Does nutritional yeast expire or go bad?

Question

I have a tub of nutritional yeast with a "best by" date of February 2012 (at the time of this posting, it's about a month past that). Is it still good to use? It still looks and smells the same as it always has.

In general, what is the shelf life of nutritional yeast?

Does nutritional yeast ever expire or otherwise go bad? Or just lose nutritional value?

Asked by Ben Lee

Answer

Your question: is it good to use. My answer: yes.

1. You say it smells and looks normal. That's an important clue.

2. We are talking about a dry product. No moist means no growth, no toxins...

3. Best before date. Wikipedia:

Most shelf life dates are used as guidelines based on normal and expected handling and exposure to temperature. Use prior to the expiration date does not necessarily guarantee the safety of a food or drug, while a product is not always dangerous nor ineffective after the expiration date

Answered by BaffledCook

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How can I make an Überfood?

Question

Each day, you're supposed to get a certain number of servings of grains, vegetables, fats, etc. You know, the food pyramid.

However, instead of going to all the trouble to prepare three meals with several courses each and every day, I'd like to just have the same thing to eat, all the time. I'm hoping this isn't considered sacrilege for this site!

What I'm describing is an Überfood, as it has a near-perfect balance of all of the daily intake requirements. They make it for cats, dogs, and other mammals, so I'm sure it's possible for us primates. Like cats and dogs, I'd of course have the occasional treat, but it would always be above-and-beyond and not part of my daily nutrients.

What considerations should I put into making an Überfood? Ideally, it would be shelf-stable and not need refridgeration. Texture and taste are less important.

Clearly, I don't know much about cooking or food preparation... But I think there's a better way than just buying an industrial blender, throwing a bunch of vitamins, vegetables, protien, etc., and seeing what turns up.

Asked by JJ Caldwell

Answer

Sounds like you want Nutraloaf. If you search google you will undoubtedly find recipes for this abomination. It is designed to meet nutritional needs while minimizing the need for utensils. You did say taste and texture weren't important.

Answered by DHayes

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What are the differences in protein content between chicken broth and chicken stock?

Question

Does anybody have any data on the nutritional composition of chicken broth (liquid in chicken soup) and chicken stock (liquid from chicken bones)? For example, will stock contain more protein then broth? Have googled the nutritional contents I read conflicting things and I'm not sure whether they are referring to broth or stock.

When during the cooking process is protein extracted? If you simmer stock for 2-8 hours, does most of it come out in the first two hours, or does more come out with prolonged simmering?

Asked by James Wilson

Answer

I very quickly found nutritional information for storebought (Swanson) chicken broth and chicken stock. As you'd expect, neither one contains all that much protein. The stock does contain substantially more: 4g per cup compared to 1g - this should also be expected, since stock has some gelatin in it, and gelatin is mostly protein.

Of course, it's commercially made; I imagine you'd be hard-pressed to find good nutritional data for homemade stock and broth.

Answered by Jefromi

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Stir-frying: how much of the oil evaporates?

Question

When you're stir-frying or sauteeing, I'm sure some of the oil get evaporated due to high temperature. How much of the original oil evaporates? Since I suppose it depends on the kind of oil, temperature and duration, can you give example for several typical cases? (for example, vegetable oil, medium heat, 15 minutes, etc)

How does this affect the nutrition and energy calculation? For example if 50 grams of vegetable oil contains ~400 kcal, how much calories does some food cooked with that much oil has?

Asked by Fitri

Answer

The boiling point of most cooking oils is much higher than their smoke points. The boiling point of olive oil, for example, is around 300°C (572°F), which is hotter than the temperature of a pan on a typical residential range/cooktop. With that said, alcohols and esters which make up the flavor and fragrance of the oil will have lower boiling points and will therefore evaporate. That should not significantly alter the nutritional content of the oil. Furthermore, much of the perceived loss of oil is likely due to a combination of absorption of the oil into the items being fried, and also due to splatter. The latter cannot be easily quantified due to its connection with the cooking vessel and the technique of the cook.

Answered by ESultanik

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Why put a stone in the soup?

Question

I was surprised by the added stone in the soup of this question:

"Also, for irony, a large (cleaned) stone is always left in the pot"

What would be the reason for this? For the minerals in the stone? As far as I know, minerals do not infuse water directly out of a stone.

Asked by BaffledCook

Answer

There's an old children's story about making Stone Soup. In it, a penniless begger offers to teach people how to make his favorite recipe: soup, made from a stone! He boils some water and drops a stone in, and while it's "cooking", keeps mentioning offhand things like "It'd go great with some carrots" or "Celery would be lovely in this". The townspeople rush off and get celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, and the like to add to the soup, until eventually, they've made proper soup in his pot along with the stone. So basically, the whole "stone soup" thing was a clever con game by which the begger can eat for free.

The stone adds nothing to the soup.

Answered by Yamikuronue

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Is raffinose broken down into its component sugars when cooked?

Question

Raffinose is a sugar found in legumes that is indigestible by humans. Which is great, because I'm looking for a sweetener that 1) won't raise blood sugar and 2) doesn't have a bitter aftertaste and isn't carcinogenic or whatever else. The question I have is: Does raffinose break down during cooking? If heat can decompose it into other sugars then it's useless for my purposes.

Answer

In most cooked foods, it will break down.

Raffinose has a melting point of 80°C and decomposes at 118°C. So if you keep the food below 118°C, you will be OK. You can sweeten your tea with it, or use it in a custard (the big sugar molecules will interfere somewhat with the setting of the custard, but I can't predict if the effect will be noticeable at all). Applications involving simmering water should be safe, if the solution consists of water mostly. However, if you use large amounts of raffinose (e.g. you are trying to make a jam), the boiling point of the solution can be much higher than the boiling point of water.

As for baking, the raffinose will definitely decompose in the outer layers of the baked good, but this could be a very small part of the whole. The core of a properly baked cake should stay much lower than 118°C. Small items like cookies will be more problematic.

When making a substitution, you have to consider that in some recipes, sugar is more than just a sweetener. For example, I don't know if you can cream butter with raffinose the way you can do it with table sugar, and without creaming, you can't make proper cookies. Another example would be pectin: high methoxyl pectin (the one used for jams) requires high sugar concentration for gelling, so you probably can't substitute raffinose there (unless you heat it enough, because one of its decomposition products is sucrose).

Another thing to consider before eating lots of raffinose is that it is indigestible for humans and gets degraded by gut bacteria in the intestines, producing large amounts of gas - it has the same effect as eating lots of beans, for exactly the same reason.

The source for the boiling and decomposition point of raffinose is the material safety data sheet for raffinose.

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Does dumping the water from boiling ramen noodles reduce the fat content much?

Question

I enjoy eating ramen noodles cooked in the microwave at work. I've already learned to toss the sodium seasoning packet to avoid the salt, but I notice the noodles themselves have lots of fat and much of it saturated. (I understand the noodles are deep-fried as part of the preparation for packaging.) In an attempt to make this not-so-healthy lunch a bit less problematic, I dump the water after the noddles are cooked and add more water to start up a new broth.

(For reference, I add Thai red curry seasoning and either an egg, canned salmon or both. If I have one, I'll squeeze a lime over the finished product.)

Does it help reduce the fat content of the meal if I dump the initial broth? Is there any way to know how effective the practice is?

Answer

Fat floats, so if you dump the water into a bowl and let it sit for a bit, you can see how much floats to the top. You can then remove the fat in any of the normal ways (this is exactly the process you use to defat a stock or a soup), and measure it.

Of course, I quickly looked up the nutrition information on ramen, and it has ~7g fat, ~3g saturated. An egg is ~6g fat, ~2g saturated. The fish is ~27g fat, ~6g saturated. Check your red curry seasoning as well (varies a lot by brand/type) So it seems like your approach is misguided, but nutrition questions are off-topic here.

edit: From thinking about your comment, you may want to try switching to spaghetti. You can just break it until it fits in the bowl, and it should be cookable in a bowl in the microwave, or even soaking in boiling water. You won't get perfect al dente or anything close, and my Italian ancestors will be after me for even suggesting this, but it will cut down on the fat. You can even get whole-wheat spaghetti.

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nutrition facts: what does “as packaged” mean?

Question

I was looking on a box of Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni I bought. The nutrition facts read "as packaged", it only contains 0.5g fat, 120 calories per serving. I assumed this means everything in the box, including the dry mix. Now I'm having second thoughts about the definition of "as packaged", since macaroni and cheese is often around 4-8g fat per serving.

• What does "as packaged" mean? Is it just the macaroni, or does it include everything in the box as its sold?

The recipe calls for ground beef, but surprisingly this doesn't add any protein to the "as prepared" numbers of the nutrition facts.

This is what the FDA says, but I just want to be sure.

As packaged” refers to the state of the product as it is marketed for purchase. “As prepared” refers to the product after it has been made ready for consumption (e.g., ingredients added per instructions and cooked such as a cake mix that has been prepared and baked or a condensed or dry soup that has been reconstituted).

I also sent an e-mail to Betty Crocker / General Mills but have yet to receive a response.

Answer

If an item of food is stored for a long time, the nutritional values might reduce. Other processes such as freezing, thawing and cooking will also have an effect on the nutrition. Thus the figures given on the box are correct at the time of packaging. The figures at that time might be different from when you actually get to eat the food. In the case of your macaroni, it could absorb or loose water while in storage so the % values would only be correct at the time of packaging. Thus "as packaged" is a reference to the time of packing not the packaging itself.

As to the low fat content, dried powdered foods usually are low fat as it is difficult to make the powder with fat. They will probably have used a hard, low fat cheese such as Parmesan, or a cheese flavouring, rather than Cheddar.

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Nutrient replacement for celery?

Question

I asked this question over at http://fitness.stackexchange.com/questions/3558/nutrient-replacement-for-celery, but have been told that that is not the correct site to ask questions about health, fitness, and nutrition... Kind of confusing. Anyhow:

I want to start drinking a "green drink" as part of my healthy life style. The green drink I have chosen is this:

2 celery sticks
1 cucumber (large)
2 large handfuls of spinach leaves
1 large handful of lettuce (dark)
1/2 freshly squeezed lemon

The problem I have with this are the celery sticks. I don't like the "aroma" of celery. So was wondering if anyone knows of a good replacement which I can used instead of the celery sticks? The replacement should have similar nutritional values to celery.

The best replacement I have come up with is 2 tomatos.

Answer

Iceberg Lettuce, as it is also very low in vitamins and minerals like celery and has a good crunch. According to the USDA's "MyPlate", 1 cup of iceberg is 1/2 serving vegetables, and 1 stalk of celery is 1/2 serving vegetables, so to get equivalent nutritional value for 2 stalks would take 2 cups shredded.

You could add more vitamins and minerals by replacing the celery with something more nutrient dense.

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How to fix the protein content of my minestrone?

Question

I love minestrone, but am concerned that it doesn't contain enough protein. It usually contains pasta, tomato, zucchini, savoy cabbage, carrots and garlic.

What could I add to enhance the protein content while retaining the taste and feel of the soup?

Answer

I noticed you didn't mention beans, which are fairly common in minestrone.

Cannellini beans are most typical, but you could experiment with others (garbanzo, fava beans, etc.)

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