Food Exchanges Made Easy

Judging by the number of e-mails we get each week, one would think there's something terribly complicated about food exchanges. Not so, actually. Developed back in 1950 as a way to make meal planning easier for people with diabetes, the food exchange system now merely categorizes foods into three main groups:
  • Carbohydrates
  • Protein (Meat) and Protein (Eggs, Cheese, Soy, etc.) Substitutes
  • Fats
The Carbohydrate group is further broken down into bread/starch, fruit, milk, other carbohydrate (sugar and sweets), and vegetables. When a meal plan says 2 1/2 carbohydrate (1 bread/starch, 1 fruit, 1/2 milk), it means that many servings for those kinds of carbohydrate. You will need to refer to a food exchange list for the exact measurement of the food-they are posted in most every diabetic cookbook-or refer to the diabetic exchanges listed at the end of each recipe.

For example, for those 2 1/2 carbohydrate exchanges, you might choose 1 slice of bread, 1 medium fresh peach, and 1/2 cup of skim milk. You could have chosen to have 1/2 cup of cooked pasta, 1 cup of cubed melon, and 1/2 cup of nonfat yogurt. Generally speaking, 1 carbohydrate exchange (bread/starch, fruit, and milk) provides 12 to 15 grams of carbohydrate. Since a serving of vegetables only has 5 grams of carbohydrate, it takes 3 vegetables to equal 1 carbohydrate exchange.

The Protein group is broken down into very low-fat protein, low-fat protein, medium-fat protein, and high-fat protein. A protein exchanges provides 7 grams of protein and varying amounts of fat. Again look to a food exchange list or the exchanges listed at the end of each diabetic recipes for the amount of each serving.

The Fat group is divided into monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats. One fat exchange provides 5 grams of fat and 45 calories. You'll be surprised at how quickly your fat exchanges will be used-1 exchange only means 1 teaspoon oil, butter, stick margarine, or mayonnaise. For the same fat exchange, you could choose 1 tablespoon of reduced fat margarine or mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon salad dressing, 1 tablespoon cream cheese, 8 large black olives, or 1 slice of bacon.

Even if you are only counting carbs, it still makes sense to familiarize yourself with the serving size of different foods that make up 1 exchange so you'll know how much to eat to get 15 grams of carbohydrates. Once you've done it for a while, you'll find you no longer need your list-when you look at a baked potato or a serving of cooked rice, you'll know just how many exchanges that will use. You'll find an earlier article in 'cooking tips' on estimating portion sizes to be helpful. If you didn't read and print it, now would be a good time to do so.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Start Your Healthy Eating

Before you can really get started on your healthy eating you first have to evaluate what you eat now. You need to educate yourself about the different types of food and their benefits. Healthy eating requires a balance of different food groups. Eating three healthy, moderate meals per day which cover a variety of different food types is what you need to aim for.

Be aware not to eat too much or too little. Everyone needs to feed the brain and body on a regular basis with enough food to keep strong and healthy. As you practice being a healthy eater you will become more aware of what you eat and how it affects you.

Although eating is a basic requirement for life, learning to be a healthy eater requires a level of discipline to achieve success. What you eat will affect every area of your life. Make sure to eat sufficient foods of different types and not to restrict yourself too much as this will have a detrimental effect on your health. Crash diets, or any plan that focuses too much on one particular food group are definitely not the way to eat healthily.

Healthy eating is a lifestyle choice that can only improve your life and this will also be of benefit to the other members of your family. Like most things, getting started is always the hardest part but you will soon see and feel the benefits as you practice and learn. Life and food are for two things to be enjoyed.

For a more detailed plan on healthy eating

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Food Allergy and Symptom

Among the allergies rampant in American lives today, food allergy is one of the top three. However, some people misdiagnose food allergy as food intolerance.

An allergy to food is when you have an adverse physical reaction to a food item after eating it. The most common food allergy is a Peanut Allergy, which affects from 1% - 1.5% of the population. It is also possible to outgrow a food allergy over time, however with a peanut allergy, this is rather unlikely.

Before we go any further let's define exactly what a food allergy is. Food allergies can be broken down into 2 categories. The second category is food intolerance. This is actually caused by the food itself and is not a function of the immune system itself overreacting to the food or food additive. What actually happens with food allergies is that people with allergies produce IgE antibodies to specific epitopes in the food allergen. Allergic reactions to food can be fatal almost immediately following the ingestion of food.

Probably one of the most prevalent and dangerous of these food allergies are people who are allergic to peanuts. Less severe reactions to food allergies are oropharyngeal pruritus, angioedema, stridor, cough, dyspnea, wheezing, and dysphonia.

Symptoms Of Food Allergy

Food allergy is an allergic reaction to certain types of food. Aside for the similarities in symptoms, a food allergy is more severe than food intolerance.Someone with food intolerance can eat small portions of the food he is allergic to.

A food allergy can be treated as soon as the symptom occurs. Unfortunately the best way to avoid food allergies is to have a food allergy test done and then to avoid the foods that show positive on the test. As of now, a shot of epinephrine is the most effective treatment for food allergy and other types of allergies.

Although food allergies cannot be prevented, the best way to defeat it is by staying away from the food a person is allergic to. Making the right diagnosis on food allergy versus food intolerance can be tricky.Welcome to the world of food allergies and intolerances.

A Child Can Outgrow Food Allergy

Food allergies affect an increasing number of children, with peanut allergies being the most prevalent, (to date an estimated 1-2% of children suffering from the possibly life threatening allergic reaction).

So it offers some measure of hope, to parents of food allergic children, to know that around 1 in 5 children eventually go on to outgrow their food allergy. Children and adult allergies follow different patterns. A food allergy in your child is most likely to come from milk, eggs and peanuts. A food allergy in your child may be prevented by avoiding high-risk foods.

Helmy Wahyudi is the owner of 1st-in-allergy-symptom.com free resources on Allergy Treatment, Food Allergy, Allergy Asthma and Symptom.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Tips on Finding the Best Food To Eat In Singapore

Singapore is a multiracial country. Because of this, there are a wide variety of food in Singapore. Food is an important part of the travel packages provided by travel agents. Besides authentic Malay cuisine, there is also Chinese cuisine, Indian cuisine, Peranakan cuisine. All these cuisines can be found in Singapore’s wide range of hawker stalls, coffee shops as well as restaurants. Eating is a national pastime for the people in Singapore. Singapore is a small country yet the people’s quest for good food is unbeatable. Travel agents does not necessarily bring you to the place with the nicest food. So how do we find the nicest food?

The nicest and cheapest food can be found in the hawker centre. The stall with the longest queue is usually the one with the nicest food. Singapore also have a lot of programmes focused on finding the good food in Singapore. We can look out for labels or stickers on the stalls as these programmes usually distribute stickers to the stalls with the nice food.

To further promote the food culture in Singapore, there are seemingly endless food promotions and tours. There is an annual Singapore Food Festival in July. This food festival attracts people from all over the world because some of the best food can be found at the Food Festival. Some of the stalls even hold displays on how the preparation process of the food. Besides the Singapore Food Festival, there are other food fairs held throughout the year. For example, during important festivals like Chinese New Year, there will be food fairs all over Singapore selling New Year goodies. During the traditional Mooncake Festival, food fairs selling mooncake will be all over the place.

Another tip to find good food is to search the internet. There are a lot of food blogs online. Besides the food blogs, there are also a lot of sites on the internet dedicated to good food. Some of the travel agent sites even have voting system for the people to vote on the best food. Internet may not be the most reliable source to find good food but it is a good place to try.

Ying yin is a travel addict who loves to see the world.She travels at least four times a year. She likes to travel on a free and easy package, therefore she do most of the planning for her travel herself. To know more, go to http://www.getcheapholidays.com


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Diabetes: Making the Most of Food-Exchanges

The food-exchange system looks beyond carbohydrates at the diet as a whole, and organizes foods into several groups--generally breads and starches, fruits, vegetables, milk, meat and protein-based substitutes, fats, and other carbohydrates like sweets. While food exchanges are designed for people with diabetes, many nutritionists find them valuable for anyone trying to control calories, reduce fat, and eat a balanced diet.

The idea behind the exchange system is that every item within a given category is nutritionally equivalent to every other item on that same list--providing roughly the same amount of carbohydrate, fat, protein, and calories. Using the portion sizes laid out on the lists is important for making the system work. But the big advantage is that--as with carbohydrate counting--you have a lot of flexibility in choosing foods within each category, as long as they add up to the nutritional budget allowed in your meal plan. Fortunately, portion sizes for many of the groups tend to be similar, which helps give you an intuitive grasp of how much you should eat.

  • One bread/starch exchange, for example, is usually measured in slices or half cups (as are many vegetable exchanges).
  • One meat exchange is generally about one ounce--much smaller, by the way, than the two to three ounces that constitute a serving in the familiar USDA food pyramid.

Like the food pyramid, the exchange system strives to give you a range of nutrients from a variety of foods, but it does so with greater precision. Still, using the exchange system requires guidance. Your dietitian can help you figure out how many exchanges from each group you should eat.

The groupings themselves may take some getting used to because they're organized by calorie and nutrient content rather than source. Cheeses, for instance, are listed with meats rather than milk because their protein and fat makeup are more similar. Corn, green peas, and potatoes appear with starches rather than vegetables because of their high carbohydrate content. Once you're familiar with the system, however, its combination of flexibility and consistency can help you keep blood sugar down while providing enough nutrients.

A dietician can help you create a food-exchange system that suits your needs.


Food Exchanges Made Easy

Judging by the number of e-mails we get each week, one would think there's something terribly complicated about food exchanges. Not so, actually. Developed back in 1950 as a way to make meal planning easier for people with diabetes, the food exchange system now merely categorizes foods into three main groups:
  • Carbohydrates
  • Protein (Meat) and Protein (Eggs, Cheese, Soy, etc.) Substitutes
  • Fats
The Carbohydrate group is further broken down into bread/starch, fruit, milk, other carbohydrate (sugar and sweets), and vegetables. When a meal plan says 2 1/2 carbohydrate (1 bread/starch, 1 fruit, 1/2 milk), it means that many servings for those kinds of carbohydrate. You will need to refer to a food exchange list for the exact measurement of the food-they are posted in most every diabetic cookbook-or refer to the diabetic exchanges listed at the end of each recipe.

For example, for those 2 1/2 carbohydrate exchanges, you might choose 1 slice of bread, 1 medium fresh peach, and 1/2 cup of skim milk. You could have chosen to have 1/2 cup of cooked pasta, 1 cup of cubed melon, and 1/2 cup of nonfat yogurt. Generally speaking, 1 carbohydrate exchange (bread/starch, fruit, and milk) provides 12 to 15 grams of carbohydrate. Since a serving of vegetables only has 5 grams of carbohydrate, it takes 3 vegetables to equal 1 carbohydrate exchange.

The Protein group is broken down into very low-fat protein, low-fat protein, medium-fat protein, and high-fat protein. A protein exchanges provides 7 grams of protein and varying amounts of fat. Again look to a food exchange list or the exchanges listed at the end of each diabetic recipes for the amount of each serving.

The Fat group is divided into monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats. One fat exchange provides 5 grams of fat and 45 calories. You'll be surprised at how quickly your fat exchanges will be used-1 exchange only means 1 teaspoon oil, butter, stick margarine, or mayonnaise. For the same fat exchange, you could choose 1 tablespoon of reduced fat margarine or mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon salad dressing, 1 tablespoon cream cheese, 8 large black olives, or 1 slice of bacon.

Even if you are only counting carbs, it still makes sense to familiarize yourself with the serving size of different foods that make up 1 exchange so you'll know how much to eat to get 15 grams of carbohydrates. Once you've done it for a while, you'll find you no longer need your list-when you look at a baked potato or a serving of cooked rice, you'll know just how many exchanges that will use. You'll find an earlier article in 'cooking tips' on estimating portion sizes to be helpful. If you didn't read and print it, now would be a good time to do so.