How to eat right for your health and upgrade recipes part 2….

Today's Post: Friday, 9-16-2011

This is my third post in the 8 ways to stay healthy.

2. Eat only foods that benefit you and your health – or at least do no harm.

(We did the first one last Friday, 9-9: 1. Avoid harmful foods and drinks. And, we repost the list of all 8 ways at the end of today’s post.)

This post is part 2 of eating OK and good for you foods. The post last Monday, 9-12 was part one.

C. There are several foundation blocks for foods that actually benefit you and your health to eat.

In the last post in this series we covered the two kinds of health supporting oils, monosaturated fats and omega 3 oils, particularly those found in fish.

Besides those, the three most important kinds are health OK plant protein foods, health OK animal protein foods, and nonstarchy vegetables.

(Fruit and starchy vegetables can be OK but need special handling and although sometimes very beneficial, they are less essential and more a nice to have option than OK plant protein foods, health OK animal protein foods, and nonstarchy vegetables.)

This post is about nonstarchy vegetables.

Eating them is so valuable it’s like buying gold for a few pennies.

The more nonstarchy vegetables, particularly organic ones, are in your food, the better your health will be.

They create the effect of a multivitamin and mineral supplement with hundreds of extra ingredients that both have direct benefits and make the others deliver more benefits than they would by themselves.

They actually have a low dollar price compared to other foods. Considering their very large value for your health that makes them huge bargains.

But their second major value is that the cost of eating nonstarchy vegetables to your waistline and potential for excess fat is so low it’s almost zero.

Between their very low calorie content and their high fiber content, eating nonstarchy vegetables fills you up and helps you to turn down hunger and be less fat.

You need to eat health OK protein foods and oils to make this effect last longer once the vegetables leave your stomach.

But while the fiber from the vegetables is in your stomach, it becomes dramatically easier to pass up harmful and very fattening foods. And, it makes it much easier too to avoid eating too many calories of the health OK proteins and oils also.

The other thing is that the health benefits are so very high for nonstarchy vegetables.

Raw cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and many others reduce your risk of most cancers. Best of all they can cut your chances of getting the kind of aggressive cancers that do the most harm and kill the most people by as much as half.

Nonstarchy vegetables that are high in the many kinds of carotenes also bring you many kinds of benefits. The best way to eat those is to eat them cooked along with extra virgin olive oil. That’s because the cooking and the olive oil together increase your access to the carotenes by over 10 times.

Many carotenes prevent cancer, two give your eyes very strong protection, and they also tend to make you more able to throw off or survive infections. They help protect your ears and hearing from loud noises. And they help protect your skin from sun damage.

Then between the lower sun damage to your skin and the slightly reddish glow they give your skin, you look healthier.

Best of all, this is actually true. You ARE healthier. The people who have the highest blood levels of alpha carotene from eating these vegetables have lower rates of most diseases and live longer than people who have low levels of alpha carotene.

Tomatoes, particularly cooked tomatoes and pureed ones, are high in carotenes.

So too are broccoli and kale. That means that people who eat broccoli or kale raw protect their health. And people who eat them cooked protect their health. That means it will pay you to do both!

Carrots, orange and yellow squash, sweet potatoes, and yams are also high in carotenes. (Pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and yams are a bit starchy but can be eaten in moderation. And if you cook them and add extra virgin olive oil, you not only get more of the carotenes, the zero blood sugar boost of the olive oil buffers the blood sugar boost from their starches.)

Vegetables can be a bit of an acquired taste.

Here are three solutions.

1. Eat the ones that are most nutritious so often that you simply get used to them. That’s worked for me when I eat the raw broccoli florets in my lunch.

2. Find ways to prepare them that create a dish that tastes good even if the vegetable doesn’t quite do so. (Much of the cuisine of traditional cultures that tend to have good health does a lot of exactly this kind of combinations.)

Kale can be a bit of a harsh taste. But sautéed in extra virgin olive oil along with some chopped garlic the kale shrinks a lot in size and tastes much milder. And for those who like garlic, it actually tastes good.

For some people, raw broccoli can be quite harsh. But if you steam it and add a pat of butter or some sliced cheddar cheese or sprinkle it with a good bit of finely diced parmesan cheese, it can be a nice contrast to the rich, good tasting, and salty cheese or butter. (This is much better for you if the butter or cheese comes from cows fed only grass than if they are grain fed. But if you don’t do it too often, the broccoli is so good for you, it can make sense even if the cows were fed grain.)

Dips also work. You may not like carrot sticks. I don’t much care for them myself. But if there is some great tasting hummus or guacamole I can dip them in, I’m happy to eat several carrot sticks!

Salads work. To some degree that’s why we have them.

Raw kale, finely chopped or chopped water cress may be a bit to harsh. So can diced red cabbage. But add some extra virgin olive oil and chopped raw walnuts, and some raisins, and diced onion, and you may like the result a lot!

3. Find the few vegetables you actually like!

Many people who find raw broccoli florets too harsh, actually like raw cauliflower florets which have very much the same cancer protection, as one example.

And, you may find some surprises. I read about one young girl who loved crisp, raw green pepper so much, she would do extra work to get some!

Learning to eat and like several kinds of vegetables almost every day is one of the most effective keys to good health ever found!

As an extra benefit, doing this makes it dramatically easier to keep off excess fat without hunger or to lose excess fat you never have on your body again.

* * * *

Here’s the 8 ways to protect your health. (This post above has been following up on the first method with what to do instead.)

There are many, many ways to stay healthy.

But I find these eight ways cover most of the best and most effective methods.

1. Avoid harmful foods and drinks.

2. Eat only foods that benefit you and your health – or at least do no harm.

3. Get regular exercise every week -- mostly doing the most beneficial kinds.

4. Take key supplements.

(For almost every one of the diseases that are in your family history or which millions of people now get or which will kill you if you get them, there are supplements known to prevent or help prevent those diseases.) Hopefully we will get to keep this one as it can add so much to your protection.

5. Avoid tobacco and its smoke.

(Even though they cause 30% of all cancers, some smokers escape cancer. But EVERY exposure to them begins to cause heart disease, damage your lungs, and increase your rate of aging. No one exposed to tobacco smoke escapes this harm! That includes light smokers, teen smokers, and babies exposed to second hand smoke.)

6. Practice some form of physical stress control most days.

(So far, tai chi looks to be the most effective and time efficient way to do this.)

7. Become a purposeful, playful, proactive, and prudent optimist.

(Such people make good things happen and avoid bad ones. Also learn ways to survive and overcome difficulties and bad times that happen anyway.)

8. Practice other key prevention steps. (Brush and floss your teeth and gums well every day. Always wear your seat belt. Get your key blood indicators checked so you don’t get harmed by a problem you could have fixed first. There are more. But those 3 are extremely protective.)

Covering these 8 will turn into a series since each one deserves its own post.