Nutritional Yeast, Fish, and Prenatal Vitamins

Thanks for all of your wonderful comments on my last post, regarding The Raw Food Diet. It seems as though most of you agreed with me that while the Raw Food Diet can be a healthy way of living, it's a little too extreme and unrealistic for most people (including even the most nutrition savvy individuals!).

Today has been a really bad day, as I woke up to find my car had been hit in the parking lot, with no note (of course). Right as Nick and I are trying to purchase our first home, this has to happen. Oh well, life isn't fare.

I received a question yesterday that I would like to answer.

Q: I was wondering what you think of woman who are not pregnant and not planning on becoming pregnant, taking prenatal vitamins or a prenatal vitamin.

A: I think some women do this as a way to grow their hair faster, and longer nails, right? I think I have heard of women doing this before. In reality it's not smart because prenatal vitamins will be very high in two nutrients that you do not want to get too much of; iron and folate. Some studies have linked high doses of folate (1000 mcg from supplements and food combined) with cancer. Many prenatal vitamins will provide close to that amount (for the purpose of helping the baby!). The iron in these supplements is also high (maybe up to 25 mg). This amount of iron is not healthy or necessary for a women who is not pregnant. It can cause constipation, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The upper limit (UL) for iron is 45 mg. By taking a prenatal vitamin with 25 mg of iron, you are at risk of reaching that amount, especially if you eat fortified cereals!

The Low Down on Fish

If you are interested in learning about fish, and which seafood has the highest amount of EPA and DHA, check out my blog post for out work website, here.

Nutritional Yeast

Nutritional yeast was introduced to me by several of you. I had never thought to use it, as my diet is full of plenty of vitamins, minerals, and protein, but I saw it at Whole Foods the other day and wanted to give it a try, just for fun. It's deactivated yeast and is produced by culturing the yeast with a mixture of sugarcane and beet molasses, then harvesting, washing, drying and packaging the yeast (Source: Wikepedia). It's flavor is said to be, "nutty, cheesy, and creamy" and it's nutritional profile is incredible; B12, riboflavin, folate, thiamin, complete protein, fiber, and potassium.

It tasted great on top of some spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce and ground turkey....

It added some flavor to my boring egg whites.....

And I also added it to some popcorn, kale chips, and last night's baked potato!

Question: If you use nutritional yeast, how do you use it?

Coming Up

Tomorrow I will post a "Nutrition Tidbit" about food and supplement labeling laws. I will also post about a new product I recently tried; Yoplait Greek yogurt!

Have a great night everyone, and thanks for reading.