High Fiber Blueberry Breakfast Muffins

Muffins can be a health-conscious person's downfall. Portion sizes have ballooned over the years, and it's not unusual to see a commercial muffin contain over 400 calories. And because you should include some fiber at each meal, a good breakfast means you need a good dose of fiber. 

If you're interested in making your own high-fiber breakfast muffins, try these "Reduced-Fat Whole Grain Blueberry Muffins" from Jeanne Jones of the Cook it Light newspaper column. They're simple, quick and bring you back to the basics about what a muffin should be:

Reduced-Fat Whole Grain Blueberry Muffins

Makes 18 muffins

• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1 teaspoon baking poweder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not thaw)

TOPPING

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin tins (18 muffins) with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

Combine the flour, oats, baking powder, bakins soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, bea tthe egg whites, sugar, water, vanilla, oil and aplesauce. Add the blueberries to the flour mixture and cover the blueberries with flour, which prevents them from sinking to the bottom of the batter. Ad the flour mixture, along with the blueberries, to the egg mixture, and combine with a few strokes, just until moistened.

Fill the muffin cups about 2/3 full. For topping, combine the 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle the top of each muffin.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a sharp knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Each muffin has 10 calories, 2 g fat, 99 mg sodium, 20 g carbohydrate, 2 g protein and 2 g fiber.

Diabetics Cheat Death with Bran

A study published in the May 25, 2010 issue of Circulation finds that people with diabetes who eat more whole grains are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than are people with diabetes who have low whole grain intakes. 

The researchers from Harvard and other Boston-area research institutes studied almost 8,000 diabetic women already enrolled in the Nurses Health Study. They studied the women for 26 years and found that death from cardiovascular disease was significantly higher among the bottom 20% of whole grain food consumers than the top 20%. Specifically, bran consumption was associated with lower mortality; nurses with the highest bran intake and lowest CVD risk ate 9g of bran per day on average, and the lowest bran consumers with higher mortality risk ate less than 1g of bran per day.

This study was unique in that it looked not only at whole grain intake, but also the  individual components of whole grains:

• Fiber
• Bran 
• Germ

The researchers' findings indicate that, "Whole-grain and bran intakes are associated with reduced all-cause and cardiovascular disease-specific mortality in women with diabetes." The results evince a potential benefit of whole-grain intake's ability to reduce mortality and cardiovascular disease risk in people with diabetes.

How can you get more bran in your diet?

• Eat 100% whole grains that naturally contain bran
• Avoid refined, processed and "enriched" flours that remove bran during processing
• Choose whole grain cereals, bran flakes, oat bran, All-bran

Numero UNO! - Pizzeria Uno's Five Grain Flatbreads

Pizzeria Uno Chicago Grill is bringing a commendable high fiber option to the table. Uno's Five Grain Flatbread Crust has 4 grams of fiber per approximate 300 calorie serving.

 The fiber in the Five Grain Flatbread comes from, well.....Five Grains:

• Stone ground whole wheat flour
• Hulled sesame seed
• Toasted wheat germ
• Oat bran, and
• Flaxseed

Now, keep in mind you have to share that flatbread with two other friends to keep to the serving size, which is 1/3 of a whole flatbread; but, considering the dearth of high fiber options at most chain restaurants, the Uno Five Grain Flatbread makes for a high fiber - and pretty delicious decision. The flatbread crust is thin, tasty, and it maintains a good crunch under all the toppings.

Five Grain Flatbreads are available as BBQ Chicken, Roasted Eggplant Spinach & Feta, Spicy Chicken, Mediterranean, Four Cheese, Harvest Vegetable. Wild Mushroom & White Cheddar, Cheese & Tomato, Lobster BLT, Pepperoni, and Sausage varieties.

Herr's Whole Grain Pretzel Sticks

If you live on the East Coast or the Southeast of the US, there's a good chance you have access to Herr's Snack Foods. If you do, you'll want to check out Herr's Whole Grain Pretzel Sticks. These are far and away the best tasting whole grain pretzels out there - they're crunchy and salty with a hint of rye and sesame. And the best part is: they're made from actual whole grains, not the fake, added isolated fibers you see in so many other, new "high-fiber" foods.

A one ounce serving (about 7 healthy sticks) of the original Whole Grain pretzel sticks has 110 calories, 4 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein. The fiber in these pretzels comes from (in this order in the ingredient list):

• Whole grain wheat flour (the first ingredient)
• Flax seed
• Rye flour
• Barley flour
• Oat flour
• Poppy seeds
• Sesame seeds
• Caraway seeds
• Buckwheat flour, and
• Flax flour

To see if Herr's Whole Grain Pretzels are available in your area, check out this map: Herr's Distribution Area. If you can't get Herr's locally, you can order all of the Whole Grain Pretzel flavors (whole grain, honey wheat and/or pumpernickel rye) online at Herr's Store.

A High Fiber Cracker - FINALLY!

 It's pretty hard to find a good tasting high-fiber cracker. You would think "wheat" or "stone-ground wheat" crackers would naturally be good sources of fiber - but, like most packaged and processed foods, they're made from enriched and refined white flour, and often have at most 1 gram of fiber per serving. Here's what's traditionally been wrong with some of the cracker offerings out there:

• Nabisco's Wheatsworth crackers (of "stone ground wheat" fame) have 1 gram of fiber and lots of white flour
• Kashi TLC Crackers have less than 1 gram of fiber and low-fiber unbleached wheat flour as their first ingredient - disappointing from a brand that usually puts out some impressive high-fiber foods
• Kellogg's All Bran crackers have five grams of fiber - but they also all have a weird cinnamon taste to all of the flavors, probably needed to mask the taste of added isolated fiber ingredients needed to get to 5 grams of fiber per serving
• Wasa's Whole Grain crackers are pretty good, light in calories for 2 grams of naturally-occurring fiber; but your friends make fun of you when you serve kind-of-cardboard crackers at cocktail parties

So up until now, you really didn't much in the way of good whole-grain cracker choices. Enter Nabisco's Wheat Thins Fiber Selects 5-Grain crackers. Wheat Thins - the ubiquitous high salt, high fat refined grain snack cracker, has actually made what seems to be a turn for the better. In 13 crackers (30 g), the Fiber Selects give you 5 grams of fiber, 120 calories - which isn't bad, considering the alternatives. The fat is a little high at 4.5 grams per serving, but only 0.5 grams of that are of the unhealthy saturated fat type and there is no trans fat.

They actually taste good too. Naturally, they're salty (260 mg per day which puts you over 10% of your daily value for sodium) - but they're nutty and crunchy and a lot more tasty than your standard Wheat Thin. The fiber in Wheat Thins Fiber Selects comes from:

• Whole grain wheat flour (the first ingredient - a good sign)
• Oat fiber
• Golden flax seed
• Whole grain barley flakes
• Cracked whole wheat, and 
• Whole grain rolled oats

There is some high fructose corn syrup in there contributing to the 4 grams of added sugars - but all in all - considering the competition, Wheat Thins Fiber Selects are a welcome addition to the cracker aisle.

Wheaties Fuel: Is More Fiber in Your Cereal Worth that Much More Sugar?

Wheaties Fuel is a newly formulated breakfast cereal recipe from Wheaties, "co-created with a team of today's elite champions including Peyton Manning, Albert Pujols, Kevin Garnett...designed for the active individual." While the attempt at reformulating an old classic is noble - it's probably unnecessary.

From a nutritional standpoint, there are more than two times as many calories in the new version and double the carbohydrate in an identical 3/4 cup serving size. The fiber has been bumped up from 3 grams in the original to 5 grams per serving in the Fuel version - but while the original Wheaties recipe has "Whole Grain Wheat" as its primary - and only - source of fiber, Wheaties Fuel's extra fiber comes from whole grain wheat and oats but with a good deal of added (fake?), isolated fiber, including:

• Corn bran
• Maltodextrin
• Wheat bran

In addition to the inclusion of isolated fiber - whose health benefits are relatively unknown - another downside to this reformulated recipe is the need to increase sugars from 4 grams per serving in the original recipe to 14 grams of sugar in the Fuel in order to make all of that fiber palatable. This makes a formerly simple, whole grain, low sugar cereal that any dietitian would recommend into a high calorie, high sugar option that isn't as nutritionally attractive. 

The increase in sugar in the new recipe translates to approximately 45 extra calories from sugar alone in the Fuel version...meaning HALF of the "added carbohydrate" (intended to benefit athletes) in the new recipe is just from refined sugars. 

While it is true that athletes should have a greater percentage of their calories derived from carbohydrate when compared to the non-athletic population, nutrition professionals recommend that those calories come from complex carbohydrates - foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables and dried peas and beans. Unfortunately, half of the the Wheaties Fuel's extra carbohydrates come from simple sugars like table sugar, brown sugar syrup and corn syrup solids. 

An athlete looking to incorporate a healthful breakfast cereal into his or her meal plan would be better served to have a bowl of the Original Wheaties with skim or 1% milk and a medium-sized banana. The banana added with the Original Wheaties gives you the equivalent amount of calories and carbohydrate as the Fuel brand - but without the added refined sugar and even more fiber.

If you want to learn more about Wheaties Fuel - the manufacturers have posted a number of entertaining webisodes on YouTube featuring some of the athletes "involved" in the creation of Wheaties Fuel.

Is Celery Really a Nutritionally-Void Food?

Celery gets a bad rap - for a lot of bad reasons. Maybe you've read that celery is a "negative calorie" food - as in you burn more calories chewing a stalk of celery than you actually get from the celery itself. Another constant comment, "oh celery...that's a waste: just water and nothing else good for you." So what's the deal - and how does celery really stack up from a nutrition standpoint?

First of all - celery is a very low calorie food. One medium eight-inch stalk has only 6 calories. Put another way, if you were to cut up and eat one cup of chopped celery, you'd get about 16 calories. That 16 calories might not sound like much - and it's not - but for almost no caloric intake, you get 1.6 grams of dietary fiber. Not bad considering you'd have to eat 1.5 cups of romaine lettuce, 2 cups of raw spinach or 2 cups of chopped iceberg to get the same amount of fiber.

Some other benefits of celery:

• High water content helps with hydration
• Naturally low in salt
• Good source of vitamins A & C
• Cholesterol and fat free
• Low calorie means you can munch freely

The Fruits & Veggies More Matters campaign offers ten ways to enjoy celery, including:

• Stir-fry celery
• Top salads with celery
• Add to salsa, soups or coleslaw

Celery is available year-round. Try using celery as a base for low-fat chicken salad or tuna salad instead of bread. If you're looking to lose weight, celery is a great, low-calorie snack (provided you don't load it up with peanut butter!) Eating two cups of chopped celery gives you more than 10% of your daily recommended intake for fiber - not bad considering you get that for less than 2% of your daily caloric budget (based on an 1,800 calorie per day meal plan for weight loss).