Using Nutritious Arrowroot in Your Home and Your Kitchen

Compared to wheat and corn based thickeners, arrowroot is the clear winner nutritionally. Like many rhizome root tubers, it packs a nutritional punch. It is high across the B-vitamin complex, including folate (not to be confused with synthetic folic acid) and a number of minerals, such as potassium. Arrowroot powder is also slightly superior to tapioca in terms of overall nutrition, but soil and growing conditions probably matter more than the plant species in this regards (2).

While arrowroot is very nutrient rich, it is low in protein. The protein profile is also incomplete with several important amino acids missing.

The starch portion of arrowroot is exceptionally easy to digest and completely gluten free. This makes it ideal as a common food for babies and small children. The sick and elderly find it easy on the digestion as well, which is one reason it was so highly valued by cultures who came to rely on it as a primary food source.

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 Nutritional or Brewer's Yeast: What You Need to Know Before Buying

Nutritional or brewers yeast is a popular supplement today, particularly among vegetarians. It is an excellent source of B vitamins and can be high in the minerals selenium or chromium depending on how it is processed.

Brewers yeast was originally discovered when people realized that the leftover sludge from beer making actually contained nutritional value for both people and livestock.

In Australia, this thick, moist, yeasty-smelling, black residue is sold in jars as Vegemite. Used as a popular sandwich spread, this cultural tradition was made famous by the band Men at Work in the 1980s with their #1 hit Land Down Under. The comparable food product in the UK is known as Marmite.

The difference between the food form and supplement form of brewers yeast is simply the state of the yeast. Supplement forms are dried and deactivated, whereas the moist food form found in jars is typically not.

Hence, those struggling with yeast overgrowth issues or on the Candida diet would do best to avoid food based forms. However, dried supplement powders, flakes and tablets have no risk of yeast colonization in the gut and therefore should pose no problems in the majority of cases. The one exception to this is if an individual has a yeast sensitivity or allergy in which case any exposure to yeast, deactivated or not, should be avoided.

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 How to Spot Fake Sourdough at the Store (Panera too!)

As awareness of the benefits of sourdough bread increases, so does the potential for food manufacturers – both large and small – to exploit the term.

And exploit it they most certainly do!

I recently examined every single loaf of bread at a local healthfood store. I found only one out of over half a dozen that claimed to be “sourdough” that was leavened in a traditional manner. No, it wasn’t the The Essential Baking Company sourdough bread in the picture above. You won’t believe what this company is doing to fool consumers. Even I was shocked, and I thought I had seen it all.



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