Had a lovely talk with my boss yesterday about why she refused to try any of the dehydrated fruit & fruit leather that I had brought in for snacks. She has what I would call a "food issue". She will not eat anything that she can not see being made or if there is a chance that someone else may have "touched" it. If you hand her a bottle of water you have to only hold it by the bottle cause if you hand goes to close to the top she will not drink it. She has also been working very hard at weight loss and maintaining her weight.
She knows that I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to...well everything really...but food prep is one of those things that get more attention. The answer she gave me surprised me. She said that there is too much sugar in dehydrated fruit. She follows the Weight Watchers program and fresh fruit is "free" but dried fruit is not. Of course I had to google it: http://www.livestrong.com/article/377590-fruit-points-list-for-weight-watchers/
That got me thinking about diabetes and the impact of dried fruit on a diet.
The American Diabetes Association says you should eat fresh fruit three times daily: one small piece of whole fresh fruit or 1/2 cup of fresh fruit at breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can exchange dried fruit for fresh fruit, but consider portion size. A half cup of dried fruit may equal up to 2 cups of fresh fruit. Also, choose a variety of dried fruit that doesn't have added sugars.
I must say that the above shocked me. I think this week I have eaten several cups of dried fruit each day while job shadowing. (and yes I did increase my water intake because of the "extra" dried fruit)
The general idea of being prepared is to stock what you eat, eat what you stock. I guess in a SHTF situation the higher sugar counts would be a good thing unless you have health issues. Has anyone else gone the "extra" mile to find out more about what you are storing and the impact on your body that it has?
A really excellent post and a good idea to bring this up. Considering food stores are finite, decisions on what can be stored with the most balanced nutrition as well as calories needs to be a major factor.
My wife teaches food and nutrition and with her post secondary education has been a real god send in understanding what to stores, what lasts, and what foods will give the proper sustanence in the least amount of storage space. So yes, this is a great point which is always in our decision making.
There is a fair bit of information on different types of foods, but even a basic knowledge of canada's food health guide gives you a really good basis. The good news is with the all the iron fortified foods (mainly driven from the vegetarian movement) there are some great food items that can store long term where meat may not be an option. (doesn't store long.) Challenges like vitamin c remain too. It degrades in storage and can't store like other food items for years and years. Same with fats and oils. And to live, these are essential. Funny how indigenous people's did not suffer from scurvy like new settlers dide because of vit. C found in particular tree bark. So oldschool, this topic is really at the forefront. You need food stores, but you need a balance to ensure your getting a rounded diet with min. Recommended amounts. Quick sugars like those found in fruits, and dehydrated fruits are just fine in moderation. But to much and ya, they are counterproductive. You subject your pancreas to unneeded stress. 🙂 We do need sugar. So avoiding sugar entirely can be just as detrimental.
Google and look into Canada's Health guide. It's just a guide, but covers what we need for healthy living. Your physical activity or lack of, specific medical conditions, etc. will Taylor your food intake to what you need. The human body is very resilient...so we can stray from the guideline and for the most part survive. 🙂
https://www.internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=7738
Stupid thing is that I do the research for fresh stuff but never did research on dehydrated or canned. 😳