Happy Leap Day! I’m very excited to celebrate this extra day with a guest post by Julieanna Hever (aka The Plant Dietitian).
The author of the bestselling book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, Julieanna is the co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Gluten-Free Vegan Cooking and the nutrition columnist for VegNews Magazine. Julieanna was recently featured on The Dr. Oz Show and has taught as part of Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s eCornell Plant-Based Nutrition Certification Program, among other endeavors.
In honor of Julieanna’s guest post today, I’m giving away a copy of her book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. Find out how you can enter to win this amazing book at the end of this post where you can also discover if you’re the new winner of the Heart Healthy Pizza cookbook (the previous winner didn’t contact me, so a new winner has been chosen.)
Here now is Julieanna Hever, with her post entitled:
Oil Slick
Confusion prevails in mainstream media and in the minds of consumers regarding oil and its benefits or lack thereof. Commonly, there are questions about which types of fat are healthy, how much we need, and what the best sources are.
Due to the popularity of diets like the Mediterranean Diet, oil has become known as a health food….beginning with olive oil. However, olive oil is not the highlight of this successful historical health hint. Instead, there other multiple factors involved, including the fact that the population documented in the Seven Countries Study (the one that kicked off the olive oil myth) ate a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grain breads, herbs, and spices, and were physically active. Yes, they included fish and olive oil, but those components weren’t the main attraction to the health achievements of these people.
For anyone trying to lose weight or moderate blood cholesterol levels, using oil in food preparation is not optimal. Remember that oil is 100 percent pure fat and that fat has more than twice the amount of calories per gram as do carbohydrate and protein. The other fact to consider is that you can attain all of the essential fats you need for optimal health by consuming a tablespoon or two of seeds (especially flax, hemp, or chia) or a quarter-cup of walnuts per day. If you compare whole olives and flaxseeds to their derived oils, you will see the difference in nutritional composition (see table). In the whole food version, you retain the healthy fiber, in addition to most of the vitamins, and minerals which are lost in the processing into oil.
|
Food
|
Calories
|
Fiber (g)
|
Fat (g)
|
|
Olives (1 cup)
|
141
|
4
|
14
|
|
Olive Oil (1 cup)
|
1909
|
0
|
224
|
|
Flaxseeds (1 TBSP)
|
26
|
2
|
3
|
|
Flaxseed Oil (1 TBSP)
|
120
|
0
|
14
|
The key to weight loss success is to focus on satiety. If you feel full, you will eat less and ultimately retain your ideal body weight. Satiety and fullness are the result of a diet high in bulk (fiber plus water). The reason it promotes satiety is because when food is bulky, it triggers sensors in your stomach which tell your brain you are full. If you compare an equal amount of calories of oil versus whole food sources, you can eat a lot more food, as you end up with a lot more bang for your caloric buck. There is even evidence that oil can harm the endothelial cells of the arteries, which can promote heart disease.
The good news is that preparing foods without oil is easy and difficult to detect the difference in taste. Here are some tips for oil-free cooking:
- Sauté with vegetable broth, water, coconut water, juice, beer, wine, or vinegar. It usually requires 3-4 times the amount of these liquids to replace the oil in a recipe. For example, substitute 1/4 cup vegetable broth to replace 1 TBSP oil.
- Make oil-free, yet rich and delicious, salad dressings using beans, tahini, nuts, and seeds.
- Bake with pureed fruit, silken tofu, or mashed avocado or banana.
Find more information on eating low-fat whole food, plant-based on my website PlantBasedDietitian.com and in my books, The Complete Idiots Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Gluten-Free Vegan Cooking.
BOOK GIVEAWAY:
Now’s your chance to find out everything you ever wanted to know about vegan nutrition! I’m giving away one copy of Julieanna’s book: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. And because today is Leap Day, instead of answering a question to win, you get to ask it! To win this amazing book, all you have to do is leave a comment at the end of this post that asks me a food question or asks Julieanna a nutrition question. (If you don’t have a question, you can leave any comment you prefer.) The winner will be chosen at random and when the winner is announced, the winning question will be answered as well.
Here’s how to enter: Just leave a comment at the end of this post asking a vegan food or nutrition question. (If you don’t have a question, just leave any comment you choose!)
To increase your chances of winning, do any or all of the following (leave a separate comment for each one you do):
- Subscribe to this blog, follow me on Twitter or on Pinterest; or “Friend” me on Facebook, then leave another comment to let me know you did this.
- “Like” Julieanna on Facebook or follow her on Twitter, then leave a comment to let me know.
- Tweet about the giveaway and use @globalvegan in your tweet, then leave another comment telling me that you did this.
- Post about the giveaway on your own blog or Facebook page, tagging or linking to this post, then leave another comment telling me that you did.
This giveaway will close at midnight on Sunday, March 5. A winner will be chosen at random and announced on Monday, March 6. Enter now and Happy Leap Day!
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: A new winner in the Heart Healthy Pizza cookbook giveaway has been chosen. The winner is: # 106 – KELLY G. — who likes French Fries on her pizza!! Congrats, Kelly! E-mail me with your mailing address and Heart Healthy Pizza will be yours.
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I've been on a totally vegan diet about 4 years after being on a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet for over 30 years. I changed because I was diagnosed with uber high cholesterol when I developed Hashimotos Thyroiditis. Is there a plant food I can take to try to lower my cholesterol since I take meds now and I really want to get off them.