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Monday, January 28, 2008
Is Dried Fruit Really Healthy?
Consumers are so disadvantaged because reading ingredient labels often require a PhD in biochemistry! Here’s one tip - The fewer the ingredients listed, the less processed the food is. If you’re buying dried fruit, the first ingredient should be fruit, such as raisins, dates, apricots or figs, and that’s about it. It sounds as if you chose a dried fruit that's been processed with hydrogenated fat. Dried fruit is a healthy food, a good choice for energy and fiber, and naturally fat-free. Dried fruit, by weight, is higher in calories than the fresh counterpart, and although concentrated in calories, it’s also more concentrated in other nutrients, for example, although fresh grapes are not a particularly good source of iron; raisins, which are dried grapes, are rich in iron. One cup of sliced fresh plums has only 91 calories; only 1 percent of the Daily Value for iron, a cup of prunes has 406 calories and 23 percent of the DV for iron. You don’t want to eat an entire cup of prunes if you’re watching your weight, but a couple of prunes diced into your cereal is tasty and nutritious, too.
So natural dried fruit is good for you, but you need to watch the portion size - especially when you're watching your calories. Getting back to your food item, adding sugar and fat to dried fruit changes the item's healthy nature. There's no reason to add sugar to dried or fresh fruit, because it's naturally sweet. And adding trans fat (partially hydrogenated sunflower oil) to dried fruit makes it higher in calories, and bad for your heart. You may choose organic dried fruit without added sulfites or preservatives or you can buy conventional dried fruit, which may be treated with sulfites or ascorbic acid to prevent browning. The bottom line is that you should always choose dried fruit without added sugar or fats.
Posted by HoodiaPharm HungerAway ::
7:47 AM ::
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