Kevin Klatt, PhD, RD

Seeing the words 'healthy' and 'carbohydrates' can be rare these days - depending on where you're getting your nutrition info. I see a lot of critiques of the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges (AMDRs), set by the Institute of Medicine. So let's take a look at those: AMDRs (1) : Carbohydrates , males/females, 9-70: 45-65% of total calories Fat, males/females, 19-70: 25-35% of total calories Protein , males/female, 19-70: 10-35% My challenge, to myself, is to incorporate a variety of carbohydrate sources. It's very easy to get stuck in a carbohydrate rut... one might say a carbohydrut (okay i'll stop). But seriously, it seems like you say carbohydrate and people automatically think, "grains"! There's so much more to carbohydrates and the reasons behind the AMDR values. Carbohydrates are pretty unique to plants - besides muscle glycogen and dairy sugars - and with plants come an array of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and...

I just got back from the American Society for Nutrition's Advances and Controversies in Clinical Nutrition conference and came back with a lot of ideas for blogging.  I was happy to see a number of things i've blogged about and my thoughts on clinical nutrition were covered at the conference, with similar conclusions - I identify more as a scientist and less as a future clinician so it's good to see i'm not totally off base with reality. One very interesting talk was given by the chair of the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the Institute of Medicine (IoM). Before I go on to discuss some relevant points from her talk, there's a few definition you'll need to be sure of (1): Dietary Reference Intake (DRI's ): reference values that are quantitative estimates of nutrient intakes to be used for planning and assessing diets for healthy people (Recommended intakes and Upper Limits) Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) (newly called AMDR): the average daily ...