Quick Bites Nutrition • Issue 8
Welcome to the 8th Issue of Quick Bites, my New Nutrition Newsletter! Today I will give you a couple tools to make healthier food choices. Let’s dig in! - Trilety
1. Vitamin B12
2. Cultural Food Intelligence and Ignorance
3. Whatcha Eatin'?! Our weekly bean bowls!
1. Vitamin B12 - The Myth
The Role of B12
Vitamin B12 helps to maintain nerve and blood cells as well as assist in new cell synthesis. Deficiencies can result in anemia, fatigue, nerve degeneration, and cognitive decline.
Vitamin B12 occurs naturally ONLY in animal based foods, such as:
This is why vegans hear all the time, and I believed it, that plant based diets are at high risk for Vitamin B12 deficiency.
Guess what? This is not actually so!
B12 is Reabsorbed!
As stated in our textbook:
"It may take several years for people who stop eating animal-derived foods to develop deficiency symptoms because the body recycles much of its vitamin B12, reabsorbing it over and over again."
Astounding!!
Fortified Foods for the Vegan
What about vegans who eschew animal based foods? Won't they eventually become deficient?!
It's actually easy to meet your B12 needs as a vegan, if you choose:
fortified cereals
fortified tofu
fortified non-dairy milks
nutritional yeast.
For instance, 1 cup of my fortified soy milk provides 50% of my RDA of B12! No B12 supplements needed!
2. Cultural Food Intelligence & Ignorance:
Last week, I learned something that I cannot stop thinking about.
In the early 1900s, a niacin-deficiency (niacin is Vitamin B3) disease, called pellagra, was the cause of over 87,000 deaths in the southern United States. The deficiency was due to a low-protein diet that focused mainly on corn. As much as 70% of niacin in corn is bound to carbs which makes it unavailable for absorption.
Pellagra is characterized by the 4 D's:
Diarrhea
Dermatitis
Dementia
Death
Here's the thing. . . .
While I had never heard of the pellagra epidemic in the US South, I did already know that indigenous peoples of the Americas prevented niacin deficiencies by processing their maize with a method called nixtamalization (NEESH-ta-mal-i-za-shun).
Indigenous Americans basically soaked dried maize kernels in an alkaline solution which softens the outer coat, "chemically alters the endosperm and germ of cooked maize," and adds flavor.
Is it ironic that the same people who believed themselves to be culturally superior to the "savages," were the same who died of a preventable nutrient deficiency that did not affect indigenous Americans?
Being that I've not been able to get this out of my mind, I have been reading a lot about this process. . .trying to figure out the mystery behind cultural food intelligence and cultural food ignorance. If this has struck a chord with you as well, then check out these articles for even more information!
Malnourished: Cultural Ignorance Paved the Way for Pellagra
Everything You Ever Needed to Know about Nixtamalization But Didn't Know to Ask
The Hominy Foodway of the Historic Eastern Native Woodlands
What are your thoughts on this? What does it say, if anything, about our obesity epidemic and current cultural knowledge of foods?
3. Whatcha Eatin'? Our weekly Bean Bowls!
Today I'm sharing a recipe with you that Jim and I eat at least once a week. Here are a few photos to entice. . .
Bowls with black beans, corn, tomatoes, avocado, cheese, non-fat yogurt. Jim's bowl includes chicken and my bowl includes spiral zucchini!
Prior to the other garnishes, this is what the base of my bowl looks like
This meal comes together fast!
Our Weekly Bean Bowls!
Ingredients:
1 can of black beans drained, not rinsed
2/3-3/4 cup frozen or fresh corn
2 oz of cheese (pepperjack, colby jack, queso fresco etc) or nutritional yeast for vegans
1/2-2/3 cup non-fat Greek yogurt or non-dairy yogurt
1 avocado - sliced
1 tomato chopped
cumin
salt/pepper/chili powder to taste
1 cup grain (Jim likes rice, and I like wild rice)
1/2 cup shredded cooked chicken (for the meat eaters)
½ to 1 cup other vegetable (sweet potato, broccoli, zucchini, etc) for the vegetarians/vegans
hot sauce!
Directions:
This recipe is split between two bowls!
Mix together the beans and corn and heat on the stove or microwave. Sprinkle generously with cumin.
Prepare your choice of grain, or go without as we sometimes do. Prepare your choice of veggies.
Layer each of the two bowls with the grain (if using), bean/corn mixture, meat, veggie, chopped tomatoes, shredded cheese, avocado, yogurt and hot sauce. Sprinkle with pepper, chili powder, and a little iodized salt.
These are decadent, nutritious powerhouses!
NEXT WEEK we'll be talking Calcium and osteoporosis!
Thanks so much for reading, and send in your recipes!
~ Trilety, the Aspiring Nutritionist