Got pumpkins?

On my front porch, there are three sad looking Jack O'Lanterns and one large pumpkin hanging out from Halloween.  If you've got pumpkins too, don't toss them into the trash. There’s still a lot you can do with your fall pumpkins! 

Pumpkin is somewhat of a magical character in menus.  It can be savory, sweet, or just give a health boost to a recipe without even knowing it’s there.  Cinderella certainly knew how versatile a pumpkin could be!

Like many dark orange vegetables, pumpkins are jam packed with a plant form of vitamin A called beta carotene.  At only 50 calories per cup, this true super hero of nutrition is a great source of potassium, vitamin A, and fiber.  Dark orange vegetables like butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin can meet your full day’s Vitamin A needs in only one half cup serving. Canned pumpkin has no added sodium and requires no cooking. You already know there’s pumpkin flavored everything, but there are lots of ways you can use real pumpkin.

So how can you tell whether it’s decorative or edible?  With more than 40 varieties, most pumpkins are actually edible, but can vary in their flavor and texture.  Jack O’Lantern pumpkins are developed more for size and shape, not taste.  Complaints about cooking that variety include that it can be flavorless and watery.  As long as it’s not a decorative gourd (which really contains no flesh) you can try to use pumpkins you’ve already spent money on.  Don’t try using a pumpkin though that you’ve already carved and sat outside with a candle in it. 

Whether meal or snack, there’s a pumpkin recipe that will fit.  If you take time to make pancakes or muffins from scratch, pumpkin is a super easy, tasty edition.  For more savory options utilize pumpkin puree for a thickener for soup or chunks of pumpkin in a chili. 

If you have little ones at home you can make an ooey, gooey mess having kids sort through the pumpkin guts for the precious seeds.  Remove as much of the pumpkin strings as possible.  Put about 4 cups of water on to boil.  Add the seeds and boil for 10 minutes.  Drain and spread on a clean kitchen towel to dry.  Seeds usually toast best if you toss them with a little oil or melted butter.  After heating the oven to 250 degrees, spread on a shallow pan or cookie sheet and place in heated oven.  You will need to toast the seeds for about 35 to 45 minutes.  Stirring every 10 minutes can help them toast evenly. 

You don’t necessarily have to remove the skin before you tackle roasting the pumpkin.  Give your pumpkin a very through bath using dish soap.  After you’ve gutted the pumpkin you can cut it into large chunks which can be roasted, microwaved or boiled.  Roasting takes the longest time at up to 60 minutes, microwaving or boiling will take about 10 to 15 minutes.  You can also use a slow cooker but it will take about three to four hours to get rid of the crunchy bite of uncooked pumpkin. 

Pumpkin puree can be used for all sorts of dishes.  To make pumpkin puree, you simply have to scoop the flesh from the skin after cooking and then run it through a blender or food processor.  You will get roughly 1 cup of puree for every pound of pumpkin.   Make it easy by freezing the pureed pumpkin in 1 cup servings.  It will last about six months in the freezer and a week in the refrigerator. 

If you think you don’t like squash, but you like pumpkin pie you might be in for a surprise.  Canned pumpkin is typically made using blends of butternut, hubbard, and other squash as it is less stringy and more flavorful than pumpkin alone.  The term pumpkin can be used loosely to include over forty different varieties of pumpkin and squash. 

And if you don’t want to eat your pumpkins?  Toss the pumpkin somewhere where it can grow in the spring.  Squash family plants don’t like to be disturbed so be sure to toss it in a spot where it can break down, release it’s seeds, and turn into a glorious vine in the spring.  

Why eating “Clean” doesn’t always equal getting “Lean”

All foods have energy.  Energy in food is known as…… Go ahead, take a few seconds to make a guess. 

If you said “What is a calorie?” you should be on Jeopardy.  No really, if you guessed calories you were right. 

As a licensed nutritionist, I occasionally encounter a client who has made many wonderful strides to choose healthier foods and improve the quality of his or her diet.  Whether it’s opting to include less processed food, increase natural sources of fiber, or just boost up vegetable intake at every meal, making improvements in the quality of the food you’re eating is one of the best things you can do for your health. 

But then the client looks at me with a frown and blurts out, “BUT, I’m not losing weight.”

Unfortunately eating for health doesn’t necessarily mean eating for weight loss.  Let’s look back at those pesky calories again.  Despite some foods being healthy and nutrient dense (a term that means you get lots of vitamins and minerals in one place), some foods that nourish us well also provide a lot of energy in a small package. 

Take for example:

An entire avocado has 230 calories

Half a cup of nuts clocks in at 380

And that healthy 1/2 cup of dried fruit?

It’s going to set you back 280 calories—with nearly every one of those calories coming from sugar. 

These are exactly the healthy foods we recommend when athletes or children need to gain some needed weight.    

So let’s talk about four terms that are confusing when it pertains specifically to weight loss. 

NATURAL

According to a survey released in 2014 by Consumer Reports, two-thirds of Americans believe “natural” means the food contains no artificial ingredients, genetic modification, or pesticides.  Take it a step further and I would add that many consumers equate the word “Natural” with “Healthy.”  In actuality the FDA has not been able to even define the term.  Typically natural means that there have been no colors, artificial flavors or synthetic substances added that would not be normally found in that food.  Because this term is used so loosely and holds no technical definition, natural foods may or may not be healthier than their commercial counterpart.  The term natural does not have an influence on how much energy our body gets or stores from the food or beverage so eating more natural foods does not lead to automatic weight loss. 

CLEAN

Decreasing processed foods and opting for more natural foods, also called eating “clean” can decrease sodium intake and increase natural sources of vitamins and minerals.  What surprises some people is when they gain weight following a plan that promotes lots of unprocessed meats, vegetables, nuts, and certain oils.  Unprocessed food still has energy, so if portions are excessive, or exercise is non-existent, whole foods can still be stored as weight gain or not lead to weight loss.  If a cake is made from honey or coconut sugar, coconut flour, dried fruit, and seeds, it’s still going to be considered a dessert or a treat.  Making a recipe from these nutritious foods doesn’t mean that it is a freebie just because it isn’t made from white sugar, refined oils, or flour. 

ORGANIC

Organic basically means that the food was grown and processed without the use of certain pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or growth hormones.  In several studies examining head to head comparisons of the vitamin and mineral content of organic plants and conventionally grown there was little difference in the actual nutritional content of the produce.  http://www.organic.org/home/faq#faq6

The choice to buy organic items is a personal decision based on many factors, but weight loss benefits shouldn’t be one of them.  When it’s comes to weight loss, an organic item isn’t going to lead to weight loss any more than conventionally grown items.  For example, organic apple juice has the same amount of naturally occurring sugar and calories as conventionally grown, 100% apple juice. 

GLUTEN-FREE

Although the finger has been pointed at gluten for every ailment for the past few years, the solid research just isn’t there for many of the claims that the average person should avoid gluten when it comes to weight loss.  If a muffin or cookie is gluten free it simply means that it is made with a grain other than wheat, rye, or barley.  Sometimes it may actually contain more carbohydrates and calories than the wheat filled goodie.  The impact on your waist line is still dependent on your overall energy intake and activity level, not whether a food product contains wheat. 

It is entirely possible to have an organic, clean, gluten-free, natural weight loss diet, but just swapping one food for another to meet these specific terms isn’t going to naturally lead to weight loss.  Portions, exercise, and balancing food groups plays the biggest role in whether a diet based on healthy foods actually leads to weight loss. 

High blood pressure doesn't take a holiday

For someone with congestive heart failure, problems with retaining fluid, or other health issues affected by salt and sodium intake one meal can provide two to three times the sodium they should take in.  For some individuals that excessive sodium intake can have serious effects on health. 

Doctors often encourage patients to restrict to less than 2,000 milligrams per day.  In very sensitive people that limit is sometimes reduced to less than 1,500 milligrams per day.  The average American though is estimate to consume upwards of 6,000 milligrams per day!  If 2,000 milligrams is spread over 3 meals and snacks, most meals should not exceed 500 milligrams at one time.  If you are prescribed medications to lower your blood pressure your doctor wants you to also follow a low sodium diet.  If you have someone in your family that needs a low sodium meal this holiday season here are some tips to lower the amount while still enjoying some tasty fare. 

Just the Facts

If you check out the Nutrition Facts label be sure to start with the serving size.  That’s an amount that all the numbers on the label pertain it.  So if your serving size is half a cup, but you eat an entire cup you’d have to double the numbers listed.  Or better yet, choose a natural food item that doesn’t come in a package.  Whole foods that haven’t been processed are lower in sodium that items in cans, covered in a sauce, or ready to go in a microwavable container.  The exception is frozen vegetables with only one ingredient- the vegetable itself!

Avoid using cured meats in recipes. 

A potential low sodium food like green beans or Brussels sprouts sky rockets in sodium when you add bacon, sausage, or ham.  Using toasted nuts like hazelnuts in a vegetable recipe offer tasty flavor, but very low sodium.  Nitrate free or uncured meats have become popular in recent years, these products are often cured with salt and naturally occurring nitrates found in celery salt.  Just because an item is organic and nitrite free does not automatically mean it is a low sodium product.  Always compare your labels if you want to be sure. 

Don’t believe the hype. 

Sea salt has the same sodium content as table salt.  Let me repeat that, Sea salt has the same sodium content as table salt.  It’s been said that ‘all salt at one time came from the sea.’  Compare the nutrition facts next time you’re at the store.  One fourth teaspoon of table salt with iodine (a needed nutrient for our endocrine system) has 590 milligrams of sodium.  The sea salt?  It clocks in at 590 milligrams per teaspoon which equals exactly the same as the table salt.  But what about those extra minerals claimed to be beneficial in sea salt?  Good nutrition is not only about the types of foods we eat, but the amounts.  If I eat half a strawberry, the amount of vitamin C I actually get would be very minimal compared to an entire cup of berries.  In the same way the micro or trace minerals in sea salt do not provide a good source of magnesium, phosphorus, zinc or copper unless you would consume A LOT of sea salt which really would not be beneficial when your body needs a low sodium diet. 

Make it yourself

Skip the premade microwavable mashed potatoes or microwavable macaroni and cheese.  For food safety purposes and for taste manufacturers add salt to prepared foods.  Processed foods are the number one source of sodium in the American diet.  While a whole baked potato prepared in your microwave would have less than 20 milligrams of sodium, a half a cup of premade microwavable mashed potatoes has 560 milligrams!  If cooking for yourself, why not wash and microwave a whole potato or sweet potato in the microwave for eight minutes, remove the peel, and add a little milk and butter while mashing with a fork?   

Even low sodium products can be high in sodium.  Check your Nutrition Facts label even on lower sodium products.  Low sodium broths for example are better than regular broths, but can still exceed someone’s recommended intake.  Consider slowly simmering a batch while you’re cleaning the house for guests.  Food & Nutrition Magazine, a publication of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics offers some basic recipes like this homemade broth that can provide a flavorful base for soups, gravy, or mashed potatoes.

http://www.foodandnutrition.org/November-December-2015/DIY-Kitchen-Chicken-Stock/

Choose your recipes wisely

When planning a holiday meal for someone on a low sodium diet start with recipes that keep health issues in mind.  Low sodium recipes rely on flavor from holiday spices like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and garlic.  To find out what spices you can use to create flavor without salt search for recipes with heart healthy guidelines in mind.  Some reputable sources include:

The American Heart Association offers a free Holiday Healthy Eating Guide at http://bit.ly/AHAHolidayGuide2015

Divita dialysis offers thousands of low sodium, low potassium, recipes for people with kidney problems, but the recipes are also appropriate for anyone needing to follow a low sodium diet http://www.davita.com/recipes/tag/christmas

Making a few modifications to try to stay within low sodium diet guidelines can make a difference for your health this holiday season.  We can’t change our bodies, but we can modify what goes in it!