(Press-News.org) CHICAGO—Almonds may still be considered one of the highest energy food sources but it's not about how much you bite off, instead it's about how much you chew, according to a July 14 panel discussion at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® held at McCormick Place.
"Particle size has bioaccessibility of the energy of the food that is being consumed," said Dr. Richard Mattes (CQ), professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. "The more you chew, the less is lost and more is retained in the body."
Each individual has their own chewing habits, he said, and although those are often difficult to change they should be considered when making energy food choices.
Mattes shared a recent study with conference attendees in which study subjects chewed almonds 10 times, 25 times or 40 times and their fecal fat and energy lost by the number of chews were measured. The study found with fewer chews, the larger particles were eliminated by the body. With more chews, the smaller particles were more readily absorbed into the system.
"If the goal is to include food that is enjoyable and contribute protein, a whole almond is probably the way you want to go," Mattes said. "If you're interested in maximizing Vitamin E intake, chopped almonds, almond butter or almond oil may be a better choice."
Mixed fibers from fruits, vegetables and whole grains also topped the charts as high energy sources, he added.
"When your total diet is higher in fiber, there's a greater loss of fat," Mattes said. "Fiber binds with fatty acids to create energy sources in the body."
Dr. Roger Clemens (CQ), chief scientific officer of Horn Company of La Mirada, Calif., and an adjunct professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences within the USC School of Pharmacy, explained in his abstract that scientists today continue to estimate the measurements of energy derived from foods based on calculations created over 125 years ago by Wilbur O. Atwater, (CQ) a USDA agricultural chemist who published his findings from more than 200 dietary studies on caloric content in kcal/g of carbohydrates (4), proteins (4) and fats (9) as they were found in foods and metabolized by the body.
Clemens did acknowledge many variables can impact how efficiently the body extracts energy from plant-based foods or ingredients, especially those high in dietary fiber cereals and plant extracts, nuts and seeds.
Clemens added more study and understanding of the digestibility of plant-based foods and ingredients could contribute to more appropriate energy values and more accurate product labeling.
"We may see a resurgence of digestibility studies in humans rather than relying on estimates by Atwater that we have been doing for a number of years," said Malden Nesheim, (CQ) provost emeritus and professor of nutrition emeritus, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Dr. Martin Wickham (CQ), director of nutrition at Leatherhead Food Research in the United Kingdom, also presented an update at the conference session on similar studies in the European Union and recognized a new study released Friday about school lunches.
"It recommended a ban on people bringing in packed lunches which are not as healthy as school meals," Wickham said. "We tend to talk about school meals and their nutritional quality but this is the first time where they talked about the calories playing a major part in childhood obesity in the UK."
Wickham added that in December 2012, the European Union published new regulations on food energy guidelines and a European-wide way to handle calories, also suggesting new measurements of the macro micro nutrients and using averages on food tables. These new regulations, he said, will be imposed in December 2014.
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About IFT
For more than 70 years, IFT has existed to advance the science of food. Our nonprofit scientific society—more than 18,000 members from more than 100 countries—brings together food scientists, technologists and related professions from academia, government, and industry. For more information, please visit ift.org.
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(Edmonton) Moms-to-be who gain too much weight early into their pregnancy are nearly three times as likely to give birth to bigger and fatter babies, warns a University of Alberta researcher.
A study of 172 expectant mothers found that women who gained excessive weight during the first half of pregnancy gave birth to heavier and longer babies with more body fat than babies of women who either did not gain as much weight or put it on later in their pregnancy.
The results underscore the need to educate expectant mothers about the dangers of early weight gain during pregnancy ...
The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences (JGR-G), Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans (JGR-C), Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth (JGR-B), and Water Resources Research (WRR).
In this release:
Why freshwater organisms survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs
Constraining bubbling of methane from thermokarst lakes
Low-cost solution optimizes water quality of reservoir effluent
Characterizing the dynamics of geyser eruptions
Seismic studies provide new detail ...
PHILADELPHIA – They say you can pick your friends, but not your family. The same may hold true for related proteins. The protein TAp73 is a relative of the well-known, tumor-suppressor protein p53. It shares extensive common gene sequences with p53 and, as suggested by some previous studies, it may function similar to p53 to prevent tumor formation. However, unlike p53, which is the most commonly mutated gene in human tumors, TAp73 is rarely mutated, and instead is frequently overexpressed in a wide range of human tumors, including breast, colon, lung, stomach, ovarian, ...
More than a decade ago, Thomas Vogt and Yongjae Lee, then colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory, uncovered a counter-intuitive property of zeolites. When they put these porous minerals in water, and then put the water under high pressure, the tiny cavities within the zeolites actually grew in size.
Pressure failed to crush, and even caused expansion. In the years since, Vogt and Lee, now at the University of South Carolina and Yonsei University (Seoul), respectively, have followed up with cation exchange experiments, placing a series of alkali metal ions into the ...
It's easier to feel positive about the endangered tiger in your backyard if you live on the good side of town.
Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) study what influences people's attitudes toward the tigers that share their neighborhood in Nepal's Chitwan National Park, home to some 125 adult tigers. In the scientific journal AMBIO, the researchers took a novel approach to putting people's attitudes on a map.
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Singapore - A team of international researchers from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (USA) has identified a self-perpetuating signaling circuit inside connective tissue cells that allows these cells to form a front and a back and propel themselves in a particular direction over a long period of time. This propulsion is the same movement that tumor cells use to invade healthy tissue during cancer metastasis so cracking the code to this signaling network may lead to new therapeutic strategies against cancer and ...
CHICAGO – Putting a new spin on the concept of "stress eating," research presented at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Expo® found that people who eat during times of stress typically seek the foods they eat out of habit – regardless of how healthy or unhealthy that food is.
The research co-authored and presented by David Neal, Ph.D., a psychologist and founding partner at Empirica Research, contradicts the conventional wisdom that people who are stressed-out turn to high-calorie, low-nutrient comfort food.
"Habits don't change in a high-pressure ...
CHICAGO — A new presentation today at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Expo in Chicago® focused on the health benefits of short-chain fructooliogosaccharides (scFOS), which are low-calorie, non-digestible carbohydrates that can improve food taste and texture while aiding immunity, bone health and the growth and balance of important bacteria in the digestive track.
Fructooliogosaccharides are naturally found in chicory, onions, asparagus, wheat, tomatoes and other fruits, vegetables and grains. They also can be derived from cane sugar and ...
CHICAGO — Because of a diet low in fish and seafood, children and adults in North America and other parts of the world, have a "nutrition gap" of omega-3 fatty acids, particularly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA),according to a presentation at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Expo in Chicago®.
Numerous studies have found that DHA and EPA can prevent or minimize the effects of inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, promote cardiovascular health and limit the effects of heart disease, said Bruce J. ...
CHICAGO- Vitamin and mineral supplements can enhance mental energy and well-being not only for healthy adults but for those prone to anxiety and depression, according to a July 15 panel discussion at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® held at McCormick Place.
Bonnie Kaplan, Ph.D., professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, said Monday vitamins and mineral supplements can be the alternative to increasing psychiatric medicines for symptom relief of anxiety and depression. The supplements, she ...
