IS THE BROWN BREAD YOU ARE CONSUMING THE REAL HEALTH DEAL?

With an increasing consciousness about health and hygiene, a large number of consumers are making the switch from white bread to brown bread or whole wheat bread at their breakfast tables. However, there is little awareness about why is brown bread considered healthy or what constitutes brown bread that makes it healthy. As a result, most people succumb to marketing tactics of companies that add caramel to white bread to make the color brown and advertise it as wholesome and tasty!

In some extremely lazy manufacturing, but inspired marketing, much of the ‘brown’ bread you’ll find in the supermarket is simply the same white bread with brown coloring, often CARAMEL, added back into it. Hardly the healthier choice it’s made out to be.
Likewise, ‘wholemeal’ bread with a bit of chemically treated wheat germ added back in, or ‘multigrain’, with a sprinkling of softened grains, hardly makes up for what the main ingredient – refined wheat flour – has gone through.
The fact is, the vast majority of breads from the big manufacturers are just slight variations, a little coloring here, a sprinkling of seeds there, of the same extremely unhealthy processed bread.
But the hullaballoo of wanting to eat brown bread as the healthy bread could all be distorted in kenya! This is because almost 80% of brown bread sold to us is not genuinely brown. The best bread to eat is the whole wheat grain bread that you can find in supermarkets and normally has a darker colour and is more expensive!
True whole wheat bread, if you can find it, should be a healthier option. Whole wheat bread is made with the wheat germ and the bran included and is hopefully not as heavily processed or full of chemical additives as most commercial loaves. It’s higher fiber content helps to slow down its digestion and therefore its effect on your blood sugar and levels of fat storing insulin shouldn’t be as pronounced.
A real brown bread is healthier than white bread because the wheat flour used to make brown bread is less processed compared to wheat flour used for making white bread. During the processing of the wheat flour for making brown bread the bran and germ in the wheat grain are not removed. The bran is the part of wheat grain that is rich in fibre, while germ is the inner part of wheat grain which is packed with nutrients, Vitamins B and E as well as phytochemicals.

So how do you tell the REALS from the FAKES?
It's commonly believed that you can tell the difference between white and wholemeal by the color of the loaf. Not so! The keywords to look out for are "whole grain" and "whole wheat" as the first ingredient on the ingredient list. If any other substance is listed first, you are likely looking at white bread that has had caramel colouring added.
There you have it, find this rare Whole meal bread and find your long lost and found real brown bread. Infact, ask yourself why you eat brown chapattis that taste real brown but when you eat brown bread it does not have similar taste?

This is not to say that white and brown breads could be exactly the same in Kenya market. If you compare the labels of white and brown breads of your favourite brand, you will probably find that the brown bread still has more dietary fiber, making it the wiser choice. What’s important to remember is not to confuse all brown breads with the much healthier whole grain bread alternatives. Do your research and read your labels for the choice that’s right for you. Best place to begin is in Tuskys supermarket at the bread parlour where you will spot the difference!
I know you have questions so comment below and email me on ndutaniceness@gmail.com

WHY THE OIL YOU USE TO COOK COULD BE THE REASON FOR YOUR ILLNESS

Food cooked from fats is tasty and easy to eat. There are some fats that negatively affect our bodies when consumed and should be avoided. In Kenya’s market fats available are either solid or liquid in nature. 

But just which type of fat is best for cooking your meals?

Chemically fats can be either saturated, unsaturated or trans-fats. The saturated means that they have a chemical composition with carbon atoms saturated with hydrogen atoms. Saturated fats are usually in animal fats especially the dairy products. Very few plants have saturated fats, the palm and coconut oil.

Trans fats are made when manufacturers turn the liquid oils to solid for instance kimbo and blue band. 

All Trans fats and saturated fats are solid at room temperature. These are the two fats that are severely harmful to your health when cooking because they raise bad cholesterol in your body. This is thought to form a layer in the arteries that causes blockage in the heart leading to heart attacks or strokes.

Let’s review the unhealthy cooking oils in the market that are either saturated or Trans fats:

Kimbo,chipsy,kasuku,cowboy, and all other solid fats are highly hydrogenated and clogs in arteries if used for long

 

                         

 The good oils:

These are normally in liquid form, but caution should be taken because, the oils sometimes change and become solid in nature after sometime...For instance, instead of buying Rina vegetable oil, go for Rina sunflower oil since it does not solidify at all costs and does not clog your arteries! 

This same criteria goes with other liquid oils like elianto, rinsun,golden fry, etc.
 The best bets are all sunflower oils, canola oils, peanut oil, corn oil, safflower and non-hydrogenated oils.

I know you have questions..Drop them on the comment box below..

MICROWAVE: THE QUICK FIX THAT COULD BE YOUR WORST ENEMY!

I remember the days when we prepared foods without microwaves, we used firewood, the stove and those who were privileged to have gas they were found to be rich. Today, the evolution has gone to instant cooking and warming of food without having to wait for hours before it is ready.

Microwaves have become the norm in many kitchens in Kenya, at home, restaurants and even in offices. But just how safe is the food you heat in the microwave? What are the dangers you expose yourself to when using it? How best to use the microwave? These are the many questions Kenyans and people using the microwave keep asking.

This blog is all about the facts, the myths and the misconceptions about this device that has become somehow inevitable to use.

In the first place it is vital to understand just how does this device work?

Microwave oven uses electromagnetic waves called micro-waves to heat food. No wonder the name of the appliance is; microwave oven. The micro-waves oscillate at a very high speed, normally 2450 times per second.

When food is placed in a microwave oven, various food ingredients behave differently. The main ingredient that enables food to be heated by micro-waves is water. The higher the water contents in food, the faster the heating rate. Water in molecular level behaves exactly like a magnet. Water has two oppositely charged ends due to presence of positively charged 2 Hydrogen atoms and a negatively charged Oxygen molecule. Therefore, water in food behaves like a magnet. If a bar magnet is held above another bar magnet, and you rotate the held magnet, the other one also rotates. Similarly, due to two different poles in water, when micro-waves oscillate the water molecules rotate. This is because the negatively charged end of water is attracted to positively charged end of micro-wave, while the positive end of water is attracted to the negative charged end of micro-waves.

The micro- waves rotate at extremely high speed of 2450 time per second. This means for every second a micro-wave rotates, the water molecule also rotates 2450 times. This extremely high rotation rate causes water molecules to collide with each other at very fast rate. This creates friction between water molecules. This friction generates heat. The heat flows through the food by conduction, convection or radiation. Therefore food warms up. That is simply how microwave heats food.

Facts:

You Can't Heat Oils in a Microwave

Oils such as olive oil do not heat well in microwaves because their molecules lack the polarity found in water. It's also true that frozen butter is hard to thaw in a microwave, because the bulk of the substance is oil, and the portion of water present is in the form of ice, which keeps the molecules locked up in crystal form, making oscillation more difficult.

 Some foods explode or generate sparks when heated in microwave ovens.

Foods that explode when heated in a microwave include eggs. So, they should not be heated in a microwave.

Boiling a Cup of Water in a Microwave Can Cause It to Explode
one potential danger of microwave ovens is getting scalded by over heated water. What can happen is that when plain water is heated in a microwave in a clean ceramic or glass container for too long, it can prevent bubbles from forming, which normally cools it down. The water can become superheated, past its boiling point. So when it is disturbed, say by moving it or dropping something in it, the heat releases violently, erupting boiling water out of the cup.

To avoid this risk heat water only the minimum amount of time needed. Or place a wooden spoon or stick in it (you should be fine with a metal spoon too, as we discussed above. Don't use a metal fork though, which could spark.) 

Myths:

Metals Get Dangerously Hot in Microwaves

Metals reflect microwaves, whereas plastic, glass and ceramics allow them to pass through. That means metals don't appreciably heat up in a microwave oven. However, thin pieces of metal, such as foils or the tines of a fork, can act as antenna, and the waves can arc off them, forming dramatic sparks.

Microwave Ovens Cook Food from the Inside Outside

Although many people believe this to be the case, microwaves actually work on the outer layers of food, heating it by exciting the water molecules there. The inner parts of food are warmed as heat transfers from the outer layers inward. This is why a microwave can only cook a big chunk of meat to a depth of about one inch inward.

Micro-waves leak through the glass door?
No. The glass door helps to see inside the oven while it has a mesh to prevent micro-waves from leaking out.

So what to do?

If you use a microwave:

• Don’t heat food in plastic.
• Make sure food reaches 160 degrees F in all areas (you have a food thermometer, don’t you?).
• Cover food to help ensure uniform cooking.
• Allow the food to sit a few minutes after microwaving.
• Microwave food only as long as necessary, with little to no cooking water.

If you don’t use a microwave:

Continue to heat food over gas, stove, jiko or any other means since you exempt yourself from the risk of losing food nutrients, causing some illnesses especially IF your model leaks radiation when heating or cooking food.

Go check whether your microwave leaks radiation by:

• Find a fluorescent tube or bulb
• Darken the room where the microwave sits
• Hold the bulb against the edges of the microwave ovens door when the oven is in use. While normally it is not recommended to use the microwave with nothing inside it, in this short experiment, it is best not to add anything to the oven.
• Check for a reaction. If there is microwave leakage occurring, the bulb will glow.

From here you know what to do! Discard your microwave or have it fixed!

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THE HERBAL MAASAI MAGIC

From the last post the magic of the Maasai’s gait is profoundly related to their herbs intake. Most common names you hear among them are traditionally known olkinyei, jacket plum also known as oldimigomi, olsokonoi and olkiloriti. Ideally these are wildly grown among them and act as food additives for their meat and milk intake. Amazingly, these herbs lower cholesterol and have antioxidants which make the masaai beat cholesterol ingested in their body and thus lowering all heart diseases among them.

Visiting them indicated that all these herbs are drawn from special trees in their habitats that are also used to treat various diseases besides beating down cholestrol. These include:

Malaria:

Although treatment is available in health centers, the use of the jack plum plant for instance is common and in fact is made into liquid which when ingested lowers fever and malaria.

Dental hygiene:

Almost all the herbs they take are medicinally inclined. Funny enough, their teeth are always intact apart from their ritual to remove one tooth as a tradition. This adds to the cholesterol value of a herb like the olkinyei.

Ceremonial and other STDs healer

In ceremonies their herbs are believed to be important and associated with blessings and rites of passage. But one thing that caught my attention is the belief that the herbs cure diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis among others!

After interacting with their herbs use I thought that we should all move to masaai land and borrow their herbs use!

Bottom line is the use of plant foods to supplement our animal food intake is vital to beat cholesterol and fat intake in our bodies!

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