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5 Fabulous Tips for Fruits and Vegetables
Eating fruits and vegetables is one of the best ways to maintain good health. Fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet. They contain vitamins, phytochemicals, and minerals that can protect your body from diseases like diabetes, cancers, and heart diseases. Ideally, you should consume five kinds of vegetables and two kinds of fruits each day.
People are shifting to fruit and vegetable snacks instead of fast food and candy bars. It is essential to understand the nutritional value of the foods you are eating to get the most benefits. Many people follow the rule of including at least five servings of fruits and vegetables in their daily diet. Be sure to include a variety of fruits and vegetables instead of sticking to only specified varieties.
Understanding the nutrient value of each fruit and vegetable can help you develop healthy food choices. Some common vegetables and fruits that may be included in your diet are corn, iceberg lettuce, potatoes, apples and bananas.
These are nutritious but you should also eat others for added nutritional benefits. Eating fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin A, beta-carotene, vitamin C and fiber can help your body to guard you against numerous diseases.
It may be confusing when you try to make a good choice of fruits or vegetables for your consumption.
The following 5 Fabulous Tips for may help you make great choices of fruits and vegetables for your daily consumptions:
(I) Include at least one orange and one dark green vegetable to your daily diet to get some vitamin A and folate.
Orange vegetables include squash, carrots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, or yams. You can substitute orange-colored fruit for an orange vegetable though the amount of vitamin A will, of course, vary.
Orange colored fruits include cantaloupes, nectarines, mangos, papaya, apricots, and peaches. Dark green vegetables include dandelion greens, broccoli, arugula, chard, mustard greens, collards, spinach, kale or romaine lettuce.
(II) Do not compromise on your nutrition even when you are short on time.
Pre-bagged vegetables, like leafy greens, baby carrots or green beans can be easily prepared for a salad or tossed for a quick stir-fry.
(III) Frozen or canned vegetables have some nutritional value but fresh is usually considered the best choice.
Frozen foods retain most of their nutrients.
Select only canned vegetables with low sodium content. Or, you can drain these vegetables to lower their salt and sodium content.
When choosing frozen fruit packed in juice, select unsweetened frozen fruit. Fruits in sugar syrup contain more calories.
Other fruits are sometimes packed in pear juice because it is sweeter than many other fruit juices.
(IV) Choose vegetables and fruits over just buying juices.
Fruits and vegetables eaten whole contain more fiber and help with easier digestion.
An occasional vegetable juice drink may be beneficial. However, avoid vegetables juices with high salt content.
Choose 100% fruit juices over fruit-flavored drinks. “Fruit juice drinks”, (they may contain very low amounts of the actual juice), cocktails or punches.
(V) Choose vegetables and fruits prepared with little or no added fat, sugar or salt. Some products, like vegetable chips, ketchup, fruit candies, fruit jams or spreads and vegetable or fruit drinks or punches may have a high level of sugar or salt. It is best to avoid these foods. Also, avoid poutine, French fries, zucchini sticks, tempura, and onion rings if you can get, for instance, a baked sweet potato or potato or have a plate of salad instead.
To find out more fabulous information about how to incorporate a healthy lifestyle with more fruits and vegetables order your copy of Fabulous Fruit and Vegetables today.
The Benefits Of Eating Raw Vegetables
The Benefits of Raw Vegetables
We’ve been told since birth to eat our vegetables and yet far too few of us actually do it. Even when we do get around to eating our vegetables it’s only after we’ve cooked out most of the natural nutrients that our body is desperately craving.
Keep in mind, as you proceed, that while all raw vegetables are incredibly beneficial, raw green vegetables actually serve as the basis of nearly all life on this planet. That may sound a bit extreme to you, but stop and consider for a moment that almost every organism on this planet survives by either eating raw green vegetables or by eating an animal that eats raw green vegetables…they really are that important.
I know, you’ve probably eaten most of your vegetables cooked since you can remember. Simply put, just because something has “always” been done a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to do it. You will get a lot more out of your vegetables if you consume them raw.
I specifically used the word “consume” because, in reality, you get the same benefits from raw green vegetable juice as you do from eating them whole and usually you get it faster. This is because raw vegetable juice takes less internal work to digest and is absorbed into the body almost instantly.
It seems that most people only know that they should eat vegetables because they remember mom telling them to; very few people seem to have a grasp on the amazing nutritional value of vegetables.
Raw vegetables are extremely rich in minerals, vitamins, trace elements, enzymes and natural sugars. All of these are things that your body needs to function properly and the raw veggies will help stabilize and normalize your natural bodily functions. They actually help pretty much ALL of your natural bodily functions operate.
You’ve probably heard about the necessity of vitamins and nutrients to your overall health your entire life, but the concept of enzymes may be new to you. Basically, the enzymes in raw vegetables help your body digest food. This is one of the reasons that green vegetables are sometimes considered “nature’s laxative,” because they get your stomach working properly.
The average American diet is actually comprised of quite a few foods that are incredibly difficult for our bodies to digest properly. When we aren’t digesting properly, the food sits in our stomach longer than it should and we miss out on any nutritional value it did possess.
Okay, so at this point, you may have started to become convinced about the necessity of vegetables…but why raw?
All of our cooking methods have been shown in scientific studies to reduce the amount of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes in vegetables. Of the cooking methods, steaming has been shown to retain the largest amount of vitamin content although it still reduces it.
Vegetables begin losing their valuable nutritional elements as soon as they are plucked, pulled or picked from the ground. For this reason, the additional loss of nutrients during cooking would be a smaller problem if we grew our own vegetables and cooked them the same day we harvested them.
However, most of us don’t live that way. The largest majority of us purchase our vegetables at the grocery store after they’ve been shipped hundreds or thousands of miles. During that time, the nutritional value has been seeping out of them.
Finally, to make matters worse, repeated studies have shown that commercially grown vegetables, right out of the ground, aren’t as rich in nutrients as they were 50 years ago. One large contributing factor to this is that farmers have found so many ways to make their crops grow faster that we aren’t receiving the full benefit of naturally mature vegetables.
It is admittedly extreme, but not that extreme, to state that any vegetable you get from the grocery store and then cook at home probably has the nutritional value of cardboard by the time it hits your stomach.
Start eating (or drinking) raw vegetables as soon as you can. Whenever possible, grow them yourself or purchase them from local farmer’s markets.
Health Benefits of Green Leafy Vegetables
Mother was right all along. Grandma also told you they were good for you. So why do Americans eat green leafy vegetables only about once or twice a week? Why are cabbage, broccoli, turnip greens, and spinach rarely seen at the American dinner table? Why is lettuce the only green vegetable that most Americans ever use, when green vegetables are recognized by nutritionists as one of the most inexpensive sources of so many important nutrients?
Leafy vegetables are ideal for weight management as they are typically low in calories. They are useful in reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease since they are low in fat, high in dietary fiber, and rich in folic acid, vitamin C, potassium and magnesium, as well as containing a host of phytochemicals, such as lutein, beta-cryptoxanthin, zeaxanthin, and beta-carotene. One study showed that an increment of one daily serving of green leafy vegetables, lowered the risk of cardiovascular disease by 11 percent. In the Adventist health study, the frequent consumption of green salads by African-Americans was associated with a substantially lower risk of mortality.
Because of their high magnesium content and low glycemic index, green leafy vegetables are also valuable for persons with type 2 diabetes. An increase of 1 serving/day of green leafy vegetables was associated with a 9 percent lower risk of diabetes. The high level of vitamin K in greens makes them important for the production of osteocalcin, a protein essential for bone health. The risk of hip fracture in middle-aged women was decreased 45% for one or more servings/day of green, leafy vegetables compared to fewer servings.
Green vegetables are also a major source of iron and calcium for any diet. Swiss chard and spinach are not considered good sources of calcium, due to their high content of oxalic acid. Green leafy vegetables are rich in beta-carotene, which can also be converted into vitamin A, and also improve immune function. Millions of children around the world have an increased risk of blindness, and other illnesses because of inadequate dietary vitamin A from green leafy vegetables.
Lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoids found in dark-green leafy vegetables, are concentrated in the eye lens and macular region of the retina, and play a protective role in the eye. They protect against both cataract and age-related macular degeneration, the major cause of blindness in the elderly. Some studies suggest that lutein and zeaxanthin may help reduce the risk of certain types of cancer, such as breast and lung cancer, and may contribute to the prevention of heart disease and stroke.
Green veggies contain a variety of carotenoids, flavonoids and other powerful antioxidants that have cancer-protective properties. In a Swedish study, it was reported that eating 3 or more servings a week of green leafy vegetables significantly reduced the risk of stomach cancer, the fourth most frequent cancer in the world. Cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and broccoli are rich in indoles and isothiocyanates, which protect us against colon and other cancers. Broccoli sprouts have been reported to contain 10 or more times as much sulforaphane, a cancer-protective substance, than does mature broccoli. A higher consumption of green leafy vegetables has been shown to significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer and skin cancer.
Studies have identified a gene, connexin 43, whose expression is upregulated by chemopreventive carotenoids and which allows direct intercellular gap junctional communication. In many human tumors gap junctional communication is deficient and its upregulation is associated with decreased proliferation. Hence, the cancer-preventive properties of carotenoids are partly explained by their impact on gene regulation.
Quercetin is a bioflavonoid found in leafy green vegetables. Quercetin has an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity and displays unique anticancer properties. Quercetin is a natural compound that blocks substances involved in allergies and acts as an inhibitor of mast cell secretion, and causes a decrease in the release of interleukin-6.
There was considerable concern associated with the E.coli O157:H7 outbreak in the fall of 2006 (26 states were affected) that was associated with contaminated bagged baby spinach. The outbreak resulted in 205 confirmed illnesses and three deaths, with the infection causing bloody diarrhea and dehydration. FDA investigators suggested that the outbreak was possibly caused by the presence of wild pigs on the ranch, or that the irrigation water had been contaminated with cattle feces or grazing deer.
Green, leafy vegetables provide a great variety of colors from the bluish-green of kale to the bright kelly green of spinach. Leafy greens run the whole gamut of flavors, from sweet to bitter, from peppery to earthy. Young plants generally have small, tender leaves and a mild flavor. Many mature plants have tougher leaves and stronger flavors. Collards, Swiss chard, bok choy, and spinach provide a mild flavor while arugula, mizuna and mustard greens provide a peppery flavor. Bok choy is best known for use in stir-fries, since it remains crisp, even when cooked to a tender stage. One should always choose crisp leaves with a fresh vibrant green color. Yellowing is a sign of age and indicates that the greens may have an off flavor. Salad greens provide a whole range of important nutrients and phytochemicals to keep us healthy.
source-http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/benefits-of-green-leafy-vegetables.php
