Contents
Are cereals important in the daily diet
Are cereals necessary in the diet?
Cereals constitute, together with legumes, the main source of carbohydrates. Bread, pasta, rice have been traditionally considered “enemies of the scale.” As with the legumes, they have been considered unsuitable as food for people who want to lose weight or want to be thin.
It has been shown that this thinking is wrong. Cereals contain many carbohydrates as starch. Carbohydrates are a healthy source of energy. The body converts them into glucose to be released slowly, stabilizing blood sugar levels.
Eating cereals is a good way not to feel hungry for longer and prevent the need to eat other sugary and less healthy foods.
Whole grains provide a lot of fiber, minerals and vitamins. Its importance in the diet is so great that they should represent a third of the total of food a person consumes. There is evidence that, besides being a very healthy source of energy, they prevent the occurrence of many diseases such as constipation, colon cancer or breast cancer, osteoporosis or anemia.
How to eat cereals?
The best way to eat them is to eat them whole, since in the out layer of the whole grains we can find most of the nutrients, while refined ones mainly contain starch.
We should not add extra fat when cooking cereals in order not to exceed the number of calories. By doing this, despite what has been said, bread and pasta, are two very suitable food for dieting. Fat is not inside themselves but in what we add when cooking them
Despite its benefits, we must not forget that wheat, barley, oats and rye are not suitable for people who are allergic to gluten, a type of protein within these cereals.
More information about the cereal diet.
