Smart eating
 Nutritionist Catherine Saxelby answers your questions on nutrition.
Big meals or small snacks?
From a health viewpoint how many meals is best – three main meals a day or several smaller ones?
Three meals a day is not a hard and fast rule. Many people are unable to consume three large meals and fare better on five or six small meals over the day. Children and adolescents in particular need between-meal snacks, as their energy requirements are high, but their capacity is limited.
Research has shown that people who snack frequently don’t consume more kilojoules than those having three meals a day. Some studies even show they are more likely to be slimmer. Nutritionists think this may be due to better appetite control and a boost in metabolic rate with more frequent eating.
The bottom line: If you plan to start eating mini-meals over the day, make sure you decrease the size of your meals. So instead of a sandwich, fruit and yoghurt for lunch, eat the sandwich and save the fruit and yoghurt for 3pm.
How much fat on a low-fat diet?
On a low-fat diet how many grams of fat per day is considered low fat? Is it based on total fats or saturated fats?
A low-fat diet usually contains around 40 grams of total fat a day. Nutritionists recommend cutting out unhealthy saturated fats and achieving this fat allowance from healthy mono and polyunsaturated fats found in oils, spreads, nuts, avocados and hummus.
As a guide, there are 20 grams of fat in:
Resources
For more questions and answers on nutrition log on to Nutrition (http://www.jeanhailes.org.au/issues/nutrition.htm). 
Road map to good health
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“To ensure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.”
William Londen |
Australian women lead busy lives, often juggling a variety of responsibilities that may include children, ageing parents, domestic duties, work outside the home and community involvement. The health of our families is a big priority, as is our own physical and mental health. Dietitian Cate Lombard offers some essential advice to share with your friends.
20-30s Prevention is the key
At your peak mental and physical health, now is the time to develop lifelong healthy habits.
FACT An Australian study has found that women in the age group 18–24 are gaining weight at a higher rate than older women.
Health Tips
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Stop smoking. Each year approximately 6000 Australian women die prematurely from tobacco-caused illness.
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Learn to cook new foods.
If you are living away from home, you may be relying on takeaway food more often.
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Be active.
Now is the time to form good physical-activity habits for life.
30-40s Dealing with distractions
There is not much time for yourself as you devote more time to family or work. You might find your weight sneaks up if you are not careful and you can’t seem to find time to be active even though you know you should. You may feel a bit run down and tired.
FACT The VicHealth Participation in Exercise, Recreation and Sport Survey indicates walking is the most popular activity among Victorians.
Health Tips
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Energy.
Drink low-fat milk for calcium and include small serves of lean meat for iron and zinc, plus wholegrain cereals each day.
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Regular physical activity.
Making time for regular physical activity must be a priority now.
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Support network.
Be sure to develop a support network around you now. This will be important to assist with your mental health throughout the future decades.
40-50s Weight can creep up
Life is really busy now. You are entering midlife and changes may be occurring to your body. Eating well, being active and managing stress will help you manage symptoms and changes that are beginning to occur now.
FACT Research tells us even small changes to lifestyle can lower the risk of developing the metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and risk of heart disease and stroke.
Health Tips
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Moderate activity.
If you haven’t been physically active, start with some walking. Add some resistance, such as weights or pilates, as that will have greatest impact on maintaining muscle and keeping your metabolic rate high.
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Vitamins and minerals. Maintain calcium intake, eat fish and other foods high in omega 3 fatty acids, as these may help with mood swings and mild depression.
50-60s A few aches and pains
You many find aches and pains restrict your activities and you don’t recover from injury quite as well as you used to. You may have mild symptoms of menopause and a few women may have more severe symptoms. Your sleep might be affected so you feel tired during the day. Weight gain may still be a problem, particularly around the waist. This increases your risk of diabetes and heart disease. Effort needs to go into protecting your health now.
FACT Regular physical activity may be as effective as medication for mild depression and low mood.
Health Tips
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Activity.
Low impact and resistance-type activities with weights are particularly helpful, as is walking.
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Protection.
Start pumping in the antioxidants with lots of fruit and vegetables. Your need for calcium is higher now – aim for three serves of dairy foods per day.
70+ Time for you
This is the time for some of those activities you have always wanted to do. Join a club, take up art, enjoy some concerts, or as some people do, try something wild like hot air ballooning. Plan some trips. Volunteering is a great way to help people and make new friends.
Health Tips
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Digestion. Some people will experience problems with chewing, swallowing, digestion and loss of taste and will need to alter their diet.
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Fibre.
Keep fibre intake high to ensure a healthy bowel and to avoid constipation.
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Maintain strength and flexibility
through walking and resistance exercises, lifting small to moderate weights. Probably best to do this under supervision.
Prepare for health at each life stage
Be prepared for the changes that will occur throughout the decades. Protect your physical and mental wellbeing by lifestyle changes; begin early and continue throughout life.
Remember that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing –not merely the absence of disease.
Resources
For more information on health and nutrition, or to purchase a copy of Nutrition for Life, the 20th anniversary best-selling edition by author and nutritionist Catherine Saxelby, log on to www.jeanhailes.org.au or call tollfree on 1800 151 441
Cool nights, hot soup
Cauliflower and cannellini soup
by naturopath Sandra Villella
Ingredients
1 cauliflower head cut into florets
400g can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed in cold water (this will reduce about 40 per cent of added salt)
1 chopped onion or leek
About 2 litres of vegetable stock (depending on size of cauliflower and consistency desired)
2–3 bay leaves1 teaspoon of butter (optional)
1 dessertspoon of olive oil
Handful of roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt (if not in vegetable stock) and cracked pepper
Goats fetta or yoghurt for serving
Method
In a large saucepan, heat olive oil and butter; add onion or leek and sauté on low heat until partially cooked. Stir in cauliflower to coat with the flavour of the onion and oil. Add beans, then enough vegetable stock to cover the vegetables. Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer until cauliflower is cooked (breaks up when pressed with a wooden spoon). Remove bay leaves and process with a hand processor. Serve with crumbled fetta or low-fat yoghurt and extra parsley.
Nutritional value
A quick and easy recipe requiring little preparation – great for the end of the shopping week. It’s a great way to use cauliflower, part of the Brassica (cruciferous) vegetable family, which are associated with a lower risk of cancer including lung, colon and breast cancer in women.
The anticancer effects of the Brassica family are associated with compounds called glucosinolates. Broccoli is usually promoted as being the best choice in this family for potentially reducing cancer risk, but it is suggested that a variety of vegetables rich in glucosinolates may be better in helping to influence the enzymes in the body’s system that are moderated to reduce risk. One of the ways the Brassica vegetables might lower breast cancer risk is by influencing the way that our body’s oestrogen is broken down to become less harmful.
The beans thicken the soup and are useful for people who consciously reduce carbohydrates. They provide a source of phytoestrogens (plant oestrogens) found in legumes. Phytoestrogens eaten in moderate to high amounts, as in the diet of Chinese and Japanese women, may help reduce perimenopausal symptoms in some women.
Cannellini beans also provide fibre and protein. Protein found in legumes, including beans, is an ‘incomplete’ protein and needs to be complemented with either a grain or a seed. Eating bread with the meal, or sprinkling sesame seeds on the soup, would complete the protein. Alternatively, add fetta or yoghurt, both of which are complete proteins because they are an animal source.
Cannellini beans are a good source of B vitamins, including folic acid. They are rich in cholesterol-lowering fibre. The high fibre content also prevents blood sugar level from rising too quickly, which helps sustain energy – ideal for people with diabetes and other blood-sugar regulation problems, such as insulin resistance or hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar).
Adding goats fetta, or low-fat yoghurt, adds a source of calcium, as well as increasing the protein.
This resource was developed with the support of the Australian Department of Health and Ageing.
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The Jean Hailes Foundation magazine is designed to be informative and educational. It is not intended that The Jean Hailes Foundation magazine provide specific medical advice or replace advice from your health professional. The Jean Hailes Foundation does not accept any liability to any person for the information or advice (or the use of information or advice) which is provided in this magazine or incorporated into it by reference. Information is provided on the basis that all persons reading the magazine undertake responsibility for assessing the relevance and accuracy of its content.
Note: This article is an archive. Whilst the Jean Hailes Foundation for Women’s Health has made every effort to ensure this information was accurate at the time of publication, the article content has not been updated since the date listed below.
Content created May 18, 2006
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