Good for you foods....

Today's Post: Friday, 12-18-2009

Too much bad for you foods and all soft drinks will make you fat and sick & particularly likely to get type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, & every kind of heart disease from heart attacks & heart failure to strokes, peripheral artery disease (PAD), erectile dysfunction,& vascular dementia; and Alzheimer’s disease.

But there are so many good for you foods and so many kinds you can stop eating and drinking all the bad stuff and have so many choices of what to eat instead you would be hard pressed to taste it all even once each.

Except for soy, Dr Steven Pratt’s SuperFoods Rx & his subsequent books do a superb job of listing these foods.

If you’ve never seen one, check one out of your local library or buy one online and read it.

He does a great job.

(There’s ample reason to believe all soy NOT processed into the traditional foods and made from non GMO, not genetically modified, soy is NOT safe to eat more than once or twice a year if at all. Soy protein based energy bars, and soy protein added to foods, and soy based bacon and other “meatless” foods are best not eaten! And, for men & some women, eating the traditional soy based foods such as tofu, miso, tempeh, etc is likely best held down to once or twice a week.)

Here’s just a small & quickly listed set of them. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are some incredibly good for you foods in this list. But there are hundreds if not thousands more.

Find the ones that you like or have health benefits you want and eat those. Then keep finding more like that and eating them. You’ll be less fat; a lot healthier; & you’ll age more slowly and live longer and in good health.

*Vegetables.

Virtually every variety of eating on the planet associated with good health results contains nonstarchy vegetables & even some that are somewhat starchy.

For example, it becomes easy to get and stay trim and free of excess fat if you eat 5 to 9 servings a day of vegetables most of which are nonstarchy.

a) The cruciferous vegetables fight cancer and multiple ways, particularly when eaten raw and when grown organically.

Broccoli and its florets when eaten raw do this well. And, broccoli also is high in carotenes. Kale and cauliflower do this well. Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, watercress, radishes, horse radish as a spice, also work great.

All of them can be eaten raw for best cancer fighting results. But they are so nutritious they also are great cooked. Some people find them much more palatable that way; & the ones like broccoli that contain carotenes actually will give you MORE of it when it’s cooked.
Two examples.

You can eat the broccoli florets raw; & then cut off the worst soiled spots and the toughest skin off the stalks; then dice them up fine and boil with curry powder and garlic with some extra virgin olive oil until there are MUCH softer; then let that cool and blend it with 2% lowfat traditional, unflavored yogurt. It actually tastes pretty good with virtually now harsh taste from the broccoli nor un-chewable fibers; plus all the flavors of the spices blend together with the creamy yogurt. It’s a great way to not only eat but enjoy the fibrous stalks you’d otherwise be tempted to toss in the compost bin.

Second, you can sauté a whole head of washed off organically grown kale in a pan after you cut the head into chunks that will fit initially with some extra virgin olive oil & then add crushed raw garlic after its cooked. This will serve two people a tasty and hot dish that’s very filling.

You can also make coleslaw with homemade real mayo using only extra virgin olive oil and add some diced onion &/or diced sweet onion & through in your favorite additions, diced carrot or washed & diced cilantro or washed & diced basil leaves that have been de-stemmed.
The cabbage, red or green or a combo is raw; but diced up with the other ingredients, it is a lot more fun to eat.

b) Dark leafy greens other than cruciferous such as organic romaine or red leaf lettuce or spinach leaves are also good. They are high in magnesium which is a mineral critical too good health, good heart health, and normal blood pressure, and avoiding constipation. Getting enough magnesium is also a little known way to get better sleep. Since 80 % of current US residents are deficient that’s quite valuable.

c) Carotene rich vegetables help protect your health and tend to prevent cancers. Both raw and cooked tomatoes with cooked tomatoes and sauces the most effective sources, broccoli, dark green greens, carrots, sweet potatoes, yams, and squash are all great carotene foods. (In broccoli and greens, the red or orange carotenes are hidden by the dark green; but they are still there.)

*Berries, etc

Virtually all organically grown berries, cherries, and grapes are good for you.

Two examples are blueberries and cranberries.

Blueberries are one of the SuperFoods. They taste good, particularly with milder and contrasting foods such as 1% lowfat milk or shredded coconut or cooked old fashioned oatmeal. They increase HDL cholesterol and provide fiber and vitamin C. They have a cancer fighting phytonutrient. But what really is exciting is that they not only help prevent age relate mental decline but have actually reversed it in mild cases.

Cranberries are very intensely flavored with almost no sugar. Eating whole, unsweetened cranberries is a challenge. But diced up with a bit of orange juice and orange zest from organic oranges, they make a great counterbalancing addition to many kinds of meats and savory foods. Also, people who drink a daily glass of juice get many health benefits including a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. But, though they have health benefits, apple, grape, and orange juice have too much sugar to drink very frequently if you want get and stay free of excess fat. (If you overdo such juices it can approach being as fattening as drinking soft drinks.) Vegetable juices work as more frequent choices to solve this problem. And so does cranberry juice. Real 100 % cranberry juice is more than a little tart but is much more palatable than whole cranberries and approaches having no sugar in comparison to other fruit juices. And, that juice has many of the health benefits of grape juice AND it prevents bacteria from sticking to your internal surfaces and can prevent and even do a good job in treating bacterial infections of the bladder. (It’s advisable for kidney infections; but those will and bad bladder infections may also need antibiotics from your doctor.) Of course if you drink enough water and drink a few glasses a week of cranberry juices, you have an excellent chance of never getting these.

*Wild caught seafood not high in mercury such as sardines, salmon, and shrimp are high in omega 3 oils and magnesium.

*Dark chocolate, unsweetened cocoa, unsweetened chocolate such as baker’s chocolate & cacao nibs made from the crushed beans chocolate is made from – all lower high blood pressure, promote and increase healthy blood circulation, and help prevent fatal heart attacks if you eat or drink them with no milk before, during, or after.

Even better, the unsweetened cocoa and cacao nibs have no sugar and not too much fat. If you eat & drink one of these foods each day, you can be a lot healthier even with the sugar in the dark chocolate and the extra fat in the chocolates without gaining fat if you do it right. Each of these forms has the part of chocolate that makes people feel good; each of them is good for your health; each of them is very high in antioxidants; & they are also all rich in magnesium.

*Foods that are high in quercetin help keep healthy; help you be far less allergic; and – just as CoQ10 or its end-result form, ubiquinol do, quercetin protects and helps activate your mitochondria that are the power source of each of your cells. That helps you have more energy, persistence, endurance, and ability to exercise vigorously. It also keeps your heart strong.

Tea, apples, capers, onions – particularly the red part of red onions, red grapes, citrus fruit, tomatoes, broccoli, leafy green vegetables, cherries, and most berries including raspberry, & wild cranberries. Wikipedia also said that a “recent study found that organically grown tomatoes had 79% more quercetin than "conventionally grown".”

*Virtually all raw and dry roasted nuts are SuperFoods for people not allergic to them.

Walnuts, pecans, almonds, and dry roasted almonds all are SuperFoods.

(Salted nuts & nuts roasted in oil high in omega 6 oils or in any kind of hydrogenated vegetable oil should be carefully avoided however.)

Eating them increases your HDL cholesterol. They make a virtually zero glycemic but enjoyable and satisfying snack. They are high in magnesium. And the gamma tocopherol form of vitamin E in them helps prevent cancers and prostate and likely breast and ovarian cancers.

In people who are not allergic those who eat a serving of nuts daily or on most days actually live something like 5 or more years longer than similar people who don’t eat nuts.

Talk about a good health track record! You have to add regular exercise or stop smoking to get effects like that. Nuts are so good for your health if you aren’t allergic, they are that valuable.

They work well as a snack by themselves, as a crunchy addition to salads or savory foods, and as a crunchy but very low glycemic addition to sugary dessert foods or whole grain breakfast cereals.