Avoid cancer, look better, and live longer....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 1-11-2011

Believe it or not, there are FIVE ways to do that triple of desirable things.

Here are three you likely already know about if you have been reading our posts or because they are simply better known.

1. Lose excess fat if you have it -- or avoid getting it if you don’t.

2. Get regular exercise every week, particularly vigorous exercise -- and keep doing it.

3. Completely avoid tobacco smoke -- both smoking and second hand smoke.

But there are two more.

We’ll cover one today and another next time, this Thursday.

We have already posted on this one for the recent discovery that it cuts death rates from any cause by 39% in the people who do it most compared with those who do it the least.

People who eat lots of vegetables with carotenes wind up with higher blood levels of alpha carotene. Research recently found they are much less likely to die from any cause and have better health -- including being far less likely to get cancer or die from any cancers they do get.

(Other carotenes also help prevent cancer too. Lycopene from tomatoes or tomato sauce or lycopene supplements helps prevent prostate cancer and even may shrink it or cause it to grow more slowly if it shows up.)

But there’s more. It seems that people who eat lots of vegetables with carotenes also look better and healthier and age more slowly!

A recent study found that people who had been eating a lot of these vegetables for only two months were visually better looking in color photographs or in person at the end of the two months. It seems that the colors of the carotenes in the vegetables gave their skin a redder look or a rosy glow typical of people in good health.

I also found out that eating carotenes in foods tends to keep your telomeres from getting shortened, so you age more slowly. So you look better because you look younger because physically you ARE younger. (Thursday’s post will have a great many other things that have this effect.)

Plus, many of them are high in fiber and low in calories. So eating them often tends to help you look better because you are less fat if you do.

So, what vegetables have carotenes? Those that are red, yellow, or orange. And, because the dark green hides the carotenes, so do many dark green vegetables.

Tomatoes, all kinds of squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, yams, and broccoli all are high in carotenes.

(Pumpkin is a kind of squash, so the pumpkin puree in pumpkin pie is actually good for you even if sugar in the filling and the crust are not.)

Of course, these foods also are high in other carotenes such as lycopene and beta carotene. And, they are also high in fiber and vitamin C and potassium -- and many have lots of folic acid too. So, it isn’t just the alpha carotenes that do the job; the alpha carotenes do it plus the help they get from the company they keep.

It’s also helpful to know, these vegetables may deliver their carotenes to you better if they are cooked or are eaten in a salad with olive oil. Raw tomatoes are good for you and raw broccoli florets provide far better cancer protection than cooked. But, for their carotenes, they will give you more if they are cooked and eaten with extra virgin olive oil.

You can dice up tomatoes, onion, mushrooms, and broccoli florets for an omelet or with scrambled eggs.

You can take carrots or baby food containers of sweet potatoes or squash or raw broccoli florets to work for lunch or have a salad with diced carrots and tomatoes and onion and romaine lettuce with some extra virgin olive oil.

You can have some pumpkin puree and cinnamon and low fat plain yogurt as a mid-afternoon snack. (You can also add pumpkin pie spice. I’ve had this and it’s quite tasty.)

You can fix a pasta dish with your favorite pasta sauce that uses olive oil and use spaghetti squash instead of pasta and a baked acorn squash with a bit of melted butter for dinner.

Tomato juice and V8 juice also work – with or without hot spices.

These vegetables can actually be enjoyable to eat!