Food brings
us together as a people and of course this is so for everyone around
the world. We
need food to survive, we need food to grow, we also need food to
stay alive. However most of us eat more than we should. For instance,
when we cook, we favour meat in our soups instead of Chicken. Chicken
is a better alternative to meat as substituting chicken for
red meat may be best for patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria.
Results of a randomized crossover trial suggest that this diet improved
lipid levels and urinary albumin excretion rates compared with a
low protein diet or normal diet.
No
doubt our foods are high in fat contents and that is because when
we cook we are mostly generous with our ingredients such as Oil,
meat etc… There are better ways to reduce our fat intake in foods.
For instance, if you are a lover of Vegetable oil or anything
greasy, you could try using Olive Oil instead of Vegetable Oil.
The beneficial health effects of olive oil are due to both its
high content of mono-unsaturated fatty acids and its high content
of antioxidative substances. Studies have shown that olive oil
offers protection against heart disease.
In fact, turn on to any food/cooking programme on TV and chances
are you’ll find the chef du jour dousing his dish with a few bottles
of it. It’s not just marketing propaganda either; for over 5000
years olive oil has been a part of Mediterranean
and West Asian diets. And its benefits have been scientifically
proven, made evident by the fact that Mediterranean’s
have amongst the lowest incidence of CVD (cardiovascular disease).
Thanks to its high monounsaturated fat and oleic acid content. Olive oil is very well tolerated by the stomach. In fact, olive oil's
protective function has a beneficial effect on ulcers and gastritis.
Olive oil activates the secretion of bile and pancreatic hormones
much more naturally than prescribed drugs. Consequently, it lowers
the incidence of gallstone formation. I do realise Olive Oil is one of the most exorbitant
Oils in the market, however, all is not loss, you could try buying
Olive Seeds and grow them in your backyard or Garden…
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Another healthier option is to use Palm Oil
for cooking (3 tablespoon for Stews) and it is not a secret that Palm Oil gives our
dishes that extra flavour and also
has it benefits - in South Africa an estimated 250 million preschool
children are vitamin A deficient. Perhaps more disturbingly, an
estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children become
blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing
their sight. Vitamin A Deficiency or VAD is the leading cause of
preventable blindness and is a public health problem in low-income
families in Southeast
Asia
and Africa...
To combat the Vitamin A deficiency, scientists in South
Africa have developed a banana-flavoured
spread fortified with red palm oil to reduce VAD in rural areas.
The new spread substituted the regular peanut butter and jam sandwich
for trials in a school feeding programme in Cape
Town, and the results were more than encouraging.
Just two teaspoons provide up to 76% of a child’s daily recommended
allowance, more than 4 times that of their regular sandwich in the
current feeding programme.
Nevertheless,
there is not much difference between Olive Oil and Palm Oil in
terms of their health benefits and antioxidants - let’s look at
palm oil. Red palm oil has been a staple in West African diets
for over 5000 years, and more recently widely consumed in Asia.
Interestingly, in countries where palm oil figures prominently
the incidence of CHD is much lower. This has even been proven
in various scientific studies. Both olive and palm oils share
one component in common: monounsaturated oleic acid. Olive oil
contains a greater proportion, around 70%, compared to palm oil,
which averages 42 to 53%. 
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