems, osteoporosis.

Recommended MAXIMUM salt intakes (for NZ and Aus)

Do you check everything you eat (ie packaged food for sodium amounts) and keep tabs on how much salt you add to your meals? A lot of people do not realise how much salt they are actually consuming so this week is all about paying attention to how much salt you are having.

Some ideas to lower your salt intake:

  • Always remember to check the labels and choose lower salt options
  • Look for lower salt and ‘no added salt’ versions of your usual foods in the supermarket e.g. canned vegetables, tinned fish in spring water, ketchup and baked beans
  • Cook from scratch using unprocessed meat, fish and vegetables
  • Avoid adding salt during cooking, try adding other flavours instead
  • Always taste your food before adding salt at the table
  • Cut back on sauces such as soy sauce, ketchup, brown sauce and salad dressings as these can be high in salt
  • Try reducing the amount of salt you add gradually over a couple of weeks, allowing your taste buds time to adjust
  • Use a mix of herbs and spices to add to the complexity of flavour of your foods
  • Make your own salad dressingbased on balsamic, cider or rice vinegars

Finally here is a low salt shopping guide from World Action on Salt on healthy choices:

image

Filed under salt Nutrition nutritionist health healthy eating food

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Anonymous asked: How many nuts (almonds, cashews ) etc do you recommend to consume? SHould i be eating good fats everyday?

Hiya, a small handful of nuts each day is an excellent snack. Not only do they provide you with good fats (omega 6 and omega 3) but they also contain a variety of essential vitamins and minerals. Below I have made tables to show what nutrients some popular nuts have - based on a serving of 20grams. I love to snack on a mix of raw almonds, cashews and walnuts… yummm!

 

Filed under nutrition health nuts nutritionist healthy eating

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Anonymous asked: Hi Tracey, I was wondering if you could help me.I was underweight for a while and lost my period, but now I'm back to a healthy weight and still don't have it.I'm 16, 5'1, and 108lbs. I'm also orthostatic, have a low protein count, and a low white blood cell count. To gain weight I had to eat 1800-2100 calories a day, and broken down i got 120-150g protein, 150-220carbs, and 45-60g fat. I was wondering if there is anything I can add to my diet to fix this without having to gain even more weight.

Hiya! :)

So I have done a bit of research on these topics, and I would stick with the above ratios of protein, carbs and fats, however it is the types of protein, carbs and fats that you choose that can have the greatest impact.

For protein choose fish (salmon and tuna are great), seafood and legumes; for carbs choose your wholegrains, a couple of pieces of fruit, and loads of veges; and for fat choose your omega-3s as much as possible (so fish oil, and oily fish like salmon).

It has been suggested that zinc can increase your white blood cell count so eating foods that are high in zinc, such as oysters, pumpkin and shitake mushrooms may help. I would also suggest taking a multivitamin specifically for female teenagers or women, just to be sure you are receiving adequate amounts of different vitamins and minerals.
The main aim should be to to get as many different nutrients in as possible in order to build your immune system back up.

For the orthostatic intolerance I found that drinking plenty of fluids and increasing your salt intake are ways of managing the symptoms.

For amenorrhea (loss of period) make sure you eat the amount of fat that is set out above, this will help to stimulate your estrogen production and eventually your period should come back. Also make sure you are getting enough calcium - the recommended dietary intake is 1,300mg per day - and get out in the sun for 15min a day to get your vitamin D. This is just to make sure your bones stay healthy and strong as amenorrhea can affect bone density.

It will take time for your body to recover, be persistant with your healthy eating habits, however if you are still concerned about these issues then definitely go and see you doctor :)

References:
WBC Livestrong
WBC2
Increase Protein
Orthostatic Intolerance
Amenorrhea

Filed under Nutrition nutritionist answer ask question diet food underweight amenorrhea health healthy living healthy eating healthy