Calcium: A Core Secret of Good Health

Hello Everyone,

As you’re likely aware that in the human body if there is one thing that almost every tissue and organ use then calcium has to be it.  I remember how my teachers in school kept emphasizing the importance of dairy products for the overall health and growth.  Being a kid, I actually never realized why they kept saying that over and over again.  Not until I found myself learning about it in my science and especially in my dietetic classes.

Calcium is absolutely an essential mineral that is required by our body for a variety of its important functions.  Not only it helps in maintaining teeth, joints, and bones strong and healthy, but it goes beyond that.  This mineral involved in building nails, maintaining healthy blood vessels, keeping the heart healthy, proper functioning of muscles to move and nerves to carry messages between the brain and every part of the body.  In addition, calcium plays a vital role in the secretion of hormones and enzymes that are essential for the human body to function efficiently.

Although calcium is widely distributed in the soft tissues in the body, it is primarily found in the bones and teeth.  About 99 percent of the calcium in the body is deposited in the bones and teeth, and the remaining 1 percent is found in soft tissues.  Calcium is one of the minerals that are not produced by our bodies.  Thus, it is important to include this mineral in our diet.  When our food intake fails to meet our body's calcium requirements, the body extracts the calcium from our bones, and if this occurs over a period of time then it leads to weakness of the teeth; osteopenia, weakness of the bones and eventually osteoporosis.  Nonetheless, calcium deficiency (a condition resulting from inadequate amounts of calcium in the body) can also cause several other health problems, including hypocalcemia, muscle cramps, confusion, memory disorder etc.

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You must have noticed that many people nowadays complain of having brittle nails and bones, muscle cramps, joint pain, etc., haven’t you?  Well, this is just because people do not make a conscious effort to include calcium-rich foods in their meals.  In today’s world, people are so busy with their hectic lifestyles that they don’t even have time to look at their health.  Unfortunately, almost we all mostly eat whatever is available to us and hence, the calcium in our diet gets diminished.  Therefore, it is of utmost importance for us to include a certain amount of calcium in our routine diet.  But it is not just enough to have calcium in our diet because our body cannot absorb calcium alone properly.  It needs vitamin D along with it.  Vitamin D ensures that our body absorbs calcium effectively.  Daily ingestion and proper absorption of calcium, as part of a balanced diet, are essential for maintaining optimal health.  So it is imperative that, along with calcium, your diet must also include foods that are rich in vitamin D too.

However, it is essential to maintain the right amount of calcium in your diet as an excess of calcium can also be harmful.  It may cause dry mouth, nausea, kidney stones, soft tissue calcification, and even heart strokes.

So let’s dive into the foods that are rich in calcium.

You're probably already familiar with the most well-known calcium contenders, i.e. dairy products, but they aren’t the only sources.  There are a number of choices beyond dairy products.  Getting your calcium intake from foods that are rich in calcium may be the most beneficial way to do it.  Indeed, meat and chicken are also great sources of calcium, but there are other sources too.  Calcium can be derived from certain green and leafy vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, ladies’ fingers (okra), and spinach; legumes like beans and peas, fruits, oranges, nuts, and some seafood like salmon, perch, and rainbow trout.  Breakfast foods, cereals, breads, snacks, soymilk and other fortified products also contain added calcium.

If you find it difficult to remember these foods all the time, then there is a simple and easy way to add calcium to many food recipes, and that is to add a tablespoon of nonfat powdered milk, which contains about 50 mg of calcium.  One can add about 2-4 tablespoons to most food preparations.

And when it comes to vitamin D, the well-known source from which we can get it is sunlight.  Vitamin D is found in very few foods, which include fatty fish like salmon and tuna; egg yolks, milk and other dairy products, orange juice, soymilk, and fortified cereals.

For certain people, dietary supplementation may also be necessary to get adequate calcium and/or Vitamin D, following a discussion with their physician.

So when there are plenty of sources to help you keep your calcium level up, then there is simply no reason to let it dip too low.  No matter how you get it, taking in enough calcium is necessary for a strong and healthy body.

Stay Blessed, Be Happy...!! :-)

Preeti

Influence of Cooking on Nutrients

All the foodstuffs we eat, except fruit and vegetable salads, require some sort of cooking or processing as they cannot be consumed in raw form.  Cooking is a culinary art form that makes the foodstuffs more palatable.  Along with that, cooking also makes the food easily digestible.  However, eating nutritious foods improves your health and energy levels.  But, the way food is cooked has a significant effect on the amount of nutrients in it.  Cooking influences the nutrients in the food items and some of them results in destruction.  Nutrients loss can be induced by several factors such as temperature, cooking time, and cooking method.

Proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals are an essential part of our diet and nutrition.  On the other hand, carbohydrate, however, is not essential but is important for our body.  So, let’s see what happens to them when they undergo the cooking process.

Influences of Cooking on Protein:

On cooking, proteins in food items become hard and coagulate meaning they become firm.  You must have noticed the changes that occur when frying an egg.  The liquid turns solid on heating.  Isn’t it?  Yes, that process is known as coagulation.  Nonetheless, milk protein is unlike any other protein; this is an exceptional case because it does not coagulate.

Proteins are not lost as easily as vitamins and minerals during cooking, but it shrinks and hardens on overcooking, and this makes them indigestible, thus it is important to cook proteins to the right extent.  Overly heated food also affects the nutritive values of proteins.  Overcooking foodstuffs that contain protein can destroy heat-sensitive amino acids, for example, lysine; or make the protein more resistant to digestive enzymes.

Some pulses such as Bengal gram and soybean contain certain substances that inhibit the protein digestion of these foods by the enzyme trypsin (present in our intestines).  During the process of cooking, these trypsin inhibitors are destroyed.  Therefore, it becomes important not to consume these foods raw.  In fact, in several foodstuffs, the digestibility of protein improves as a result of moderate heating as in everyday cooking.

Influences of Cooking on Carbohydrate:

Carbohydrates are not essential but are important nutrients.  They come in a complex (starches and fibers) and in simple (sugars) forms.  When carbohydrates in food items are cooked, there are possibly two changes that occur i.e. gelatinization and caramelization.

Gelatinization is a process when the starch granules in foods absorb water and swell.  This process tends to thicken the soups, curries, stews to which refined flour (maida) paste is added.  It also helps in making chapattis/rotis or in the toasting of bread.  When you add certain carbohydrate food items like flour to liquids, the heat gelatinizes the carbohydrates.  Gelatinization takes place in all the starch-containing food items.

Sugar completely behaves differently.  When table sugar is heated, it forms a syrup and on further cooking, the syrup thickens and changes its color.  This is due to a process called caramelization.  The brown, thick liquid formed is known as caramel which is used in various preparations, for example, cakes and custard.  Normal cooking causes little loss of carbohydrates.

Influences of Cooking on Fats and Oils:

Our bodies need small amounts of 'good fat' to function and to be healthy.  Our usual cooking practices do not affect fats and oils in a substantial way, similarly to carbohydrates, and they are easily available to the body.

Fats and oils both are lipids.  Fats that are solid at room temperature are called as fats whereas fats which are liquids at room temperature are referred to as oils.  The temperature plays a vital role.  One should make sure not to heat fats and oils beyond its smoking point (a smoking/smoke point is the temperature at which fat/oils starts to burn and degrade) and should avoid repeated re-heating of fats because fats get broken down to form certain harmful substances when they are used repeatedly for frying.

Influences of Cooking on Vitamins and Minerals:

Vitamin and mineral loss can also be induced by various factors.  Some vitamins are fairly heat-stable, while others are heat-labile.  The factors other than heat that can destroy (some) vitamins are solubility in water, solubility in fat, exposure to air i.e oxidation, alkaline solutions, exposure to light (UV), storage losses, etc.

The water-soluble vitamins and minerals which are vitamin c, b complex vitamins (thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, biotin, folic acid etc), sodium, potassium, and chloride will be substantially lost if the liquid/water which is used for soaking, washing, and cooking is drained away.  So, throwing away the excessive cooking water also means throwing away the nutrients.  Hence, it is important to use the minimum amount of water or to utilize the liquid used for cooking.

Steaming, pressure cooking, boiling roots, and tubes with their skins limit cooking losses.  This secures the nutrients.  Cutting and peeling affect the amount of losses.  Cooking does not reduce the amounts of most of the minerals in food items which includes calcium, magnesium, sodium, copper, iron, zinc, phosphorus, iodine, manganese, chromium, and selenium.

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There are some vitamins which are heat labile.  These are vitamin c, thiamine, vitamin B 12, and folate, they are easily destroyed on excess heating.  The vitamin C is easily oxidized on exposure to air.  Vitamin A is also prone to oxidization.  These oxidized forms are of no use to the body.  Therefore, one should make sure not to peel vegetables or fruits much before use and should not cut them into small sized pieces because each piece will come in contact with air, get oxidized therefore destroying the vitamins.

Many people add sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) when cooking pulses.  You must be aware that adding soda to the pot fasten cooking process, making cooking easier, but do you know that it also knocks out the thiamine and riboflavin?  Yes, this is absolutely true that thiamine and riboflavin are easily destroyed in the presence of soda which is alkaline.  On the other hand, an acidic medium (for e.g. tomatoes, tamarind) preserves vitamins.

On a different note, fat-soluble vitamins are a class apart.  They are not influenced to any great amount by cooking in water.  Although, during roasting or shallow frying vitamin A is lost in significant amounts.  In deep frying cooking time is short and losses tend to be less.

You can preserve vitamins in foods by utilizing your foods when they are fresh, using steaming in preference to boiling, and by avoiding excessively long cooking times.

Enhancing The Nutritional Value Of Foods

Sometimes we don't see the forest for the trees.  And the nutrition field is no exception to this.  When it comes to healthy eating, you know how important it is to eat well-balanced meals and foods high in nutrients values.  With increasing world population and limited food resources, it’s really important for you to get maximum nutritional value out of every bit of food you buy.  And you can achieve this by improving the nutritive quality of foods by preventing or reducing the loss of nutrients in food preparations and by avoiding wastage of food.  By enhancing the nutritional values in food, you can meet the nutritional requirements of the body and can prevent deficiency diseases in the body.

So, how can you do that?  There are a few ways to get the maximum nutritional values from your foods and that are germination, fermentation, food synergy, and food fortification.  You might be already familiar with these terms, let’s talk about how you can enhance the nutrients present in a food by each of these methods.

Germination:

Germination, also known as sprouting, is an effective traditional, non-thermal process that enhances the nutritional values of cereals and legumes/pulses by increasing nutrient digestibility, minimizing the activities or levels of antinutritional substances, reducing the gluten contents, improving the contents of free amino acids and available carbohydrate, and boosting the functional properties.

The foods that can be germinated are all seeds which can be eaten raw, steamed or cooked completely.  Many kinds of seeds such as grains, beans, and grasses are used for sprouting.  As you know, the process of sprouting involves soaking the grain or pulse in water and then wrapping them in a damp paper towel or cloth.  In two or three days the grains germinate and the sprout grows.  The time and water which each pulse or grain needs for soaking and sprouting is different.  Normally 8-12 hours are needed for soaking and one to two days for sprouting.

A number of health and nutritional benefits can be obtained from this process which includes high levels of dietary fibers, proteins, B complex vitamins, and vitamin c.  Dry grains and pulses usually do not contain vitamin C, but when they are allowed to germinate, vitamin c is formed in the grain and in the growing sprout.  Sprouts are more nutritious than its older counterparts of itself i.e. the seeds.  Due to the significant outcome of germination, sprouted pulses and grains are extensively accepted as functional foods.  This is one of the best ways to extract the maximum nutrients from a food item at no additional cost.  Sprouts are really a living food and are the genuine stars of the vegetable world.

Fermentation:

Natural fermentation in food takes place when environmental situations permit interaction between microorganisms and the food substance.  The process of fermentation stimulates the multiplication of specific microorganisms, which are beneficial to our body, and their metabolic activity in food.  Fermentation breaks down the indigestible compounds into smaller parts, making the structures more pervious to the cooking water as well as to our digestive juices.

Fermented foods are often more nutrient-rich than the unfermented versions of themselves because the microorganisms not only break-down more complex compounds, but they also synthesize various complex vitamins such as vitamin c, vitamin b12, and riboflavin.  Along with that, fermented foods also help in keeping our guts optimally healthy as it contains beneficial probiotics.  Fermented foods, especially dairy foods, contain specific strains of bacteria that stimulate the health of your digestive tract.

A wide range of fermented food products is made use of by people of different countries all around the world.  Some of them are yogurt, curds, butter, buttermilk, pickles, cheese, cream cheese, coffee beans, idli, and dhokla, all these are made with the help of lactic acid bacteria; dosa (an Indian food) which is made by bacteria alone or in combination with yeasts; vinegar which is made by bacteria producing acetic acid; cocoa which is made by yeast along with acetic acid producing bacteria.

As we need a healthy balance of microorganisms in our bodies, fermented foods are just excellent.  So, include a variety of your favorite fermented foods in your diet to get the maximum nutrients from a food and to keep your guts healthy.

Food Synergy:

Sometimes we get so focused on the health benefits of a specific phytochemical or vitamin that we often miss that “different elements in a single food can work together to benefit our health, and so can elements in different foods that are eaten together.”  The pairing of foods from different food groups is the easiest way of getting all nutrients.  Food synergy is the concept that involves combining of foods together to increase their health effects and these healthy foods pairings help our body maximize its nutrient intake.

For good health, it's really very important to eat a variety of foods.  So if you want to make your meal healthier, try eating whole grains, legumes, nuts, vegetables, and fruit; these are the great examples of foods in the natural form that are rich in a combination of important minerals, vitamins, proteins, fiber, antioxidants, and more.  Some of the Indian traditional dishes like khichadi, rice-dal, dal-roti/chapati, puran-poli, appe, idli-sambhar, upma-sambhar, tamarind rice, are a few examples of such nutritionally beneficial foods combinations.  The combination of a variety of foods ensures a better availability of nutrients and it is another best way to enhance maximum nutrients from a food.

Food Fortification:

Food fortification, also known as food enrichment, is a method to add nutrients to a particular food item at higher levels than what the original food provides.  Nutrients selected to be fortified are those that are probably to run into short supply because of either dietary habits or prejudices, or due to the lack of ability of the people to buy foods that contain them, or because the foods that are assumed to contain them do not do so in a certain area.  Other criteria for selection are to be able to mix a nutrient with a food item without affecting its acceptability, and the all in all cost of such fortification.  Food items chosen for fortification are those that are consumed by the widest cross-section of the community.  Common examples of fortification include adding iron and/or zinc to wheat flour, iodine in common salt, vitamins A and D in hydrogenated fats, vitamin C to fruit drinks and so on.

The nutritional qualities of food are almost always altered by the type of processing it undergoes and you can indeed expect to see dramatic changes in your overall health by introducing these processes of food enhancing into your daily meal plan.  So, if you’ve already been doing these things, it’s great.  If not, then include these methods to enhance the nutritive values of your meal and make your meal even healthier.

Stay Blessed, Be Happy...!! :-)

Preeti