Artery-clogging cheesecake is dangerous (and delicious, yes!) enough...so please, take no more risks. Limit your pumpkin tossing (Michael Zamora/Corpus Christi Caller-Times)
I received an email yesterday from the College of Health and Human Sciences at Baylor University (my alma mater, but I digress) yesterday, and was all atwitter over it. But deadlines trumped writing about pumpkins…until now.
First, before I get into the details, I will say that pumpkin is one of my all-time favorite words. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. So if that is a conflict of interest in some way for what I’m about to write, my apologies.
Anyway, the pumpkin news comes from Suzy Weems, Ph.D., a registered dietitian and professor of nutrition sciences at the college. First, the bad news:
Pumpkin is not, she says, “a magic bullet.” Oh, it’s good for you all right, but as pumpkin…not as cheesecake or doughnuts or candy or lattes or sugar-laden pie.
“Take a look at the total calories” of a product,” she says. “If you have diabetes, you look at the sugar and total carbohydrates. And if you have cardiovascular disease, look at the fat.”
OK, now the good stuff about pumpkin (just say the word out loud a few times; you’ll be hooked)
FIBER. According to this website, a cup of canned pumpkin has 7 grams of fiber. Seven! That’s almost as much as two Kashi bars (yes, the Pumpkin-Spice-Flax variety); more than two cups of Cheerios.
ZEAXANTHIN. Nope; I’d never heard of it either, but this antioxidant is good for your eyes.
VITAMIN A. This is also good for our eyeballs, webmd.com tells us. And, adds Weems, healthy skin. Plus it helps fight cancer.
PHYTOSTEROLS: These are cholesterol lowering compounds, as I learned from the Cleveland Clinic, and are found in those yummy (and rather addictive) pumpkin seeds.
And that’s not all. Pumpkins also have magnesium, manganese, copper, phosphorus, protein, zinc and iron?
“On the USDA/FDA rating schedule, pumpkins are a good source of all those,” Weems said.
Plus, it’s a heckuva great word. Oh, and about that National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day? Mark your calendar for October 21.
One more thing. Pumpkin cheesecake doesn’t have to be ghastly for you. Here are some recipes we found from Shape magazine that sound rather yummy.