Fiber is the Future

I don’t eat a lot of bread, but when I do, you can bet it’s good bread!

Recently, when searching for my old standby Ezekiel in the bread aisle, I was pleasantly sidetracked by a similarly impressive brand, Eureka! bread.

Eureka Bakery touts its products as “organic bread worth its weight in gold”. This stuff is definitely heavy, but it’s worth every last calorie!

I sampled the SAAA-WHEAT flavor, whose enticing packaging promised me, “the perfect wheat bread! Chewy and full of flavor with just the right amount of crunch” guaranteeing when you eat it, you’ll say, “SAAA-WHEAT”!

One slice of SAAA-WHEAT has:

• 130 calories
• 3 g fat
• 170 mg sodium
• 23 g carbohydrate
• 3 g dietary fiber
• 5 g protein

The ingredient list reflects the hearty amount of grains and kernels, including: organic whole wheat flour, water, organic cracked wheat, organic wheat flour, organic cane sugar, organic sunflower kernels, organic wheat gluten, organic oat fiber, yeast, organic canola oil, organic blue cornmeal, organic flaxmeal, organic sunflower seeds, organic molasses, sea salt, cultured organic wheat flour, organic oats, organic black sesame seeds, organic white sesame seeds, organic vinegar, calcium sulfate.

To be honest, that’s a mouthful for an ingredient list – but the majority of those ingredients are sprinkled on top of the hearty bread. The bread itself is made of what bread should be: flour, sugar, yeast, and a little fat.

My current obsession with this bread peaks around lunchtime. California avocados are in peak season now, and nothing is better than a brie-avocado panini made with this great bread…a truly SAAA-WHEAT experience!

Panda Express announced that starting this week, all 1,500 locations will now serve their fried rice made with brown rice instead of white rice.

Big deal: fried rice is still fried, even if it’s brown.

With a nod to whole grains, the marketing folks behind the aging chain’s “Bright and Fresh” restaurant makeover hope to entice more health-conscious eaters.

Panda’s new fried brown rice has 470 calories, 19 grams fat, and 3 grams fiber per serving. Compare that to its steamed brown rice (a bigger portion) that clocks in at 420 calories, 0 g fat, and 4 grams fiber.

While the steamed brown rice is a better option than the fried, its 87 grams carbohydrate for 4 grams fiber doesn’t meet the new Harvard “10:1″ ratio for choosing whole grains: for every 10 grams of carbohydrate, aim for at least 1 gram of fiber.

Your best bet is to split the steamed brown rice, and load up on veggies.

If you’re counting calories and still eating at Panda Express, look for their WOK SMART entrees which are 250 calories or less per single serving.

The WOK SMART portion sizes are small, and they’re high in sodium, but at least they’re not full of fried whole grains!

April 16 is the Day of the Mushroom – a day set aside to celebrate the unique properties of this piece of produce.

Mushrooms are a type of vegetable, but some of their texture and nutritional properties align more closely with meats and grains.

Generally speaking, mushrooms are low in calories, they are fat-free and have no sodium. Mushrooms provide selenium, potassium, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin D.

A serving size of 5 mushrooms provides:

• 20 calories
• 0 g fat
• 0 mg sodium
• 3 g carbohydrate
• 1.5 g dietary fiber
• 3 g protein

You might notice that relative to total calorie contribution, the protein and fiber content of mushrooms is pretty impressive.

On top of their nutrition profile, vegetarians embrace mushrooms for their meat-free, yet oddly meat-like texture.

A medium-sized grilled portobello mushroom checks in at 40 calories, 3 grams fiber and 5 grams protein. Not bad considering a hamburger sets you back with about 5 times more calories, plus all that saturated fat without any fiber (albeit more protein).

If you’re going to grill tonight, why not check out portobello mushrooms as a meat alternative? Here’s a quick-and-easy grilled portobello mushroom burger recipe from the Mayo Clinic Diet Cookbook:

Ingredients (makes 4 burgers)

• 4 large portobello mushroom caps, 5 inches in diameter
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 whole-wheat buns, toasted
• 4 slices tomato
• 4 slices red onion
• 2 bibb lettuce leaves, halved

Directions

• Clean mushrooms with a damp cloth and remove their stems. Place in a glass dish, stem (gill) side up.
• To prepare the marinade, in a small bowl whisk together the vinegar, water, sugar, garlic, cayenne pepper and olive oil. Drizzle the marinade over the mushrooms. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for about 1 hour, turning mushrooms once.
• Prepare a hot fire in a charcoal grill or heat a gas grill or broiler. Away from the heat source, lightly coat the grill rack or broiler pan with cooking spray. Position the cooking rack 4 to 6 inches from the heat source.
• Grill or broil the mushrooms on medium heat, turning often, until tender, about 5 minutes on each side. Baste with marinade to keep from drying out. Using tongs, transfer the mushrooms to a plate.
• Place each mushroom on a bun and top with 1 tomato slice, 1 onion slice and 1/2 lettuce leaf. Serve immediately.

Nutrition Analysis (per burger)

• 283 calories
• 9 g fat
• 1 g saturated fat
• 140 mg sodium
• 46 g carbohydrate
• 9 g dietary fiber
• 8 g protein

Nutritionists love chickpeas – also called garbanzo beans – for their high fiber and even higher protein content.

But the form in which most people purchase chickpeas, canned, leaves you with less-than-desirable levels of sodium.

So how do you get the goodness of chickpeas without the salt? Try out the dried out version.

I recently picked up a pound of dried Bartolini umbrian chickpeas from the iconic Molinari Deli located in the heart of San Francisco’s Italian North Beach neighborhood. These beans are smaller, more delicate versions of what you find canned, but their flavor is intense, and slightly nutty.

Dried chickpeas are legumes, and as such, nutrition powerhouses. A 1/4 cup dry chickpeas serving (cooks up to 1/2 cup) provides:

• 160 calories
• 3 g fat
• 23 g carbohydrate
• 7 g dietary fiber
• 10 g protein

And all of that for just 5 mg sodium! Compare that to canned garbanzo beans which can have upwards of 500 m per 1/2 cup serving.

So with your dried chickpeas on board, what do you do with them?

Here are three ways I recently cooked dried chickpeas – all of which yielded fantastic results as far as texture and taste go. For each cooking method, I did rinse and soak the chickpeas in water overnight for at least 8 hours prior to cooking.

Baked Dried Chickpeas

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
• Add 2 cups of dried chickpeas and 6 cups of water in a Dutch oven
• Bake for 1.5 hours

Slow Cooker Dried Chickpeas

• Add 2 cups of dried chickpeas and 6 cups of water in slow cooker
• Cook on high for 2-3 hours or low for 3-4 hours

Pressure Cooker Dried Chickpeas

• Add 2 cups of dried chickpeas and 6 cups of water in pressure cooker
• Bring to high heat/pressure and cook for 15 minutes
• Allow pressure to come down naturally, about 10 minutes, open and taste

No matter how you like your dried chickpeas cooked, there’s no denying that these are an outstanding alternative to canned beans.

And what to do with those chickpeas once they’re cooked? A future post will tell!

The watermelon radish – also called Rooseheart and Red Meat, as well as its given Chinese name Shinrimei – is a type of heirloom Chinese Daikon radish.

The spherical root is white and fleshy on the outside, and explodes with red and pink hues on the inside. About the size of a tennis ball, watermelon radishes are more mild than traditional radishes, can be served raw or cooked, and make outstanding additions to salads, soups, and entrees.

A medium-sized oriental radish of this type provides 60 calories and 5 grams dietary fiber.

For some great recipes utilizing this versatile and beautiful root vegetable, check out the Specialty Produce page on watermelon radishes.