Thiamine - essential, yet fragile

Two weeks ago we told you that a slight thiamine deficiency can make you irritable. Now thiamine is the second nutrient in our series Watch What You Cook! It is destroyed by heat and quickly leaches into cooking fluids. If you are consuming the fluids, such as in soup, you retain most of the thiamine. If you drain the fluids, such as in pasta, you lose the nutrient.

Thiamine is essential for nerve function and is involved in metabolizing carbohydrates. Slight deficiency results in general malaise and confusion. Severe deficiency can lead to paralysis and heart failure. Thankfully, severe deficiencies are rare.

Get your daily dose of thiamine by consuming the richest food sources (dry cook the meats and fish):

Fortified breakfast cereal
Kellogg’s Complete Wheat Bran
General Mills Total
Oat bran
Pork tenderloin
Catfish
Ham
Navy bean
Black beans
Many vegetarian products (e.g., Morning Star Burger Crumbles)
*Enriched rich or flour

* Better Living advocates consuming whole grain flour and brown rice rather than enriched. The enriching process adds back thiamine that is destroyed by processing; however, other nutrients such as vitamin B6 and dietary fiber, lost in processing are not replaced.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamin
Hands, Elizabeth; Nutrients in Food. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2000.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR20/nutrlist/sr20w404.pdf

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