Want To Make Meals More Nutritious? Just Add Mushrooms (Food)

Understanding the nutritional impact of adding a serving of mushrooms on usual intakes and population nutrient adequacy using NHANES 2011-2016 data

Researchers have identified another good reason to eat more mushrooms. New research , published in Food Science & Nutrition (January 2021) found that adding a mushroom serving to the diet increased the intake of several micronutrients, including shortfall nutrients such as vitamin D, without any increase in calories, sodium or fat.

Dr. Victor L. Fulgoni III and Dr. Sanjiv Agarwal modeled the addition of mushrooms to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2016 dietary data looking at a composite of white, crimini and portabella mushrooms at a 1:1:1 ratio; one scenario including UV-light exposed mushrooms; and one scenario including oyster mushrooms for both 9-18 years and 19+ years of age based on an 84g or ½ cup equivalent serving.

Key findings include:

• Adding an 84g serving of mushrooms increased several shortfall nutrients including potassium and fiber. This was true for the white, crimini and portabella 1:1:1 mix and the oyster mushrooms.
• The addition of a serving (84 g) of mushrooms to the diet resulted in an increase in dietary fiber (5%-6%), copper (24%-32%), phosphorus (6%), potassium (12%-14%), selenium (13%-14%), zinc (5%-6%), riboflavin (13%-15%), niacin (13%-14%), and choline (5%-6%) in both adolescents and adults; but had no impact on calories, carbohydrate, fat or sodium.
• When commonly consumed mushrooms are exposed to UV-light to provide 5 mcg vitamin D per serving, vitamin D intake could meet and slightly exceed the recommended daily value (98% – 104%) for both the 9 -18 year and 19+ year groups as well as decrease inadequacy of this shortfall nutrient in the population.
• A serving of UV-light exposed commonly consumed mushrooms decreased population inadequacy for vitamin D from 95.3% to 52.8% for age group 9-18 years and from 94.9% to 63.6% for age group 19+ years.

“This research validated what we already knew that adding mushrooms to your plate is an effective way to reach the dietary goals identified by the DGA ,” said Mary Jo Feeney, MS, RD, FADA and nutrition research coordinator to the Mushroom Council. “Data from surveys such as NHANES are used to assess nutritional status and its association with health promotion and disease prevention and assist with formulation of national standards and public health policy (CDC, 2020).”

Mushrooms are fungi – a member of the third food kingdom – biologically distinct from plant and animal-derived foods that comprise the USDA food patterns yet have a unique nutrient profile that provides nutrients common to both plant and animal foods. Although classified into food grouping systems by their use as a vegetable, mushrooms’ increasing use in main entrees in plant-forward diets is growing, supporting consumers’ efforts to follow food-based dietary guidance recommendations to lower intake of calories, saturated fatty acids, and sodium while increasing intake of under-consumed nutrients including fiber, potassium and vitamin D. Often grouped with vegetables, mushrooms provide many of the nutrient attributes of produce, as well as attributes more commonly found in meat, beans or grains.

Adding a mushroom serving to the diet increases the intake of several micronutrients, including shortfall nutrients such as vitamin D, without any increase in calories, sodium or fat. © John Valls/Mushroom Council

According to the USDA’s FoodData Central , 5 medium raw, white mushrooms (90g) contain 20 calories, 0g fat, 3g protein and are very low in sodium (0mg/<1% recommended daily value). Few foods naturally contain vitamin D, and mushrooms are unique in that they are the only food in the produce aisle that contain vitamin D. Specifically, one serving of raw, UV-exposed, white (90g) and crimini (80g) mushrooms contains 23.6mcg (118% RDA) and 25.52mcg (128% RDA) of vitamin D, respectively.

Mushrooms are one of the best dietary sources of sulfur-containing antioxidant amino acid ergothioneine and tripeptide glutathione Ergothioneine and glutathione contents in mushrooms depends upon the mushroom varieties, and oyster mushrooms contain more amounts of these sulfur-containing antioxidants than commonly consumed mushrooms: white button, crimini, or portabella mushrooms. The addition of a serving of commonly consumed mushrooms and oyster mushrooms would be expected to add 2.24 and 24.0 mg ergothioneine, respectively, and 3.53 and 12.3 mg glutathione, respectively, to the NHANES 2011-2016 diets based on published literature values.

At this time, the USDA FoodData Central database does not include analytical data on ergothioneine. However, the Mushroom Council is currently supporting research to analyze mushrooms for bioactives/ergothioneine for possible inclusion in USDA FoodData Central database.

More Research from the Mushroom Council Still to Come

With mushrooms growing in awareness and consideration among consumers nationwide, in 2019, the Mushroom Council made a $1.5 million multi-year investment in research to help broaden understanding of the food’s nutritional qualities and overall health benefits.

In addition to the analysis of mushrooms for bioactives/ergothioneine for inclusion in USDA FoodData Central database, additional research projects approved include:

• Health promoting effects of including mushrooms as part of a healthy eating pattern.
• Mushrooms’ relationship with cognitive health in older adults.
• Mushrooms’ impact on brain health in an animal model.
• Nutritional impact of adding a serving of mushrooms to USDA Food Patterns.

Since 2002, the Council has conducted research that supports greater mushroom demand by discovering nutrient and health benefits of mushrooms. Published results from these projects form the basis for communicating these benefits to consumers and health influencers.

Featured image: New research finds that adding a mushroom serving to the diet increased the intake of several micronutrients, including shortfall nutrients such as vitamin D, without any increase in calories, sodium or fat. © Mushroom Council

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Reference: Fulgoni, VL, Agarwal, S. Nutritional impact of adding a serving of mushrooms on usual intakes and nutrient adequacy using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011–2016 data. Food Sci Nutr. 2021; 00: 1– 8. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.2120 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fsn3.2120

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Metabolic Confusion Diet Won’t Boost Metabolism – But it Could Have Other Benefits (Food)

The “metabolic confusion” diet is one of the latest fad diets to be blowing up on social media. Like many fad diets, it promises you can lose weight while still eating what you want.

The diet could reinforce bad eating habits. Bon Appetit/ Shutterstock

Fans of the diet claim that by switching between very low calorie days and high calorie days, you can lose weight while simultaneously speeding up your metabolism. It may sound promising, but there’s no research to back these claims.

The metabolic confusion diet is similar to intermittent fasting, but without the extremes of energy (calorie) restriction. A person on the diet might, for example, eat only 1,200 calories one day, then eat 2,000 calories the next. Although there hasn’t been any research looking specifically at the metabolic confusion diet, we might compare it with a popular form of intermittent fasting: the 5:2 diet where you eat as usual for five days, then either fast for two days or only eat around 500 calories.

Despite being able to eat as much as you like on “feed days”, people may not feel more hungry and still end up eating less overall – and even less on the feed days than they did before starting intermittent fasting. This supports the idea that intermittent fasting can lead to comparable weight loss as conventional diets, where you restrict calories daily.

But while these diets may be successful in getting people to eat less, they may actually reinforce bad eating habits and poor diet quality (such as consuming high-energy, highly-processed foods and drinks), as people may think they can “treat” themselves following low-calorie days. Indeed, research has shown people following these diets have a less nutritious diet than those following traditional calorie-controlled diets.

Other studies have shown that people following the 5:2 diet consume more calories before fast days unconsciously – which could very well happen on the metabolic confusion diet, too.

The other reason for the metabolic confusion diet’s popularity is because fans of the diet claim that switching between low- and high-calorie days keeps your metabolism active, causing you to burn more calories as a result. It’s also believed that this “confusion” will stop biological resistance – such as an increase in appetite – to the diet that may derail weight loss or cause you to regain any weight you’ve lost.

But when we lose weight, our body needs fewer calories to survive. These changes to our metabolic rate (the baseline amount of calories our body needs to function daily) can even be seen several years following weight loss. This is thought to be the result of body mechanisms that adjust the metabolic rate downwards through a special process (called adaptive thermogenesis). This process aims to stop energy from being wasted by preserving it in fat tissue and other fuel reserves. Increased appetite is another way the body tries to restore lost body weight.

The other key selling point of the metabolic confusion diet is that it prevents your metabolism from slowing as you lose weight. However, when we look at studies on intermittent fasting, we see the same reduction in resting metabolic rate as traditional calorie-restricted diets do.

The odd study that has suggested intermittent fasting raises your metabolic rate can often be explained by the inclusion of total fasting.

Fasting causes an acute metabolic starvation response, leading the body to burn through more of its reserved fuel for around 24-48 hours after a fast. All short-term emergency fuel management measures to glucose supply to the brain. But even in this case, any temporary increase in metabolism may be barely detectable. Also, some studies have actually shown greater reductions in metabolic rate with intermittent fasting.

The truth is that no matter how you lose weight, your metabolic rate will decrease. Even certain types of exercise, may not necessarily increase metabolism – with studies on endurance training (such as long-distance running) showing that metabolic rate slows in order to use energy more efficiently during exercise. However, the body does burn more calories immediately after exercise to help muscles recover, especially after higher intensity exercise. Regular weight training could potentially lead to a higher metabolic rate.

Potential benefits

But if the metabolic confusion diet functions similarly to intermittent fasting, it may have other benefits beyond just weight loss.

Intermittent periods of energy restriction have been shown to improve glucose (blood sugar) and lipid (fat) metabolism. This means the body is better able to deal with carbohydrate and fat from a meal. This makes the body better able to tolerate indulgent foods when we encounter them.

By this token intermittent fasting-type diets can improve your ability to manage fuels in the body – known as metabolic flexibility. Metabolic flexibility means you’re better at burning and storing carbohydrates when you need to, and equally better at managing the storage and release of fat from fat stores. This improves insulin sensitivity, which reduces overall risk from disease, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. All of this is independent of weight or weight loss.

Although the metabolic confusion diet may be just another fad diet, it may have benefits other than losing weight given it’s similarity to intermittent fasting. While it can’t “speed up” your metabolism, diets that allow us to have more flexibility in the way we eat are more sustainable and easier to follow in the long run.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sweet Taste Reduces Appetite? (Food)

The sweet taste of sugar is very popular worldwide. In Austria and Germany, the yearly intake per person adds up to about 33 and 34 kilograms, respectively. Thus, sugar plays an increasingly role in the nutrition and health of the population, especially with regard to body weight. However, little is known about the molecular (taste) mechanisms of sugar that influence dietary intake, independently of its caloric load.

Taste receptor and satiety regulation

“We therefore investigated the role of sweet taste receptor activation in the regulation of satiety,” says Veronika Somoza, deputy head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Vienna and director of the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich.

For this purpose, the scientists conducted a blinded, cross-over intervention study with glucose and sucrose. A total of 27 healthy, male persons, between 18 and 45 years of age, received either a 10 percent glucose or sucrose solution (weight percent) or one of the sugar solutions supplemented with 60 ppm lactisole. Lactisole is a substance that binds to a subunit of the sweet receptor and reduces the perception of sweet taste. Despite different types of sugar, all solutions with or without lactisole had the same energy content.

Two hours after drinking each of the test solutions, the participants were allowed to have as much as breakfast they wanted. Shortly before and during the 120-min waiting period, the researchers took blood samples in regular intervals and measured their body temperature.

Additional 100 kilocalories on average

After the consumption of the lactisole-containing sucrose solution, the test persons had an increased energy intake from breakfast of about 13 percent, about 100 kilocalories more, than after drinking the sucrose solution without lactisole. In addition, the subjects of this group showed lower body temperature and reduced plasma serotonin concentrations. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter and tissue hormone which, among other things, has an appetite-suppressing effect. In contrast, the researchers observed no differences after administration of the lactisole-containing glucose solution and the pure glucose solution.

“This result suggests that sucrose, regardless of its energy content, modulates the regulation of satiety and energy intake via the sweet taste receptor,” says Barbara Lieder, head of Christian Doppler Laboratory for Taste Research and also deputy head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry at University of Vienna.

The first study author of the study, Kerstin Schweiger, University of Vienna adds: “We do not know yet why we could not observe the lactisole effect with glucose. However, we suspect it is because glucose and sucrose activate the sweet receptor in different ways. We also assume that mechanisms independent of the sweet receptor play a role.”

“So there is still a lot of research needed to clarify the complex relationships between sugar consumption, taste receptors and satiety regulation on the molecular level,” says Veronika Somoza. In particular, as sweet receptors are also found in the digestive tract and little is known about their function there. The first steps have nevertheless been taken.

References : Sweet Taste Antagonist Lactisole Administered in Combination with Sucrose, But Not Glucose, Increases Energy Intake and Decreases Peripheral Serotonin in Male Subjects: Schweiger K et al., Nutrients 2020, 12(10), 3133; https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/10/3133

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Calories By The Clock? Squeezing Most Of Your Calories In Early Doesn’t Impact Weight Loss (Medicine)

Research Highlights:

* Time-restricted eating, which restricts eating to specific hours of the day, did not impact weight among overweight adults with prediabetes or diabetes.
* Adults in the 12-week study ate the same healthy, pre-prepared foods, however, one group ate the bulk of their calories before 1 p.m. each day, versus the other group that ate 50% of their calories after 5 p.m.

Restricting meals to early in the day did not affect weight among overweight adults with prediabetes or diabetes, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2020. The meeting will be held virtually, Friday, November 13 – Tuesday, November 17, 2020, and is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care worldwide.

“We have wondered for a long time if when one eats during the day affects the way the body uses and stores energy,” said study author Nisa M. Maruthur, M.D., M.H.S., associate professor of medicine, epidemiology and nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Most prior studies have not controlled the number of calories, so it wasn’t clear if people who ate earlier just ate fewer calories. In this study, the only thing we changed was the time of day of eating.”

Maruthur and colleagues followed 41 overweight adults in a 12-week study. Most participants (90%) were Black women with prediabetes or diabetes, and average age of 59 years. Twenty-one of the adults followed a time-restricted eating pattern, limiting eating to specific hours of the day and ate 80% of their calories before 1 p.m. The remaining 20 participants ate at usual times during a 12-hour window, consuming half of their daily calories after 5 p.m. for the entire 12 weeks. All participants consumed the same pre-prepared, healthy meals provided for the study. Weight and blood pressure were measured at the beginning of the study; then at 4 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 weeks.

The analysis found that people in both groups lost weight and had decreased blood pressure regardless of when they ate.

“We thought that the time-restricted group would lose more weight,” Maruthur said. “Yet that didn’t happen. We did not see any difference in weight loss for those who ate most of their calories earlier versus later in the day. We did not see any effects on blood pressure either.”

The researchers are now collecting more detailed information on blood pressure recorded over 24 hours, and they will be compiling this information with the results of a study on the effects of time-restricted feeding on blood sugar, insulin and other hormones.

“Together, these findings will help us to more fully understand the effects of time-restricted eating on cardiometabolic health,” Maruthur said.

Co-authors are Scott Pilla, M.D., M.H.S.; May T.T. Maw, M.B.B.S.M., M.P.H.; Daisy Duan, M.D.; Di Zhao, Ph.D.; Eliseo Guallar, M.D., Dr. P.H.; Ruth Alma Turkson Ocran, Ph.D.; Karen White, M.S.; Beiwen Wu, M.S.P.H.; Jeanne Charleston, R.N.; Lawrence J. Appel, M.D., M.P.H.; and Jeanne M. Clark, M.D., M.P.H. Author disclosures are in the abstract. The study was funded by a grant from the American Heart Association.

Additional Resources:

Multimedia, including a video perspective interview with Alexis C. Wood, Ph.D., chair of the writing group for the American Heart Association Scientific Statement: Caregiver Influences on Eating Behaviors in Young Children (May 2020), may be downloaded from the right column of the release link https://newsroom.heart.org/news/calories-by-the-clock?preview=b6fd89ef6b6c8a9bf6d448a9bf3ab580

Provided by American Heart Association

The Dieter’s Paradox: When More Feels Like Less (Psychology / Food)

Why we pay attention to what we are eating, but not how much.

He thought, “this has a lot of calories, I really shouldn’t eat it.” It was a rich, creamy serving of ice-cream and he was already pretty full.

So he added some chopped nuts and strawberries. Somehow convinced that it now had fewer calories, and guilt free, he dug in.

©freepik

Only a twisted mind would think you can decrease calories by adding more. So I guess I have a twisted mind, because “he” is me. I laugh about it, but my attitude has a lot to do with the epidemic of obesity in this country.

Is it only twisted minds that do this, though? Or do we all do it? Let’s look at some data.

Chernev (2011) asked people to estimate the number of calories in various meals, including a cheesesteak condition (yum).

There were two conditions:

• Unhealthy alone — for example a cheesesteak sandwich.
• Unhealthy plus healthy — for example the same cheesesteak sandwich plus a side of healthy vegetables.

Calorie ratings were higher for the unhealthy meal alone. Adding the healthy side made the meal seem to have fewer calories. In other words, x + 1 is less than x. Chernev (2011) called it the dieter’s paradox.

There was more. Weight conscious individuals were especially likely to show this effect. They thought the carrots and celery decreased calories by a lot, which is surprising if you assume they’d be most tuned in about estimating calories.

This study, and my ice-cream consumption, is an example of scope neglect. When we make judgments we aren’t very good at paying to attention to how big something is. Another example is that people will pay about the same amount to save 2,000 birds as to save 200,000 (Desvouges et al., 1993).

The dieter’s paradox is fundamental to the obesity epidemic in America. We pay attention to what we eat but not how much. When we look at the French, with their rich food, we wonder why they aren’t overweight. When we look at ourselves, with our huge servings that (sometimes) aren’t as calorie-dense, we wonder why we are overweight. That’s like wondering why ice cream alone has fewer calories than ice-cream with nuts and fruit on it.

References: (1) Chernev, A. (2011). The Dieter’s Paradox. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21, 178–183. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2010.08.002 (2) Desvouges, W.H., Johnson, F., Dunford, R., Hudson, S., Wilson, K., and Boyle, K. 1993. Measuring resource damages with contingent valuation: Tests of validity and reliability, in: Contingent Valuation: A Critical Assessment. Amsterdam: North Holland.

This Is Why You Should Sleep In A Cold Bedroom (Biology)

Whether you like to bundle up with several layers of blankets or sleep on a bare mattress exposed to the elements, there’s no one right way to sleep. But if you’re trying to maintain a healthy weight, there might be: Research shows that sleeping in a cold room could help boost your metabolism and make you burn more calories, even during the day.

When you were a baby, you had two types of fat. White fat is what you usually imagine when you think about fat. It stores calories; that’s pretty much all it does. Brown fat, conversely, is what you’d call metabolically active; it burns calories to generate heat. Babies haven’t yet developed the ability to shiver, so they need another way to stay warm — brown fat to the rescue. Once you got older and found other ways to maintain your body temperature, you lost most of your brown fat. Another sad truth about being human.

But a 2014 study published in the journal Diabetes suggested that you might be able to boost your body’s levels of brown fat by sleeping in a chilly environment. The researchers recruited five healthy male volunteers to sleep in climate-controlled rooms at the National Institutes of Health for four months (hospital scrubs and light sheets were provided — what luxury!). The researchers kept the men’s calorie intake controlled by providing all of their meals. For the first month, the men slept with the thermostat set to a neutral 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius). The next month, it was set to a chilly 66 degrees F (19 degrees C), then was reset to neutral for a month. They spent a final month sleeping in a toasty 81 degrees F (27 degrees C).

The cold temperatures had a big effect on the men’s bodies. After a month sleeping in the cold, the men had almost doubled their stores of brown fat, which helped improve their insulin sensitivity — a measure that’s affected by shifts in blood sugar, and is generally used as a sign of metabolic health. They even burned more calories during the day. But as quickly as the improvements came about, they were easily undone; the month of sleeping in warm temperatures actually reduced their brown fat to pre-experiment levels. Even still, that’s good news. To supercharge your metabolism, it may take just a month of chilly slumber.

Th Afterburn Effect Makes You Burn Calories Even After A Workout Is Over (Fitness / Biology)

The adage “calories in, calories out” sounds simple enough: If your workout burns the same number of calories as you eat, you’ll maintain your weight. That’s true in theory, but tough in practice. How many calories does your workout burn? If you’re going by the number on the treadmill or your exercise watch, you’re probably getting it wrong. Exercise doesn’t just burn calories in the moment. The afterburn effect describes the way your body continues to burn calories after — sometimes long after — you’re done working out, and some exercises do it more than others.

Most people think of the human body like a car: while it’s running, it burns fuel in the form of calories, and while it’s at rest, it doesn’t. In reality, the human body is much more complex than that. Not only do you burn calories just by being alive, but exercise can also burn calories long after you’ve left the gym.

The scientific term for the afterburn effect is excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, and the research says the more intense the exercise, the more it kicks in. One study found that participants burned more calories in just the 14 hours after an intense workout than they did for an entire rest day. Another study showed that even though you burn more calories during cardio workouts than weight training, the calories you burn after each workout are roughly the same.

With the way people talk about diet and exercise, it seems like a good workout can be completely ruined by a single donut. The afterburn effect demonstrates how false this thinking is. Exercise has an impact that goes far beyond a few extra calories, which is why it’s important to make it a regular part of your life.