Foods with Health Benefits

We must eat to live, so it just makes sense to eat foods with health benefits that help stave off diseases and increase our life span. But which foods might that be? Glad you asked! Add some of these foods with health benefits to your daily diet and add more healthy days to your life.

Arthritis Busters

Pumpkin contains powerful antioxidants that helps prevent arthritis from developing in healthy joints. For those who already suffer with arthritis, pumpkin relieves the pain by reducing the inflammation. Eating one can of pure pumpkin purée each week can help you live a longer, pain-free life.

Red bell peppers contain carotenoids, a strong inflammation fighter. Plus they are rich in vitamin C which has been shown to help prevent arthritis. Eating a couple of red bell peppers each week helps reduce inflammation and boosts vitamin C intake.

Ginger is a spicy root that adds flavor to a variety of dishes and is a natural anti-inflammatory. A cup of fresh ginger tea or a little fresh ginger grated into recipes each day help relieve the pain of arthritis.

Lower Blood Sugar

Beans, beans, good for your heart…and they stabilize blood sugar. Pinto, navy and kidney beans are loaded with fiber, protein and carbohydrates and they help keep hunger in check so you will eat less. A cup a day of your favorite beans helps to lower and stabilize blood sugar.

Egg whites are a good place to start a meal because they are fat-free, cholesterol-free and low in calories (just 7 calories per egg white!). The whites are also rich in protein and will help keep blood sugar from spiking. Add 3-4 egg white based meals per week to your diet to keep blood sugar level on an even keel.

All types of nuts – peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios and cashews – are chock-full of heart-healthy fats and proteins that work in conjunction to stabilize blood sugar. A small handful each day will help you live longer by keeping blood sugar in check and improving cholesterol levels.

Prevent Osteoporosis

Another reason to eat your broccoli – it helps build strong bones and prevent osteoporosis. Broccoli contains four bone-building nutrients; calcium, potassium, vitamins C and K. Add broccoli to your weekly meal plan about four times to reap the maximum health benefits.

Yogurt is a versatile and delicious way to sneak more bone-building calcium into …

Top Foods for Men

Health issues differ somewhat between men and women. We read so much about diet and nutrition for women, so I think its about time men had a look in!
So… here are some of my Top Foods for men.

Pumpkin seeds, Brazils, Walnuts, and Almonds

Nuts are often regarded and shunned as high-fat foods, with little understanding of their nutritional value. Some nuts are very high in fat; Brazil nuts are about 70% fat, so you wouldn’t want to eat too many at once, BUT only 10% of this fat is actually saturated, so as you can see the vast majority is “unsaturated” and therefore either essential, or potentially useful for the health of every cell in the body. The term “essential” in this context simply means our bodies do not manufacture certain fats (especially Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats), which means that the only ways of obtaining them is through the foods we eat… essential to life, so therefore essential to the diet! Most fresh unsalted and un-roasted nuts and seeds (NO… not S*NP*T peanut butter – UK readers will know what i mean here! )#), as well as oily fish such as salmon, avocados, vegetable and seed oils, and olive oil contain mostly essential fatty acids – in other words fats that we need and which are put to good use in the body. A handful of walnuts have as much omega-3-fatty acids as 3 ounces of salmon, which may help in light of the recent and on-going worries about farmed salmon. Not only do omega-3 fats help towards preventing heart disease, they also help to prevent arthritis and depression.

A 25g portion of brazils (about 10 nuts) would be an ideal snack or addition to cereal or fruit in the morning. It would give you a respectable 170 kcals, and 17 grams of fat. About 70g of fat in one day is acceptable, so as part of your whole diet, they are not fattening! Brazils are one of the highest food sources of the mineral selenium: an antioxidant that plays a vital role in the health of the heart and CV system, as well as the thyroid gland. Selenium is also regarded as a potent anti-cancer agent. It is often lacking in British diets, due to a drop in soil levels over the years and consequently a drop in crops. However, all is not lost if you …