1. Wholegrains: More evidence
New research reports that the antioxidants in wheat, allied with dietary fibre, are the key to its anti-colon cancer properties.
2. Atkins: Life threatening reports
Low-carb diets may pose a serious health risk and are not a safe way to lose weight according to a new report.
3. Soy: No threat to infants
Scientific evidence says that consumption of soy from the diet or as a supplement should not cause alarm despite negative reports about risks.
4. Wholegrains: Secrets to fighting fat
A preliminary study in the US led by the Agricultural Research Service provides details how wholegrains keep the body's levels of certain fats in check.
5. Grains in the News:
Grains: Ultimate Good Mood Food?
Did you know that grains-based foods rich in carbohydrates have the ability to positively influence mood and help control appetite? The calming effect of carbs may even improve our ability to stick with a weight management program.
Porridge: The revival
Hot cereals such as porridge and oatmeal are benefiting from a revival among the UK's health conscious consumers according to a new report.
Cereal: Beyond the box
Breakfast cereals are coming out of the box. Chefs are proving that cereals are something more than a breakfast food.
Barley : Not just for beer
It seems that the old fashioned grains are well and truly making a come back due to their health benefits and barley is just one of them.
Whole grains, a rich source of phytochemicals, bran, fibre, minerals and vitamins, have been gaining increasing attention from researchers, with studies reporting reduced risks of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and colorectal cancer. The latter causes 492,000 deaths each year worldwide.
The link between colorectal cancer and whole grains has been put down to the fibre content, although this remains an area of intense debate.
The new study, published in the journal Nutrition Research, supplemented the diet of Min mice, a model strain that has a 100 per cent chance of developing intestinal cancer, with ground wheat.
Five cultivars of wheat were used in the study, and the mice randomly assigned to one of eleven diet groups. Each wheat cultivars was provided as either wheat bran or whole wheat, and a control group ate a casein-based diet with no wheat added.
After the 10-week feeding period, the researchers examined the number and size of the intestinal tumours were measured.
?There was a strong correlation between the antioxidant content of the wheat samples and their tumour suppression activity in the intestine of Min mice,? wrote lead author John Carter from Wichita State University.
Two of the cultivars, Ike and Madison, reduced the number of tumours in the small intestinal tract by about 60 per cent.
?These cultivars contained the highest amounts of dietary antioxidants,? said Carter.
It was also noted that wheat bran diets were more effective than the whole wheat diets for inhibiting the growth of the tumours.
The researchers reported that the main phytochemicals in the wheat were orthophenolics, including diferulic, ferulic, caffeic and chlorogenic acids.
The potency of these phytochemicals in the suppression of cancer is said to be enhanced by the presence of dietary fibre.
?The bioavailability may be aided by their ester linkage to the plant cellulose wall components, thus protecting them from degradation until they are released by endogenous glut flora,? proposed Carter.
In a recent issue of the Lancet, US doctors report a ?life-threatening complication? of the Atkins diet observed in a 40-year old obese woman.
The patient was admitted to the intensive care unit in a New York hospital with dangerously high levels of acids in her blood caused by starvation, said Professor Klaus-Dieter Lessnau of the New York School of Medicine.
The woman, who had been strictly following the Atkins diet for a month and had lost 9kg, had become increasingly short of breath five days before being admitted to hospital. She had lost her appetite and had vomited four to six times daily.
According to Lessnau and his colleagues, she was suffering from severe ketoacidosis, a condition that occurs when high levels of acids called ketones build up in the blood. Ketones are produced in the liver as a result of diabetes or starvation.
According to the doctors, a low carbohydrate diet such as Atkins can lead to ketone production- in fact, the Atkins diet book recommends regular monitoring for ketones in the urine to confirm adherence to the diet.
"Low-carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis, constipation or diarrhoea, halitosis, headache, and general fatigue to name a few side-effects,? said the doctors.
?As researchers and clinicians, our most important criterion should be indisputable safety, and low-carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark. Professional dietetic associations in the US, Australia and Europe, emphasise eating healthy foods and being physically active."
Although weight loss studies have shown significant health benefits, such as a reduced risk of diabetes, hypertension and reduced risk factors for other metabolic conditions, the current report emphasises that not all weight loss methods have similar benefits.
Indeed, the position of the American Dietetic Association on weight control is that ?successful weight management to improve overall health for adults requires a lifelong commitment to healthful lifestyle behaviors emphasising sustainable and enjoyable eating practices and daily physical activity?.
Scientific evidence says that consumption of soy from the diet or as supplements should not cause alarm despite negative reports about risks, a view that has been supported by a major US industry group.
Recently the US Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) of the National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIEHS) and National Toxicology Program organized scientific discussions to review whether exposure to soy products may be hazardous to human development or reproduction.
The main concerns have been aimed at genistein , a naturally occurring plant oestrogen or phytoestrogen in soybeans that can mimic the effects of oestrogen in the body. Several recent studies have raised safety questions about the safety of genistein.
?There is a need to look at available evidence from reproductive and developmental animal and human toxicity studies, as well as exposure data from infants and women of reproductive age, to determine if phytoestrogens in soy infant formulas adversely affect human growth, development, or reproduction,? said an official statement from the NIEHS.
After three days of discussion, the overall consensus was that, when given orally, there was no threat from the reproductive and developmental effects of soy. It should be noted that the effects of genistein in relation to heart disease or cancer risk, for example, were not explored by the panelists.
It was not a unanimous decision from the scientists however, with one panel member disagreeing with the finding and saying that greater caution was merited.
The results of the discussion have been welcomed by US trade association the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA), which said it was supportive of all research initiatives about the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements.
?When viewed in its entirety, the available scientific evidence, as shared during the NTP Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) panel discussion, supports the safety of soy isoflavone dietary supplements,? said the organisation.
Dr Daniel Fabricant, vice president of scientific affairs for the NNFA, said that some uncertainty about the actual risks for consumers might be due to confusing the natural compound typically found in dietary supplements, genistin, with the compound in question, genistein.
Fabricant stressed that the latter, when used in supplements, is usually found only in significantly lower quantities.
Whole-wheat toast and other wholegrain foods are already known to help keep in check the body's levels of certain fats. A preliminary study led by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) chemist Nancy L Keim provides new details about how whole grains might do that.
Dr Keim, with the agency's Western Human Nutrition Research Center in Davis, California, and her University of California-Davis colleagues worked with 10 healthy female volunteers, aged 20 to 45, for the study.
Volunteers went on two separate, 3-day regimens, one featuring meals high in whole grains and the other offering meals with refined-grain foods. When on the wholegrains regimen, for example, the women would have a chicken stir-fry with pearled barley, instead of white rice, for dinner.
Each regimen was followed by a test breakfast at the laboratory. On that day, volunteers gave a blood sample before eating and at three intervals later that day.
Scientists found two significant differences in particles, known as VLDLs or "very-low-density lipoproteins, that transport fat in the blood.
First, volunteers' VLDLs had higher levels of a kind of fat, known as a triglyceride, following the refined-grains test breakfast than following the wholegrains test meal. Second, volunteers' VLDLs had a higher amount of another worrisome compound--this one known as apoCIII (short for apolipoprotein CIII), following the refined grains test meal.
In medical studies, higher levels of triglycerides and of apoCIII have both been associated with higher risk of heart disease.
Keim reported these findings at the 2005 meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. She plans to start a longer, larger follow-up study later this year.
We know now that grain-based foods are a source of essential vitamins and minerals and provide the body with carbohydrates which are the main source of energy for physical activity, normal metabolic function, healthy growth and a well functioning brain.
However, high carbohydrate grain-based foods have another little-known effect ? the ability to positively influence mood and help control appetite. These calming effects may even improve our ability to stick with a weight management program.
Dr Phillipa Lyons-Wall, lecturer in nutrition and dietetics at Queensland University of Technology, said that carbohydrate can affect chemical messenger in the brain called serotonin that elevates mood and suppresses appetite.
?High carbohydrate consumption naturally stimulates the production of serotonin ? which has a natural calming effect ? but protein and fat counteracts the effect,? said Dr Lyons-Wall.
?Because grain-based foods are generally high in carbohydrate, and low in fat and protein, they tend to have this subtle, calming effect. High protein foods on the other hand, tend to do the opposite,? she said.
This remarkable finding dates back to the 1970s when scientists Richard Wurtman and John Fernstrom first discovered that eating carbohydrates increases the production of serotonin in the brain.
Whilst most nutrition research is about preventing or curing diseases such as cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, there is mounting evidence that our daily mood states and thinking capacities are influenced by the foods we eat.
Recent studies have found the types of breakfast people eat can affect the state of their mood in the middle of the day. Other research shows dieters tend to become depressed about two weeks into a diet, which may be linked to a drop in serotonin levels due to decreased carbohydrate intake.
But despite the fact that carbohydrate's effect on mood has been suspected for around 30 years, most people aren't aware of the mood enhancing effect grain-based foods can provide.
Ms Trish Griffiths, Accredited Practicing Dietitian and Executive Manager of Go Grains Health and Nutrition, said carbohydrates have had a lot of bad press in recent times and Australians may not realise their many benefits.
?Carbs have been demonised on a number of fronts - accused of causing weight gain and blamed as the reason people can't lose weight - but the opposite is actually true,? Ms Griffiths said.
?It seems clear that people would benefit from understanding how foods like carbohydrates can affect their mood and appetite. Further research in this area might help us control food intake more effectively to maintain a healthier and happier lifestyle. Living longer is about wellness, not feeling miserable,? she said.
Hot cereals such as porridge and oatmeal are benefiting from a revival among Britain's health conscious consumers, according to Mintel.
The market analyst says that between 2003 and 2005, value sales of oats increased by a massive 26 per cent.
Overall, since the start of the millennium, sales grew by an impressive 81 per cent reaching 85 million in 2005. Meanwhile, over the same five year period, volume sales also increased by a healthy 43 per cent with Britons consuming 50,000 tonnes of oat-based products last year alone.
"The popularity of porridge has seen something of a revolution, cooking up a storm not only in the home but also in Britain's cafes and sandwich shops," said senior market analyst Julie Sloan.
"The success of porridge is almost entirely due to its convenience and its healthy positioning, both of which are key requirements for food in the 21st century.
"It is amazing to see this simple staple now giving more modern and seemingly more adventurous cereals a real run for their money, which is particularly impressive given the amount of investment ploughed in to new launches in the cereal market."
Some analysts believe that the growing popularity of the Glycaemic Index diet (GI), a regime that promotes foods with a slow release of sugar, has boosted demand for oat-based products, which have a naturally low GI.
As the popularity of low-carbohydrate diets wanes, and the obesity epidemic grows, science is emerging showing that low-GI foods can help control weight. Porridge and other oat-based products could be benefiting on the back of this.
In stark contrast, the cold cereal market grew by just 13 per cent and eight per cent in value and volume terms respectively during this time.
Mintel predicts that the hot cereals segment will yet again dominate growth over the next five years, rising considerably in value terms but three times faster in volume than cold cereals in cold terms (23 per cent versus seven per cent) albeit from a smaller base.
Although growing at a slower rate than the previous five years, the hot cereal segment will continue full steam ahead.
Cereal cookbooks, cereal restaurants popping up all over the US, chefs cooking with cornflakes - breakfast cereals are coming out of the box.
Cooking with cereal is nothing new, of course but this goes beyond Rice Bubble squares. Inspired by nostalgia, convenience and the "crunch factor," the idea of cereal as something more than breakfast food is gaining cachet.
Chefs in some of the trendiest US restaurants are incorporating breakfast cereals into retro recipes. Chocolate wizard Jacques Torres offers decadent dark-chocolate-covered cornflakes at his New York chocolate shops. Planet Hollywood's most popular menu item is Cap'n Crunch Chicken, served with a creole mustard sauce.
Several new cookbooks, recently released in the US, also showcase cereal in far more elaborate recipes than simple snack mixes and bars, including David Hoffman's Breakfast Cereal Gourmet and Lauren Chattman's upcoming Cereal Lover's Cookbook due out May this year in the US.
"After all, cereal is comfort food, ranking up there with meatloaf or macaroni cheese," Hoffman writes. "It is also retro nostalgia, a reminder of the freedom of Saturday mornings in front of the TV."
Cereal has practically become its own food group, Hoffman argues, so why not give cereal its due in recipes?
"The rationale behind any recipe that includes cold cereal as an ingredient breaks down to one thing: mouth feel," Hoffman writes. "Its inherent crunchiness makes it ideal as the base of a coating, crust, topping, layer, stuffing or binder."
Hoffman's book is a collection of cereal trivia and nostalgia with a mix of simple and sophisticated cereal-inspired recipes from some of the US's top chefs.
Mexican-cooking guru Rick Bayless, leading chef in Chicago, offers Cornflake-Crusted Fish Fillets With Roasted Tomatillo Sauce and Fried Corn. Oprah Winfrey's personal chef, Art Smith, shares a recipe for Hazelnut Chicken With Mustard Sauce that incorporates crushed Wheaties. Pastry chef extraordinaire Gale Gand, partner with Rick Tramonto, host of the Food Network's Sweet Dreams, creates a Cereal Sampler featuring Rice Krispies, Cocoa Krispies and Cocoa Puffs.
Hoffman offers two guarantees in his book:
"Cooking with cereal will give food great texture," he writes, "and cooking with cereal will tweak food's taste in surprising ways depending on whether the grain you choose is corn, wheat, rice, oat or bran and whether or not it's been sweetened."
It seems that the old fashioned grains are well and truly making a come back due to their health benefits and barley is just one of them.
Known to most of us barley as a beer making ingredient or a type sweet to ward of travel sickness but we should be getting to know it better as it is actually very good for you.
BARLEYmax is a new variety of barley created by the CSIRO as a type of supre-barley. This new variety is high in insoluable fibre and has a GI of 50 which is low when compared to the standard grain.
An excellent source of fibre barley has also been reported to help reduce blood cholesterol. As a soluable fibre it may help to reduce the absorption of fat and cholesterol in the intestinal tract.
Barley contains tocotienols ? chemicals antioxidants related to Vitamin E, which can also reduce LDL cholersterol levels.
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