Perhaps you don’t give much thought to your morning bowl of oatmeal, lunch turkey and cheese sandwich, and dinner pasta. It all seems healthy, right? Well, research is making it clear that when it comes to the calories we consume every day, form matters. Not all fruits, breads, oats, potatoes, and nuts are created equal concerning their impacts on your body. Here are the best ways to eat some of your favorite foods.
Oats
When you’re in the grocery store, mulling over the oatmeal selections, consider reaching for the heartier steel-cut variety. A research review published in the Journal of Nutrition showed that post-consumption blood sugar and insulin responses are better after eating intact oat kernels than after eating more processed rolled or instant oat flakes. It appears that a greater disruption in the structural integrity of the oat kernel is associated with altered rates of digestion and, in turn, fewer glycemic benefits. This may impact satiety and perhaps even future risk for developing metabolic conditions like Type 2 diabetes.Nuts
Ground-breaking research has shown the number of calories we derive from whole nuts such as almonds, cashews, walnuts and pistachios is nearly 25% less than previously thought. A chunk of the calories in nuts is found within cell walls that resist being broken down by mastication and digestion so, in the end, we don’t absorb all of their upfront calories.This is likely one reason why studies have failed to show that eating calorie-dense nuts leads to weight gain. The processing that goes into making nut butters and nut oils will rupture cell walls so it’s likely we would extract more fat calories from these forms of nuts. What’s more, a study in the journal Nutrients discovered that eating whole almonds results in a greater abundance of beneficial gastrointestinal microbiota compared to almond butter. These same nuances may also apply to seeds.
