dimanche 22 septembre 2013
Tips about healthiest Fruits to eat – Blood sugar
Tips about healthiest Fruits to eat – Raisins, Raspberries, Strawberries, Watermelon
vendredi 13 septembre 2013
The Fruits of Good Health found in the Mediterranean Diet
Who can resist a perfectly ripe piece of fruit? Tender, blushing peaches; rosy slices of watermelon; mahogany plums dripping with garnet-colored juice; crisp, crunchy apples; luscious, sunny oranges; sweet, mellow bananas; succulent berries in a rainbow of hues. Few things are more pleasurable than eating really good fruit. So why don’t we eat more, and why do we so often fall short of the recom-mended absolute minimum of two servings of fruit per day? Why do Americans seem to prefer a box of store-bought cookies or cake from a mix for dessert?
In the traditional Mediterranean diet, fruit is a meal’s crowning glory, the ultimate finish to a delicious dinner. The Mediterranean climate is perfect for growing a wide variety of fruits, and whatever is freshest, juiciest, loveliest, and in season provides the final flourish to meals already rich in color, texture, flavor, vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytonutri-ents, and good old-fashioned pleasure.
Fruits are full of great nutrition. Most fruits are high in that ever-helpful and healthful antioxidant vitamin C. All fruits are full of essential vitamins and minerals, as well as fiber. Many contain high doses of carotenoids and other phytochemicals such as caffeic acid and coumarins, which help the body to rid itself of carcinogens; ferulic acid, which may help to shuttle potentially carcinogenic nitrates out of the body; cryptoxanthin, a carotenoid associated with decreased cervical cancer risk; and flavonoids.
Additionally, many studies have linked high fruit consumption (in conjunction with high vegetable consumption or on its own) with lower rates of certain cancers. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition examined the specific effect of fruit consumption on cancer, and found “strong protective effects … for cancers of the upper digestive and respiratory tracts,” as well as a lesser effect “on cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, and larynx.” The study also found that the farther a tumor was from the digestive tract, the weaker the protective effect of fruit. Nonetheless, the study also found “significant protective effects of fruit … for cancers of the liver, pancreas, prostate, and urinary tract.”
Yet, despite fruit’s demonstrated healthfulness and great taste, in America, eating desserts higher in both refined sugar and fat than a simple piece of fruit seems to be the norm. A fancy pastry, a chocolate sundae, or a candy bar are weekly, even daily treats for many. Such high-sugar, high-fat fare is only an occasional treat in the traditional Mediterranean diet, never a daily or even a weekly indulgence.
While people in some parts of the Mediterranean enjoy a small bite of something sweet during the late afternoon, rich desserts never follow a meal, and portions are relatively tiny. Fruit appropriately follows a heavily plant-based meal, offering both the fulfillment of that desire for something sweet, fiber to provide a feeling of satiety, and one last dose of nutrients and phytochemicals to send the diner on his or her way.
While a ripe, juicy piece of raw fruit is the ultimate treat, fruit can also be delicious cooked, stewed, or added to recipes.
Many of the fruits listed below have been enjoyed for centuries in the Mediterranean. A few are native to North America, or are more often consumed here than elsewhere. While we will mention the availability of each of the following fruits in the Mediterranean, the important point we would like to make is that any high-quality, ripe, juicy, fresh fruit available to you is appropriate for your diet, and finishing your meals with any fruit is eating in the true Mediterranean spirit.
vendredi 6 septembre 2013
Eat Fruits and Vegetables to Save Your Brain
Save Your Brain: Eat Fruits and Vegetables
Where do you get the antioxidants that fight off the free radicals that would destroy your brain? Nature provided an army of antioxidants in the food supply. Fruits and vegetables are full of antioxidants, including vitamins and other more exotic chemicals called carotenoids and polyphenols. The evidence is overwhelming that eating antioxidant-packed fruits and vegetables and/or taking antioxidant vitamins can protect against free-radical damage and consequent death and disease., People who eat the most fruits and vegetables generally have the lowest rates of cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and premature death.
For example, it’s well established that high consumption of fruits and vegetables can slash your risk of developing various cancers in half! Most scientists believe fruits and vegetables convey antioxidant activity that curbs cancer- and disease-inciting damage from free radicals.
Antioxidants, in a word, can slow the aging process of the entire body, and are particularly needed in the brain.
Only in the last ten years have scientists dissected fruits and vegetables in search of the magic chemicals (in addition to vitamins and minerals) that account for their monumental antioxidant activity. Many strong antioxidants have been identified. Among the so-called carotenoids are beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lycopene, lutein, and xeazanthin. A huge family of some four thousand antioxidants known as flavonoids is concentrated in deeply colored fruits and vegetables and considered mainly responsible for their antioxidant activity.
Pioneering scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland, have analyzed many foods to find and quantify specific exotic antioxidants, such as lycopene in tomatoes and lutein in green leafy vegetables. So it’s now possible to know how much of these powerful carotenoids is contained in which plant foods.
But in a ground-breaking step, agriculture researchers at Tufts University in Boston have developed a method of analyzing each food, not for its individual component antioxidants, but for its overall “antioxidant capacity.” After blending up three samples of a specific food, such as spinach or strawberries from the supermarket, researchers put the pulp and extract through a “high performance liquid chromatograph”—a machine that analyzes how well and how quickly antioxidants in the sample food disarm free radicals, such as peroxyl and hydroxyl radicals, the type we make during normal metabolism.
This test, says its developer, USDA research scientist Guohua (Howard) Cao, measures all traditional antioxidants, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and glutathione, and reveals a food’s total antioxidant capacity, known as ORAC (oxygen radical absorbency capacity.) Thus, each food gets an ORAC score. An ORAC score signifies how well nature endowed that food with overall powers to neutralize cell-damaging free radicals. Highest are fruits and vegetables.
It’s no longer just how much antioxidant beta-carotene or lycopene or anthocyanins a food has. What really counts is the total antioxidant amount it provides.
At the top of the list of antioxidant powerhouses, as judged by the ORAC test: prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, garlic, kale, cranberries, strawberries, spinach, raspberries—generally fruits and vegetables with the deepest colors—as well as tea and red wine. Dr. Cao explains that the pigment itself is a potent antioxidant. Experts also know that the total antioxidant capacity of a food may be far greater than the sum of its individual antioxidant components. Fruits and vegetables contain a complex assortment of countless antioxidants that interact and potentiate each other, pushing their antioxidant powers far above their mere additive value. The ORAC test accounts for that synergism.
The Best Brain-Saving Fruits and Vegetables
According to tests at Tufts University, here’s how fifty-three fruits and vegetables rank on antioxidant capacity (ORAC)—ability to fight off free radical chemicals that attack your brain cells.
