need help with diet

IncredibleHulk

Can anyone reccommend a book on nutrition or whatever the science of foodstuff is called. I want to discover things like below as I am having trouble shopping.

How can I have chicken. Is all frozen food chicken out? Saw one in Tesco today that was high in protein.

My diet sheet says museli with low fat milk for breakfast. I already had been eating museli so just changed milk. What high in protein can I add
Is any fat bad am I seeking low fat or no fat same with carbohydrate
For a tuna sandwich what sort of bread .My diet says only grainy brown, what does that mean. And what sort of nuts are high in protein?

Is diet coke OK? I like Coke.And what about the Tesco version of red bull has 5 cals and trace fat etc

I am no good with these thing and appreciate poibter to learn especialy a book recomended which covers the above

tribulus

You should really read the stickies, they'll help you out a lot.

Some saturated fat = good (dairy, red meat etc)
Plenty Unsaturated fat = good (nuts, oils, some fish))
Some good quality carbs = good (green veg, wholegrain versions, e.g brown rice)
Lean Protein = good (chicken, turkey, tuna)

Watch your carbs, plenty of healthy oils, protein in every meal, plenty of water.

Seriously read through the nutrition sticky it will answer a lot of the Q's.

IncredibleHulk

tribulus wrote:

You should really read the stickies, they'll help you out a lot.

Some saturated fat = good (dairy, red meat etc)
Plenty Unsaturated fat = good (nuts, oils, some fish))
Some good quality carbs = good (green veg, wholegrain versions, e.g brown rice)
Lean Protein = good (chicken, turkey, tuna)

Watch your carbs, plenty of healthy oils, protein in every meal, plenty of water.

Seriously read through the nutrition sticky it will answer a lot of the Q's.

Thanks tribulus

I have read the stickies but do not understand For example what sort of nuts, not salted peanuts? And do not understand diference between saturated and unsaturated fats. Strange too I have been eating lots of tuna and feel more energetic yet protein not energy food.

Thanks for your help

g'em

IncredibleHulk wrote:

I have read the stickies but do not understand For example what sort of nuts, not salted peanuts? And do not understand diference between saturated and unsaturated fats. Strange too I have been eating lots of tuna and feel more energetic yet protein not energy food.

Generally the healthiest foods are those that are minimally processed, so plain chicken breasts over breaded fillets, plain nuts over salted ones etc.

As a general rule of thumb when you go shopping you want to buy food in as raw a state as possible, then you add the seasonings and flavourings, that way you know exactly what's being done to it. Take the frozen chicken for example - it will more than likely have been pulverised, shredded, had water and salt added, possibly some sugar also to offset the salty taste, do you even know what part of the chicken is being used? Cheaper the brand, worse the treatment.

For teh most part, the cardboard boxes those things come in is more nutritious than the 'meat' it contains.

Now, the extent to which you take this is up to you. Personally I buy all my chicken as fillets and flavour then with walnut or sesame oils, I steam, stirfry or broil them, I eat them with eggs or veg or put it in soup. There's loads of ways to eat the same foods you get in ready meals, you just need to be creative.

And as for the fats - saturated fats are animal fats, unsaturated fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) come from plants, nuts, oily fish and seeds. So once you keep your meat lean (again, packaged meats tend to be higher in sat fats from processing) and add fats from nut and seed oils you'll have all your bases covered. I wrote a bit more about it here.

But if you want a good book to read that has plenty of recipes you could try Food For Fitness by Anita Bean

With regards to the extra energy, that's not really surprising. Protein helps regulate your blood sugar, which in return maintains a steady energy flow.

rubadub

Salted peanuts are high in protein (watch the salt), most nuts are high in protein, and high in fat too, so watch the portion sizes if you are on a caloire deficit. The fats in nuts are healthy though.

You need to learn how to read nutritional values on packets, and to read ingredients lists and understand them.

Try and stick with fresh chicken fillets. But there are many frozen chicken fillets now, ready cooked in light spices (not breadcrumbs). But most frozen chicken foods are burgers & nuggets. These are made from left over caracasses of chickens. Highly processed, and high in fat, and usually coated in fatty batter.

The bread should be wholegrain or wholemeal, again read packets, many "brown breads", only have a small bit of wholegrain flour in them. On the ingredients list it might say,
wheat flour, wholemeal flour, yeast.... (wheat flour is white flour)
When ingredients are listed on packets the highest % ingredient is first. Be careful of this as they can have similar ingredients.

e.g. museli pack might say.

Rolled oats , nuts 20%, sugar, raisins, honey, banana, wheat flakes.

it might look ok at a glance but the sugar could be 19%, and the honey is just effectively more sugar, therefore there could be more overall sugar than nuts even though nuts is listed first.

And do not understand diference between saturated and unsaturated fats.

The packets usually break down the fat content. If a nutritional guide doesnt break it down then you can suspect they are trying to hide something!, any firm making healthy foods will have all the info there.

Be most careful of portion sizes, e.g. on museli packs it says a portion with milk might be around 250kcal, this is a TINY portion, I used to eat big bowls with about 4 times that!

Get a digital scales in argos to work it out.

I dont have any books to recommend, but the stickies have lots of info & links.

IncredibleHulk

Thanks guys much appreciated