Jumat, 30 November 2012

In the GI News Kitchen

American dietitian and author of Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Johanna Burani, shares favourite recipes with a low or moderate GI from her Italian kitchen. For more information, check out Johanna's website. The photographs are by Sergio Burani. His food, travel and wine photography website is photosbysergio.com.

This December, we bring back an old favourite from Johanna’s kitchen as she hasn’t had time to create something special for us – she is out there on the front line helping survivors of super-storm Sandy in New Jersey.

[JOHANNA]

Flourless chocolate hazelnut cake.
This cake isn’t an Italian recipe at all, but it was a huge hit in my household one Christmas in Friuli. It is built around rich and nutty tasting ingredients that melt in your mouth. White flour is replaced by fibre-rich, vitamin-and mineral-dense ground hazelnuts. The lasting mouth feel is the result of the primarily unsaturated fat in the nuts. This cake stands proudly on its own – no frosting or ice cream can add to its most satisfying taste. If you must, try just a slight dusting of powdered sugar on the top of the cake. Because of the amount of sugar, the GI will be moderate. Enjoy it for dessert when entertaining and special occasions like birthdays. It will feed a crowd. And if you are worried about the calories, just have a sliver instead of a slice! Serves 12

3½ cups ground roasted hazelnuts (approx. 375 g/13 oz)
1½ cups sugar
2 tbsp vanilla essence
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa (approx. 70 g/2½ oz)
12 egg whites

Flourless chocolate hazelnut cake

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF). Coat a spring-form pan with vegetable spray.
Mix the hazelnuts, sugar, vanilla and cocoa in a medium sized bowl. Beat egg whites until stiff and dry. Gently fold them into the chocolate nut mixture.
Pour the batter into the greased pan. Bake for 40–50 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool before serving.

Per slice (when cut into 12 slices)
Energy: 1402 kJ/ 334 cals; Protein 9 g; Fat 20 g (includes 2 g saturated fat and 0 mg cholesterol); Carbs 34 g; Fibre 5 g

What about those 12 egg yolks? Here are some ideas from the ever-amazing chef and food writer Kate McGhie:
  • Make mayo/hollandaise 
  • Whisk through pasta (carbonara or alfredo) or stir fries 
  • Poach the yolk and then chop and use in salads (potato is excellent) or on asparagus with salmon and a lemon-oil dressing 
  • Use in custard or lemon curd. 
  • Freeze. I pop a yolk into each cavity of an ice block tray, add a pinch salt for savoury use or sugar for sweet and freeze. When frozen I pop them into a freezer bag.
Cut back on the food bills and enjoy fresh-tasting, easily prepared, seasonal, satisfying and delicious low or moderate GI meals that don’t compromise on quality and flavour one little bit with our Money Saving Meals packed with fresh produce including these side dishes for festive fare – Sweetcorn and coconut salad from Kate McGhie’s Cook: recipes, stories and kitchen wisdom  and Kate McIntosh’s Sweet potato and pistachio quinoa.

Sweetcorn and coconut salad. 
A simple corn salad is ramped up with lively flavours and an unexpected burst of chilli heat. You can make this a day in advance and store, covered, in the fridge says Kate McGhie. Serves 4–6

3 cups fresh corn kernels
2½ cups milk
1 tsp butter
2 small red chillies, finely chopped
½ tsp ground cumin
2cm (1in) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
pinch turmeric
2 tbsp shredded coconut
6 sprigs coriander (cilantro), roughly torn

Corn on the cob

Place the corn and milk in a pan and simmer for 45 minutes or until reduced by three-quarters. Season to taste with a little salt if you wish.
Melt the butter in a pan and swirl the chillies, cumin, ginger and turmeric. Add to the corn mixture with the coriander and coconut. Stir well, cook for 2 minutes more and serve warm or cooled.

Per serve (for 6 people)
Energy: 760 kJ/200 cals; Protein 7 g; Fat 6 g (includes 4 g saturated fat and 14 mg cholesterol); Carbs 23 g; Fibre 3 g

Sweet potato and pistachio quinoa.
This dish can be served warm with lamb, chicken or fish such as mackerel and swordfish or served cold as a salad says Kate McIntosh. Serves 4–6 as a side dish

1 orange-fleshed sweet potato (about 400 g), peeled and cut into 2cm (3/4in) dice
200g (7oz) quinoa
3 cups light chicken stock (low sodium)
3 tbsp pistachios, chopped quite finely
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 tbsp chopped coriander
2 tbsp chopped parsley
rind only 1 preserved lemon, finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Sweet potato and pistachio quinoa  

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF ).
Roast the diced sweet potato for about 20 minutes or until tender
Cook the quinoa following the packet instructions in 3 cups (750 ml) chicken stock, then drain.
For a warm dish, heat a large pan, add all ingredients and stir over low heat until warmed through. If serving cold, simply toss all ingredients together and season to taste.

Per serve (for 6 people) 
kJ/Cal 1269/302; Protein 8 g; Fat 12 g (includes saturated 2 g) Carbohydrate 38 g; Fibre 5 g

Three fruity desserts for festive fare  ...

Mango, passion fruit and lime fruit salad.  
Kate McIntosh’s dessert is absolutely delicious and truly made in minutes. Serves 2
 
2 medium ripe mangoes, peeled and cut into dice (about 2 cups mango dice)
2 ripe passion fruit

Dressing 
½ cup (125 ml) mango puree
pinch of ground ginger
1 lime, juiced

Mango, passion fruit and lime fruit salad

Combine the mango puree, ginger and lime juice in a small bowl to make the dressing.
Place the mango dice into a serving bowl. Scoop out the passionfruit pulp and seeds and add to the mango dice, then gently stir through the mango-lime dressing.

Per serve 
700 kJ/167 calories; 3 g protein; 0.6 g fat (includes 0 g saturated fat); 33 g carbohydrate; 6 g fibre

Baked spiced pears with zabaglione sauce.  
Johanna Burani’s pears with cinnamon and cardamom are a marriage made in culinary heaven. Serves 4

2 ripe Bosc pears
2 tbsp sugar, divided
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp marsala wine

Baked spiced pears with zabaglione sauce

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF).
Peel, halve and core the pears. Place them cut side down in a rectangular baking pan with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.
Combine 1 tablespoon of the sugar with the spices, and sprinkle half of this mixture over the pears. Bake the pears for 5 minutes in the preheated oven. Turn the pear halves over, sprinkle with the remaining sugar-spice mixture and continue to bake for another 5 minutes. Pears are done when they are easily pierced by a fork but still hold their shape. Large pears may take a little longer to cook. Remove from the oven, place in individual dessert dishes and set aside.
To make the sauce, combine the egg yolk and remaining tablespoon of sugar in a very small saucepan and mix vigorously for at least 5 minutes with a wooden spoon. Slowly add the marsala and mix well. Heat over low heat stirring constantly for approximately 1 minute or until the mixture thickens WITHOUT COMING TO A BOIL. Pour the sauce over the pear halves and serve warm or at room temperature.

Per serve (Serving size: ½ pear with 2 tbsp of sauce) 
Energy: 416 kJ/ 99 cals; Protein 1 g; Fat 2 g (includes less than 1 g saturated fat and 55 mg cholesterol); Carbs 21 g; Fibre 2 g

Easy mango crumble.  
You can use fresh in season or canned or frozen mango cheeks or slices in Catherine Saxelby and Jennene Plummer’s deliciously versatile recipe (from Zest). It also works with other summery fruits and other nuts like pistachios or macadamias. Serves 4–6

100g (3½oz) almond bread or biscotti, roughly crushed
½ cup rolled oats
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp wheatgerm
2 x 400g (14oz) cans mango slices in syrup, drained, (reserve 2 tbsp of the syrup), or 8 frozen or fresh mango cheeks
1 tbsp chopped pistachio nuts
2 tbsp maple syrup low fat vanilla yoghurt and maple syrup to serve

Easy mango crumble

Preheat oven to 180ºC (350ºF).
Combine the crushed almond bread, oats, brown sugar, wheatgerm and the 2 tablespoons of reserved mango syrup in a large mixing bowl.
Cut mango into chunks and arrange in a shallow ovenproof dish. Scatter over the crumble mixture and bake for 20–25 minutes until the topping is crisp and golden. Serve with yoghurt and a drizzle of maple syrup.   

Per serve
Energy 1260 kJ/ 300 cals; 17 g fat (includes 6 saturated fat g); 2.5 g fibre; 7 g protein; 28 g available carbohydrate

Busting Food Myths with Nicole Senior

[NICOLE]
Nicole Senior

Myth: Coffee sobers you up. 
Sorry, the only thing that sobers you up if you have drunk too much alcohol is TIME. It’s not a question of having a cup of strong black coffee to wake you up, nor a cold shower. It’s a question of getting the alcohol out of your body. And that takes time. If you have a large glass (250ml) wine, you need to allow about three hours for your body to break down the alcohol. So imagine how long a night on the town takes …

Man drinking lots of coffee

In fact, there are no hard and fast rules about how long the alcohol will stay in your body—it depends on your age and weight, whether you’re male or female, what sort of metabolism you have, how much food you’ve eaten, the type of alcohol over what period of time, how stressed you are and whether you are on any medication.

Downing a mug of coffee may be the worst thing you can do, according to a Temple University study (in mice) published in Behavioural Neuroscience. In the laboratory, caffeine made ‘drunk’ mice more alert but did not reverse the learning problems caused by alcohol, including their ability to avoid things they should have known could hurt them. The same results have been found in people who combine caffeine-loaded energy drinks with alcohol: the caffeine makes them more alert but their judgment is still impaired by the alcohol. In effect, the caffeine-alcohol combination makes you feel like you can, but actually you can’t: the potential for injury and misadventure is obvious.

The good news is that another study (in rats this time) has shown that a cup of coffee and an aspirin may help with the sore head the next day.

Key info: Coffee may make you feel more alert when you have drunk too much – but it doesn’t help you make better decisions or drive safely. Only time breaks down alcohol in the body.
Hungry for more? See http://rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov and http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-and-you/health.

Nicole Senior is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Nutritionist and author of Food Myths available in bookshops and online and from www.greatideas.net.au

GI Symbol News with Dr Alan Barclay

[ALAN]
Dr Alan Barclay

Put your money where your mouth is 
This is a popular challenge in a variety of situations, but I have rarely heard it in the context of what we actually do put in our mouths. As Dr David Katz points out in Food for Thought ‘We respect how money will affect the quality of our lives, but overlook it with regard to food’.

‘Healthy food costs more’ is a popular tabloid headline along with hard-luck stories such as ‘I can’t afford healthy food’. But healthy food does not cost more. Not if you make the most of the inexpensive, filling and healthy staples that our parents and grandparents enjoyed. This includes naturally low GI foods like traditional oats; legumes such as beans, chickpeas and lentils (dried or canned) and split peas (channa dal), grain foods like barley (pearl), burgul, pasta, noodles and low or lower GI rices; starchy veggies like carrots, potatoes (Carisma and other lower GI varieties), taro, yams, parsnips and sweet corn; fresh green and salad veggies and fruit in season; and dairy foods like milk and yogurt (or the calcium enriched soy alternatives). For frugal low GI food know how, check out websites like food cents and Money Saving Meals (which has recipes packed with low GI ingredients).

And cooking healthy food doesn’t have to take longer. Check out Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals. This man knows how to make the most of a can of beans or a packet of pasta to create meals that will have the family coming back for more and the kids eating their greens. Possibly.

We do appreciate that some healthy low GI foods such as bread can cost a little more than the high GI alternatives. This is because the quality of the ingredients usually needs to be higher in order for the product to have a low GI, and processing techniques may also be different. However, quality really counts when it comes to your daily bread because for many of us, it is the number one source of glycemic carbohydrate in our diet. This is partly because it is such a versatile product – we can eat it for breakfast, use it to make sandwiches for lunch, and serve it with dinner all of which makes choosing a lower GI bread one of the easiest ways of lowering the overall glycemic impact of our diet. I realise for families, it's tempting to take advantage of supermarket price wars that drive prices down on staples like bread, but the cheap white stuff on offer is going to drive those BGLs up, and is not a good long-term investment.

So, invest your hard-earned cash in your health and buy healthy, low GI food and a low GI bread (it will also keep you feeling fuller for longer). In Australia and New Zealand, it is easy to find low GI breads – simply look for those that carry the GI Symbol:
  • Bürgen® Soy-Lin GI 52 
  • Bürgen® Pumpkin Seeds GI51
  • Bürgen® Rye GI53 
  • Bürgen® Fruit & Muesli GI53 
  • Bürgen® Wholemeal Seeds GI39 
  • Bürgen® Wholegrain & Oats GI51 
  • Cripps 9 Grain Sandwich GI53 
  • Tip Top Original 9-grain GI53 
  • Tip Top 9 Grain Wholemeal GI53 
  • Tip Top 9 Grain Mini Loaf Original GI53 
  • Tip Top 9 Grain Pumpkin Seeds GI53 
  • Tip Top 9 Grain 9 Seed GI53 
Burgen breads

If you don't have the GI Symbol to guide you, look for quality breads like authentic sourdoughs, dense grainy breads and pumpernickel or rye bread. 

The GI Symbol, making healthy low GI choices easy choices

New GI Symbol

For more information about the GI Symbol Program
Dr Alan W Barclay, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Glycemic Index Foundation (Ltd)
Phone: +61 (0)2 9785 1037
Mob: +61 (0)416 111 046
Fax: +61 (0)2 9785 1037
Email: alan.barclay@gisymbol.com
Website: www.gisymbol.com

GI Update with Prof Jennie Brand-Miller

Prof Jennie Brand-Miller answers your questions.

Jennie


Nutrition recommendations during lactation.
The energy cost of lactation depends largely on how much milk your baby is drinking. Assuming human milk provides about 3 kilojoules per mL, and that you are producing 1 litre a day, that’s a whopping 3000 kilojoules in the milk itself. But there’s a ‘tax’ in making all this milk, so in fact you need to ingest an extra 3700 kilojoules/day. However, most women have stored some extra fat during pregnancy which they want to lose during the first few months of their baby’s life. Allowing for this, the science suggests you need to get about 2000 extra kilojoules a day – about 20 per cent more than usual. Most women just eat more but some women do less physical activity than usual.

Losing weight: If you entered pregnancy being overweight, then now’s a good time to lose those extra kilos. You should do it slowly. Losses of approximately half a kilogram a week do not seem to affect milk production or your baby’s rate of growth. If you started pregnancy underweight, then make sure you eat three meals a day and are not losing weight. If your appetite is poor, then make an extra effort to eat small, energy dense healthy snacks (for example, nuts and dried fruit) between meals. During lactation, you’ll need an extra 15–20 g of protein a day – that’s relatively easy to obtain in our diet.

Nutrients that may be deficient in your diet while breastfeeding include folate, calcium, and vitamins E, D and B6.
  • Folate: You’ll need about 130 micrograms more folate a day than you did pre-pregnancy. While a supplement is not necessary during lactation, make sure you are eating folate-rich foods – leafy green vegetables being one of the richest sources. 
  • Calcium: There’s about 250–300 mg of calcium in a litre of human milk, equivalent to an extra serving of dairy or equivalent per day. 
  • Vitamin D: Human milk provides small amounts of vitamin D, around 50 micrograms per litre. This is drawn from stores in your liver but these are depleted within eight weeks of birth. As it’s near impossible to obtain sufficient Vitamin D just from food (even with the ideal diet) so you need to expose your skin to brief periods of sunlight at appropriate times of the day. 
If you are struggling to find time to eat, preparing a snack and something to drink (a glass of water) ahead of time, so it is ready when you sit down to feed baby, is a good option. It also makes sure you are refuelling and rehydrating as baby takes his or her nourishment from you.

Top 10 breastfeeding snacks 
  1. Wholegrain toast or raisin toast 
  2. Wholegrain sandwiches 
  3. Glass of milk or soy milk or a fruit smoothie 
  4. Yoghurt 
  5. Dried fruit and nut mix 
  6. Wholegrain crispbreads with cheese or avocado and tomato 
  7. Hummus or tzatziki dip with vegetable crudités 
  8. Muesli or porridge with low-fat milk or soy milk 
  9. Small can of baked beans or four-bean mix 
  10. Roasted chickpeas  
This is an edited extract from my latest book (with Dr Kate Marsh and Prof Robert Moses), The Bump to Baby Low GI Eating Plan for Conception, Pregnancy and Beyond (Hachette Australia). You can visit us HERE.

We are delighted to let GI News readers know that a US edition is on the way. The publisher is Matthew Lore of The Experiment. Matthew has published many of our books in the past and we are very happy to be working with him on this. We will keep you posted re publication details.

The Bump to Baby Low GI Eating Plan for Conception, Pregnancy and Beyond

New GI values from SUGiRS: Nudie coconut water.
Coconut water has long been a popular drink (fresh, canned or bottled) in tropical climes, especially in India, SE Asia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Africa and many Pacific islands. It is simply the watery fluid inside the coconut, so it’s a type of juice (but from a nut not a fruit). Like other juices, it is low GI. Compared with say fresh orange juice, it has similar carbs per serving, more potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium but not as much in the way of vitamin C. SUGiRS recently tested Nudie Coconut Water and here are the (rounded) results:
  • ‘Straight Up’ Nudie Coconut Water (350ml bottle): GI 55, available carbohydrate 18g, fibre 1g, GL 10 
You can check out the nutrition information panel HERE.

GI testing by an accredited laboratory
North America

Dr Alexandra Jenkins
Glycemic Index Laboratories
20 Victoria Street, Suite 300
Toronto, Ontario M5C 298 Canada
Phone +1 416 861 0506
Email info@gilabs.com
Web www.gilabs.com

Australia
Fiona Atkinson
Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences
Sydney University
NSW 2006 Australia
Phone + 61 2 9351 6018
Fax: + 61 2 9351 6022
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web www.glycemicindex.com

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Rabu, 31 Oktober 2012

GI News—November 2012

Banner
  • Bring on the beans; 
  • Gut bacteria and diabetes;  
  • Exploring how gut microbes react to probiotic yogurt;  
  • Nicole Senior investigates the myth that most people can't digest milk;
  • Prof Jennie Brand-Miller on diet and breast milk;
  • Emma Stirling with the scoop on yogurt;
  • Two low GI recipes to enjoy including one from Yotam Ottolenghi's new book: Jerusalem.
‘The 1.5kg (3.3 pounds) of bacteria that we carry in our intestines have an enormous impact on our health and well being. There is growing awareness that these resident microbes contribute to a wide array of critical body functions that can influence almost every aspect of our physiology from hormonal balance to metabolic rate, immune system function and inflammation. In this issue, we look at the growing body of evidence to suggest that disruptions to the normal flora of our GI tract may be implicated in a wide array of gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders including irritable bowel syndrome, obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

Editor
: Philippa Sandall
Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD
Contact email (for questions or permission to reproduce stories from this newsletter): info@gisymbol.com for technical problems or faults please contact smb.ginewstech@sydney.edu.au

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Food for Thought

The gut microbiota – a new piece of the obesity puzzle? 
Our GI (gastrointestinal) tract is home to a diverse collection of bacteria, viruses and archaea, collectively known as the gut microbiota. Patricia Lopez-Legarrea from the University of Navarra, Spain and Nicholas Fuller from The Boden Institute, The University of Sydney bring us up to date on recent research and describe a randomised controlled trial that they are undertaking to compare the effects of three different diets on microbiota composition.

NICHOLAS FULLER
Nicholas Fuller

It is estimated that a healthy adult’s gut consists of at least 100 trillion (10 to the power of 14), bacteria. It’s well known that these bugs are integral to our wellbeing – evolution has aligned our interests. ‘We are not just on friendly terms with our gut bacteria – the relationship is infinitely more intimate than that – we are married to them … we are colonised by bacteria from birth, and potentially in utero,’ writes Katrina Ray in Nature Reviews. ‘Indeed, our mothers play a vital part in providing the first building blocks for the development of our resident microbiota, jump-starting the stepwise colonisation of our intestines and the rest of the human body through skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding. Once the gut microbiota becomes established and stabilised by age 2–3 years, these bacteria have a crucial role in nutrition and health … they have a fundamental role in synthesising vitamins and in helping to breakdown non-digestible products that provide energy to the human body.’

Recent research in humans and animals now suggests that changes to the gut microbiota composition are also related to metabolic disorders such as obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Bacteria

Obesity Back in 2004, Backhed and colleagues observed that normal mice had 42% more adipose (fat) tissue compared with germ-free ones. Subsequently, they transplanted microflora from normal mice to the germ-free mice and observed that the germ-free mice had a 57% increase in their total body fat content in a period of two weeks. In 2005, Ley and colleagues observed interesting differences in the microbiota composition when they compared genetically obese mice to normal-weight mice. The obese mice showed a greater presence of bacteria with a higher expression of enzymes related to energy extraction, bowel fermentation and to the reduction in stool residual calories. In subsequent work, they transplanted the microbiota from obese mice to normal-weight mice and found that they developed obesity within two weeks. Translating the findings of these animal studies to people is now an important area of research.

Metabolic syndrome Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified 26 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiota that appear to be linked to obesity and related metabolic complications. These include insulin resistance, high blood glucose levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as the metabolic syndrome, which significantly increases an individual's risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. The results of the study were published in PLOS ONE. ‘We identified 26 species of bacteria that were correlated with obesity and metabolic syndrome traits such as body mass index (BMI), triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose levels and C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation,’ says the senior author, Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology and director of the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. ‘We can’t infer cause and effect, but it’s an important step forward that we’re starting to identify bacteria that are correlated with clinical parameters, which suggests that the gut microbiota could one day be targeted with medication, diet or lifestyle changes.’

What next? Dietary intake is considered one of the main factors that modify the number and variety of our gut bacteria. In this context, we and other researchers from The Boden Institute at the University of Sydney are currently carrying out a 12-month, randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effects of three energy-restricted diets (500 calorie (2100kJ) per day deficit) on the composition of gut microbiota. The diets are:
  • Low fat/lower GI (less than GI 55)
  • High protein/moderate GI (protein 25% total energy)
  • Mediterranean/moderate GI (omega-3 consumption greater than 1.3g). 
Our study consists of a 6-month intervention period with one of the three diets, followed by a 6-month weight maintenance period with visits at 9 and 12 months. We will collect blood and stool samples to perform the corresponding analyses. It is hoped that the findings will both help to pinpoint those people who will respond to dietary treatment and will optimise dietary strategies. We will be reporting our findings in about a year’s time, so watch this space.