Quiz: What's that you're eating?

Answers:
1. Answer: C (Whole wheat).
Whole wheat flour contains the entire grain kernel, including the bran, germ and endosperm. Wheat flour -- whether bleached, unbleached or enriched -- is refined and has fewer vitamins and minerals. Twelve grain (or multigrain) may mean little since the bread may still be mostly refined wheat (white) flour.

2. Answer: B (Pink grapefruits).
Gram for gram, pink and white grapefruits have roughly the same amount of calories and vitamin C, but the pink variety has more than 30 times the beta-carotene (vitamin A) plus some lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that gives pink grapefruits their colour. Brown sugar (white sugar with molasses) and honey contain minute amounts of minerals, but unless you eat a large portion, the difference is insignificant. Eggshell colour has nothing to do with the flavour, nutritive value or shell thickness of an egg -- just the breed of hen.

3. Answer: A (2,000-calorie diet).
Daily food values allow you to compare products and determine if there is a little or a lot of a nutrient in a serving of food. Why 2,000? It's about right for a moderately active woman, teenage girl or sedentary man. You can use the % Daily Value as a general guide, even if you eat more or less than 2,000 calories a day.

4. Answer: C (Canola).
Weighing in at one gram of saturated fat per tablespoon, canola oil is the lowest (olive oil has 1.9 grams, soybean has 2.1 grams and coconut has 11.8 grams). It is also high in cholesterol-lowering monounsaturated fat and contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. But use any oil sparingly: one tablespoon packs roughly 125 calories and 20 per cent of a day's worth of fat.

5. Answer: A (Saturated and trans fats).
Cholesterol in the bloodstream is what's most important; the main dietary influence on blood-cholesterol levels is the mix of fats in the diet. Saturated and trans fats are the real culprits. Other factors that may skew your numbers include age, genetics, gender, body weight and shape, diabetes and level of physical activity. Eighty per cent of the cholesterol in your blood is produced by your liver; only 20 per cent is affected by your diet.

6. Answer: A (Broccoli, cabbage and kale).
Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, such as cauliflower, cabbage and kale, contain sulforaphane, a natural chemical that has been shown to help the liver detoxify cancer-causing substances. But keep in mind that there are benefits to eating all types of vegetables.

Click here to read about other foods that fight cancer.

7. Answer: B (Fat).
Fat has nine calories per gram; alcohol has seven; and protein and carbohydrate have about four.

8. Answer: A (Smokers).
Because smoking increases oxidative stress and depletes the body of vitamin C, smokers need an additional 35 milligrams a day. Requirements may also be higher in some alcoholics due to increased urinary excretion of the vitamin and poor dietary habits.

(Read a quitters guide to stop smoking from Homemakers.com.)

9. Answer: C (Three ounces of steak).
In general, the bioavailability (the extent to which your body can use a particular nutrient) of iron in meats, fish and poultry is high; in grains and legumes it is intermediate; and in most vegetables, especially those high in oxalates (acids that interfere with iron absorption from the gut), such as spinach, collards and leeks, it is low. To enhance the absorption of iron from the latter sources, accompany the meal with vitamin C -- for instance, have a glass of orange juice with your cereal.

10. Answer: D (None of the above).
Skim milk has the same essential nutrients, in the same amounts, as whole, 1% and 2% milk; it also has almost no fat and fewer calories. The calcium in a soy beverage is absorbed at the rate of 75 per cent of milk, which means a soy beverage has to contain 400 milligrams of calcium to equal the 300 milligrams of calcium from a serving of cow's milk. Further, not all soy beverages have calcium added.

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