Striving4Zen

You've done a killer workout, and now you're hungry. You eye the Gatorade, but realize you should probably eat a proper meal, and wonder what exactly you should do both to fill up, and to be good to your body so it'll be good to you tomorrow.

Enter a team of sadistic University of Texas researchers. In their just-released study on "recovery" foods, these crazy fools made their test subjects work out for two hours, and then they promptly biopsied each of their subjects' vastus lateralis and fed them either a fancy power drink or old fashioned cereal with milk, yogurt and fruit. After two hours, they took another biopsy to determine how the old muscles were healing.

The results: Give it up for old fashioned cereal and milk. Turns out what your muscles want is a combination of protein and carbs, and cereal and milk, even chocolate milk, do a good job of delivering these. In the end, the Texans say that the down home recovery food are your most cost effective "whole food option."

Great tip!

Labels: cereal, exercise, Gatorade

No, the different types of oatmeal are not at all the same in terms of nutrition. The very outermost portion of the oat-called the hull-is always removed before the oat is eaten. However, once the hull has been removed, there are several further processing steps that can be taken. Because these additional processing steps almost always serve to lower the nutritional value of the oats, I recommend the least number of additional processing steps to give yourself the best nourishment possible from your oats. The least processed forms for oats are oat groats and steel-cut oats. Oat groats consist of the hulled but unflattened and unchopped oat kernels. Steel-cut oats are the same as oat groats, except for being chopped with steel blades. Because they are the least processed, these two forms of oats are also the most nutritious.

Old-fashioned oats are chopped, steamed, and rolled to give them their flatter shape. Because they are more processed, they are less nourishing than oat groats or steel-cut oats. However, they are still better sources of nourishment than most quick-cooking oats or instant oatmeals. Quick and instant oatmeal usually have their oat bran-the layer of the grain that's just beneath the hull-removed. Many vitamins and much of the oat's fiber are contained within the bran, and so its removal is particularly problematic when it comes to nutritional value. Oat groats, steel-cut oats, and, to a slightly lesser extent, old-fashioned or rolled oats would be your best choices here, with quick and instant oatmeal usually being less nourishing due to further processing and the removal of their bran.

Source

Labels: breakfast, cereal, healthy food, nutrition, oat groats, oatmeal, rolled oats, steel cut oats

Next month, General Mills Inc. and Kellogg Co. will begin emblazoning their breakfast cereals with symbols that summarize complex nutritional information - part of the growing use of logos to steer shoppers toward healthier choices.
The proliferation of such symbols is a worldwide phenomenon, with government regulators in Britain, Sweden and elsewhere establishing nutrition logo systems.
The General Mills and Kellogg's versions will highlight fat, sugar, salt and other nutrient levels, officials said.

Labels: cereal, logo, nutrition