= Full article availableI usually agree with most of your articles, but I think you dropped the ball on your “51 Healthy Foods” (August) concerning peanut butter. You did not specify the peanut butter should be “natural.” Most others have hydrogenated trans fat and you know that is harmful.
According to the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), “Recurring rumors that commercial peanut butters contain trans fats… have no basis in fact.” True, small amounts of hydrogenated vegetable oils are added to commercial peanut butters—1%-2% of total weight—to keep the peanut oil from separating out. And the hydrogenation process can lead to the formation of trans fatty acids, which increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. But ARS testing of 11 brands of peanut butter, including major store brands and “natural” varieties, found no detectable trans fats in any of the samples. It’s expected that under new FDA labeling guidelines, all peanut butter will declare zero trans fat on the label. The tested peanut butters did have oleic acid, from 19%-27% by weight, a monosaturated fat believed to have beneficial cardiovascular effects.
In your list of “51 Healthy Foods,” you list carrots but do not say cooked or raw. It is my impression that the human system cannot digest raw carrots because the cellulose walls are resistant. Is this correct?
While you can get nutrients and fiber from raw carrots, it’s true that one important nutrient—beta-carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A—is tightly bound to the protein in plants. A 2003 study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, concluded, “Significantly more beta-carotene was absorbed from meals containing cooked, pureed carrots than from meals containing the raw vegetable.” Research at the University of Arkansas found similar results; levels of beta-carotene and other antioxidants were even higher when the carrots weren’t peeled before pureeing and cooking.
For the lactose intolerant, does soy milk offer as much calcium benefit as cow’s milk?
Soy milk is not a good natural source of calcium, but many brands of soy milk are fortified with calcium. Fortified soy milk typically has 200-400 milligrams of calcium per cup, which would provide 20%-40% of your RDA of calcium. For a chart comparing the calcium in various brands, see Interested in more articles like this? Subscribe or order this issue.