POM Breakfast Smoothie

From Smoothie Web

This POM smoothie is full of super healthy antiox­i­dants from the pome­gran­ate juice and the almonds. And the banana pro­vides a great source of potassium.

Just how rich in antiox­i­dants is POM pome­gran­ate juice? Take a look at the image below rat­ing high antiox­i­dant juices. POM scores the highest.

Oh yeah, what about the POM Smoothie recipe? Here it is:

Ingre­di­ents

• 1 cup POM won­der­ful 100% Pome­gran­ate Juice
• 3/4 cup soy or low-fat milk
• 2 ice cubes
• 1 large banana
• 2 table­spoons almonds
• 3 table spoons pro­tein pow­der (optional)
• 1 tea­spoon honey or ste­via sweetener

Prepa­ra­tion

In a blender com­bine all ingre­di­ents. Cover and blend on high for at least 30 sec­onds (make sure the almonds aren’t vis­i­ble) then pour into two glasses.

Makes 2 servings.

Food Battle: What to Add to Your Shopping List

By Matthew Kadey, MS, RD from Active​.com

Tuna or salmon? Spinach or kale? We pit food rivals against one another and let them duke it out to see which edi­ble packs a more pow­er­ful nutri­tional punch. The prize? Cham­pi­ons win pre­mium real estate in your shop­ping cart. Let’s get ready to rumble.

Frozen Blue­ber­ries vs. Fresh Blueberries

The ship­ping nec­es­sary to stock fresh, cul­ti­vated berries ups the price and low­ers the shelf life. On the flip side, frozen blue­ber­ries are typ­i­cally the wild vari­ety, which have higher lev­els of disease-fighting antiox­i­dants than their plumper, farm-grown coun­ter­parts. “Frozen fruit is picked at peak ripeness and frozen very soon after­wards. This process locks in nutri­ents, antiox­i­dants and fla­vor,” says Rebecca Scritch­field, RD, a marathoner and dietit­ian based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

The Champ: Frozen Blueberries

Sneak more in: Toss berries straight from the freezer into smooth­ies, oat­meal and baked-good batters.

Kale vs. Spinach

Kale’s nutri­tional power would have Pop­eye drop­ping anchor. This leafy green con­tains 60 per­cent more beta-carotene, an antiox­i­dant that can bol­ster your immune sys­tem, as well as eye and bone health. Other perks include 25 per­cent more vit­a­min C and more than dou­ble the amount of vit­a­min K, which has been proven to help pre­vent dia­betes. Kale also boasts three times more lutein and zeax­an­thin, two antiox­i­dants that work together to pro­tect eye health.

The Champ: Kale

Sneak more in: Gen­tly sauté chopped kale leaves in a skil­let with gar­lic, sesame oil and a touch of salt.

Canned Tuna vs. Canned Salmon

Sorry, Char­lie. When it comes to canned fish, salmon reigns supreme. Ounce for ounce, salmon has higher lev­els of omega-3 fatty acids, which may help reduce the inflam­ma­tion your body cre­ates dur­ing exer­cise. Salmon also gets brownie points for con­tain­ing more vit­a­min D, which Scritch­field says is, “Impor­tant for bone health and may help to pre­vent can­cer.” If you con­sume salmon’s soft bones, you’ll also get a higher dose of calcium.

The Champ: Canned Salmon

Sneak more in: Use protein-rich canned salmon in lieu of beef when mak­ing burg­ers and meatloaf.

Tra­di­tional Yogurt vs. Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt has gained a loyal fol­low­ing due to its creamy tex­ture and tangy taste, but the big bonus comes in the form of pro­tein. It con­tains twice as much as tra­di­tional yogurt. Tara Gidus, RD, marathoner and author of Preg­nancy Cook­ing & Nutri­tion For Dum­mies, says, “The extra pro­tein can help with mus­cle recov­ery dur­ing train­ing and makes it more sat­is­fy­ing.” Each tasty spoon­ful also serves up pro­bi­otics, which improve diges­tive and immune health.

The Champ: Greek Yogurt

Sneak more in: Use it as a replace­ment for sour cream or mayo in cold sal­ads. When bak­ing, swap half the oil or but­ter for yogurt.

Peanut But­ter vs. Almond Butter

Although almost iden­ti­cal in calo­ries, almond but­ter has less sat­u­rated fat but twice the amount of heart-healthy monoun­sat­u­rated fat as peanut but­ter. “Monoun­sat­u­rated fat reduces inflam­ma­tion and also helps lower LDL (bad) cho­les­terol and raise HDL (good) cho­les­terol,” notes Gidus. Almond but­ter also bests its peanut coun­ter­part for con­tain­ing bone-building cal­cium, mag­ne­sium and phos­pho­rus, as well as three times the antiox­i­dant vit­a­min E.

The Champ: Almond Butter

Sneak more in: For a healthy snack, slice apples and dip into almond but­ter or mix a spoon­ful into your post-run shake to make a banana-nut smoothie.

Goat’s Milk vs. Cow’s Milk

When Span­ish researchers com­pared cow’s and goat’s milk, they found that the two had equal amounts of essen­tial amino acids needed for muscle-building, but the lat­ter con­tained more omega-3 fatty acids as well as the bone-building trio cal­cium, phos­pho­rus and mag­ne­sium. For those who have trou­ble digest­ing cow’s milk, goat’s milk may be used as an alter­na­tive since its pro­tein con­tains less lactose.

The Champ: Goat’s Milk

Sneak more in: Use goat’s milk as you would the bovine ver­sion in cereal, smooth­ies and coffee.

Whole Wheat Bread vs. Rye Bread

While many equate whole wheat with healthy, rye bread has nearly twice the fiber per slice. “Women want to keep fiber intake high to main­tain a healthy diges­tive tract, con­trol weight and assist with proper blood sugar,” says Gidus. Fiber also may help remove tox­ins from the body and lower can­cer risk. To avoid invest­ing in a dark-colored imposter, look for true rye bread, which will list “whole rye flour” or “rye meal” as the first ingredient.

The Champ: Rye Bread

Sneak more in: Use rye bread to make sand­wiches and morn­ing toast.

Chicken Breast vs. Turkey Breast

Gram for gram, turkey has more muscle-friendly pro­tein, energy-boosting iron and the ultra-important antiox­i­dant sele­nium. This poul­try pow­er­house also con­tains addi­tional zinc. “It’s esti­mated that 50 per­cent of female dis­tance run­ners don’t get the rec­om­mended lev­els of zinc, which can make a per­son more prone to ill­ness and there­fore impede train­ing and per­for­mance,” says Scritch­field. Just make sure you enjoy your gob­bler sans the fat-laden skin.

The Champ: Turkey Breast

Sneak more in: Power up sal­ads with diced turkey breast or use the ground vari­ety in stuffed pep­pers, tacos and meatballs.

Green Bell Pep­per vs. Red Bell Pepper

This one is no con­test. As star among its brethren, red bell pep­pers, which are sim­ply green pep­pers that have ripened, have sig­nif­i­cantly more immune-system-boosting beta-carotene and vit­a­min C. Stritch­field says, “Vit­a­min C helps the body pro­tect itself from cell-damaging free rad­i­cals.” Har­vard sci­en­tists have also found that higher intakes of vita¬min C reduce the risk of upper respira¬tory tract infec­tions in women.

The Champ: Red Bell Pepper

Sneak more in: Add sliced red bell pep­pers to tacos, sal­ads, sand­wiches and slaws.

Pop­corn Ker­nels vs. Microwave Popcorn

Pop­corn has a bad rap due to the butter-laden movie the­ater ver­sion, but when prop­erly pre­pared, it makes for a healthy, low-calorie snack. Popped ker­nels have an antiox­i­dant capac­ity on par with most fruits and veg­eta­bles, and they’re packed with fiber. Stick to loose ker­nels found in jars or bulk bins. The bagged ver­sion is not only pricier, but the indus­trial chem­i­cals used to line some microwav­able pouches may con­tain car­cino­gens, accord­ing to Cana­dian researchers.

The Champ: Pop­corn Kernels

Sneak more in: Jazz up ker­nels with cre­ative top­pings such as smoked salt, cayenne pep­per, curry pow­der, shaved Parme­san cheese or grated dark chocolate.

Brown Rice vs. Quinoa

Quinoa may be the best whole grain a run­ner can put on her din­ner plate. Com­pared to brown rice, a cup of cooked quinoa con­tains more pro­tein, fiber, iron, potas­sium, zinc and folate. Scritch­field says, “Folate is required for the body to make red blood cells, which carry oxy­gen to your mus­cles.” Quinoa also con­tains a full com­ple­ment of essen­tial amino acids, mak­ing it a valu­able pro­tein source dur­ing training.

The Champ: Quinoa

Sneak more in: To cook quinoa, place 1 cup of the grain in a saucepan along with 1-cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and sim­mer cov­ered until all the water has absorbed (10 to 15 min­utes). Use as a side dish or incor­po­rate into pilafs and stir-frys.

Mission possible: A fast, easy low-carb angel food

BY J.M. HIRSCH
ASSOCIATED PRESS

This cake is easy to love because it is fast and sim­ple to make, is deli­cious and is great for dieters. It makes a stan­dard size angel food cake, but has just 133 calo­ries, 3.5 grams of fat, 23 grams of pro­tein and 2.75 grams of car­bo­hy­drates per quar­ter of the cake. That’s right. Per quar­ter of the cake.

It seemed impos­si­ble. I wanted to make a zero-sugar, low-carb ver­sion of a cake that is made from almost noth­ing but sugar and carbs.

And it took 20-something attempts. But after many dis­ap­point­ing – and some down­right dis­gust­ing – ver­sions, I finally man­aged to bake an amaz­ing and sweet angel food cake that rises beau­ti­fully and has the same del­i­cate, almost spongy tex­ture as tra­di­tional recipes.

My moti­va­tion was sim­ple – Mom. A long­time vegan, she has lived with­out her (and my) favorite cake for decades. But she recently started eat­ing egg whites again, which put angel food back on the table. Except she isn’t eat­ing sugar and is try­ing to limit carbohydrates.

Angel food cake has three pri­mary ingre­di­ents – egg whites, sugar and flour. Egg whites and sugar are whipped until they form a thick, airy bat­ter, then flour is gen­tly folded in. Could I make a cake with only one of the key ingredients?

From the start, struc­ture was the chal­lenge. Using egg whites and the nat­ural sugar alter­na­tive known as ste­via, I was able to bake up cakes with the proper taste. And they would rise beau­ti­fully in the oven. But as soon as they came out, they wilted into near pud­dles of cooked dough.

To get the struc­ture I needed, I turned to two ingre­di­ents pop­u­lar in gluten-free bak­ing – guar gum and xan­than gum. Most baked goods get their lift and struc­ture by work­ing the gluten (a type of pro­tein) in wheat flour until it forms bonds that trap air. Peo­ple who avoid gluten need to find a way around this, so they use other ingre­di­ents to repli­cate those bonds.

The cake still needed dry ingre­di­ents, and for that I turned to more egg whites. A blend of pow­dered egg whites and egg– or whey-based pro­tein pow­der was a good start. A bit of almond flour com­pleted the dry mix, giv­ing the cake a bit of extra body.

A cou­ple things to keep in mind:

• Tra­di­tional angel food cake is made from a very del­i­cate bat­ter. This is why the flour is gen­tly folded into the whipped egg whites by hand. The bat­ter in this ver­sion is much stur­dier and eas­ily stands up to using the mixer to add the dry ingre­di­ents at the end.
• Whey or egg white pro­tein pow­ders are widely avail­able in the grocer’s nat­ural foods or pro­tein bar sec­tions. Look for a brand that doesn’t con­tain sugar. We used Biochem’s 100 Per­cent Whey Pro­tein vanilla powder.
• Pow­dered egg whites are exactly what they sound like. They are sold in the bak­ing aisle.
• The recipe was writ­ten to be gluten-free. If you aren’t avoid­ing gluten, it also can be made sub­sti­tut­ing 1/4 cup cake flour for the 1/4 cup almond flour called for.
• Want to make a choco­late ver­sion? Sub­sti­tute 1/4 cup unsweet­ened cocoa pow­der for the pow­dered egg whites.
• If you pur­chase pack­aged liq­uid egg whites at the gro­cer, be sure they are appro­pri­ate for whip­ping. Some brands will not whip; the car­tons usu­ally are marked to indi­cate this.
• Xan­than gum and guar gum are widely avail­able in the gluten-free sec­tion of most gro­cers. Almond flour gen­er­ally is sold in this sec­tion, too.

Get the recipe →

Understanding the Glycemic Index

The glycemic index (GI) ranks car­bo­hy­drate foods by their effect on blood glu­cose lev­els. High GI foods like corn flakes and gra­ham crack­ers elicit a greater increase in blood glu­cose — mak­ing more energy avail­able to your mus­cles more quickly — than low GI foods such as apples, beans and yogurt. How­ever, con­tro­versy sur­rounds the use­ful­ness of the GI because the blood-sugar effect varies depend­ing on the amount of food eaten, how it’s pre­pared and each person’s indi­vid­ual response.

Despite its lim­i­ta­tions, nutri­tion­ist Gidus sug­gests that an ath­lete fine-tune her food intake with the GI. “I rec­om­mend eat­ing low-GI foods before exer­cise to pro­vide a more sus­tained energy release. Mod­er­ate– to high-GI foods are best dur­ing and post-exercise for imme­di­ate reple­tion of glyco­gen,” she says.

Before: apples, plums, cher­ries, peanut but­ter, milk, yogurt
Dur­ing: grapes, sports drinks and gels
After: bagels, pota­toes, juices, sports drinks and gels

The GI doesn’t tell it all, how­ever. It mea­sures the effect that 50 grams of carbs in a par­tic­u­lar food has on blood sugar, but it doesn’t fac­tor in the rel­a­tive amount of carbs in an aver­age serv­ing of that food.

That’s why some nutri­tion­ists use the glycemic load (GL) instead. Water­melon, for exam­ple, has a high-glycemic index because 50 grams of car­bo­hy­drate in the fruit has a large effect on blood sug­ars. But since a typ­i­cal slice con­tains only about 6 grams of carbs, watermelon’s GL and it’s effect on blood sugar is small. The same is true for car­rots. They have a high GI, but a low GL.

For more info and to find out GI/GL val­ues of cer­tain foods, search the GI Data­base on glycemicin​dex​.com. Exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent pre– and post-exercise meals to learn your best strat­egy. The glu­cose response varies from per­son to per­son and even from meal to meal.

Excerpted from Carbs to Love on Active​.com

Recipe of the Week: Chunky Chicken Soup

For gen­er­a­tions, chicken soup has been a rem­edy of choice for moth­ers with sick chil­dren. The lean pro­tein and nutrient-rich veg­eta­bles help boost your strength to fight off a cold. But this power com­bi­na­tion of veg­eta­bles, whole grains and health-enhancing herbs can be enjoyed any time. Our recipe calls for buck­wheat, a whole grain that’s a good source of fiber and mag­ne­sium. It’s also gluten-free and is not a mem­ber of the wheat fam­ily so it is appro­pri­ate for those with celiac disease.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tsp. canola oil
• 1/3 cup whole buckwheat
• 1 cup water
• 1 large car­rot, cut into 1/2-inch rounds
• 1 large cel­ery rib, cut cross­wise into 1/2-inch slices
• 3/4 cup frozen pearl onions, or fresh chopped onion
• 4 cups fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth, divided*
• 2 cups roasted chicken breast, in bite-size pieces
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

*To reduce sodium con­tent to 80 mg per serv­ing, use low-sodium chicken broth.

PREPARATION

1. Heat oil to medium-high heat in medium-size saucepan. Add buck­wheat, stir­ring con­stantly, until grains are fra­grant, about 2 min­utes. Off heat, pour in water, tak­ing care, as liq­uid will spat­ter. Return pan to stove, reduce heat to sim­mer, and cook, cov­ered, until buck­wheat is al dente, about 15 min­utes. Set cov­ered pan aside.
2. Place car­rots, cel­ery and onions in large saucepan. Add 1/2 cup broth, cover and sim­mer over medium-high heat until veg­eta­bles are crisp-tender, 10 min­utes. Add remain­ing broth, chicken and cooked buck­wheat. Add salt and pep­per to taste.
3. When soup is hot, divide among four wide, shal­low bowls. Gar­nish each bowl with 1 table­spoon pars­ley, and serve.

Note: If desired, in place of roasted chicken, gen­tly sim­mer a 3/4-pound skin­less and bone­less chicken breast in broth in large saucepan. When it is white in the cen­ter, about l5 min­utes, set chicken breast aside. When chicken is cool enough to han­dle, shred into bite-size pieces. Clean out pot and pro­ceed, cook­ing veg­eta­bles and com­plet­ing soup as above.

NUTRITIONAL INFO
Makes 4 servings

Per serv­ing: 210 calo­ries, 5 g total fat (1 g sat­u­rated fat), 15 g car­bo­hy­drate, 25 g pro­tein, 3 g dietary fiber, 530 mg sodium.