10 Super Foods For Better Health

The list below are what we call super foods - nutritionally speaking!

1) Sweet Potatoes. A nutritonal All-Star - one of the best vegetables you can eat. They're loaded with carotenoids, Vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. Bake and then mix in some unsweetened applesauce or crushed pineapple for extra moisture and sweetness.

2) Mangoes. Just one cup of mango supplies three quarters of a day's vitamin C, one quarter of a day's vitamin A, a decent dose of blood-pressure lowering potassium, and 3 grams of fiber. Bonnus: mango is one of the fruits least likely to have harmful pesticide residue.

3) Unsweetened Yogurt. Plain yogurt has a pleasant tartness that's a perfect foil for the natural sweetness of berries, bananas, or for your favorite breakfast cereal. It has more protein, potassium, calcium, zinc, and viatamisn B-6 and B-12 than sweetened yogurt. That's because it doesn't have to share the container with the sugary preserves or the sugar that's in many flavored yogurts.

4) Broccoli. It has lots of vitamin C, carotenoids, and folic acid. Steam it just enough so that it's still firm and add a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and a spritz of lemon juice.

5) Wild Salmon. The omega-3 fats in fatty fish like salmon can help reduce the risk of sudden death heart attacks. And wild caught salmon has less PCB contamination than farmed salmon.

6) Crispbreads. Whole grain rye crackers, like Wasa, Ry-Krisp and Ryvita - usually called crispbreads - are loaded with fiber and often fat-free.

7) Garbanzo Beans. All beans are good beans. They're rich in protein fiber, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. But garbanzos stand out because they're so versatile. Just drain, rinse, and toss a handful on your green salad, throw them into vegetable stews, curries, and soups, mix them with brown rice, whole wheat couscous, bulgur, or other whole grains.

8) Watermelon. Watermelon is a heavyweight in the nutrient department. A standard serving (about 2 cups) has one third of a day's vitamins A and C, and a nice shot of potassium for only 85 fat-free, salt-free calories. And when they're in season, watermelons are often locally grown, which means they may have a smaller carbon footprint than some other fruits.

9) Butternut Squash. Steam a sliced squash or buy peeled, diced butternut squash at the supermarket that's ready to go into the oven, a stir-fry, or a soup. It's an easy way to get payloads of vitamins A and C, and fiber.

10) Leafy Greens. Don't miss out on powerhouse greens like kale,collards, spinach, turnip greens, mustard greens, and Swiss chard. These standout leafy greens are jam-packed with vitamins A, C, and K, folate, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, lutein and fiber. Serve with a splash of lemon juice or red wine vinegar. ~
* Nutrition Action HealthletterAunt Millie

Comfort Food Diet

I have found a wonderful tool in the weight loss battle. It's called Taste of Home's Comfort Food Diet Cookbook. It has over 433 recipes with foods you crave, but the versions that appear in here are lighter versions. I've tried some of them and they taste great.
Included in the cookbook are diet tips, logs to record your food intake and calories and even suggestions for exercise.
It is a great find and I highly recommend it. I have already lost 5 pounds following this diet. If you buy the cookbook, you will have access to the website that will help you along the way.
Below I've chosen some information you may find helpful.

Balancing Your Diet
A healthy diet is so much more than calories in versus calories out. You must have balance and variety in order to meet all of your nutritional needs.

Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are an important part of any healthy diet. They are a major source of vitamins and minerals, contribute to daily fiber intake and supply valuable antioxidants and phytonutrients that researchers suggest can help prevent disease. Eating various colored fruits and vegetables will ensure that you are getting a variety of nutrients each day. They are also low in calories, which means a lot of nutritional bang for your calorie buck.

Fat
Generally speaking, healthy adults should limit fat to about 30% of their calories each day. This means at 1,300 or1,500 calories a day, you should be eating no more than about 50 grams of fat per day. Stick with healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats like fats found in olive and canola oils, nuts and seeds.

Saturated Fat
Saturated fat is found mainly in high-fat meats and dairy foods as well as coconut oil, palm kernel oil and some processed foods. Limit saturated fat to 10% of calories or less, which means about 17 grams when following 1,400 or 1,500 calories a day.

Trans Fat
As in the case of saturated fat, diets high in trans fat can increase LDL ("bad") cholesterol which increases the risk of coronary artery disease. Trans fat may also decrease HDL ("good") cholesterol. Trans fat can be found in vegetable shortening, stick margarine, fried foods, processed foods and store bought baking goods. Limit trans fat as much as possible and try to stay below 1.5-2.0 grams per day.

Cholesterol
Eating foods high in cholesterol can increase blood cholesterol for some people, which is why it's recommended to limit daily intake to 300 mg. even though saturated and trans fats have a more significant effect on blood cholesterol. Cholesterol if found only in foods from animals, such as eggs, meat and dairy products.

Sodium
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, and salt can be a contributor to high blood pressure. High sodium diets do not cause high blood pressure in everyone but it is still wise to limit sodium to 2,300 mg per day. One teaspoon of salt contains about 2,300 mg. of sodium, but keep in mind that most of the salt we consume comes from processed foods, not the salt shaker. Foods high in sodium include lunch meat, condiments like soy sauce and ketchup, frozen dinners, canned foods, boxed mixes, seasoning packets and foods labeled as "smoked," "cured," "pickled" or "brined."
Simple substitutions to the Salt Shaker:
Many of us are conditioned to grab for the salt shaker eve before tasting our food. Try to get out of this habit. Taste your food first. Savor it. Enjoy several bites without adding extra salt. With time, you likely won't reach for the salt shaker at all.
Experiment with your recipes by replacing the salt called for with herbs or sodium-free seasoning blends. Try seasoning veggies with a splash of lemon juice.

Fiber
Healthy adults should be eating at least 20-30 grams of fiber each day although most Americans eat far less than that. Fiber can be categorized as soluble or insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber can help lower cholesterol wile insoluble fiber helps maintain a healthy digestive tract. In addition, fiber helps you feel full, which can help prevent overeating. Foods high in soluble fiber include oatmeal, beans and barley, while foods with insoluble fiber include whole wheat and brown rice.

Tips to Help Boost Fiber
Leave the skins on fruits and vegetables.
Add extra veggies into soups and side dishes.
Sprinkle oat bran or wheat germ over yogurt to stir into casseroles.
Choose whole grain breads and crackers. Whole wheat or whole grain flour should be listed as the first ingredient on the food label.
Toss kidney beans or garbanzo beans into salads.

Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates have received a lot of bad press over the years. While it's important to watch the amount of carbohydrates you consume, carbs are an important part of a healthy diet because they fire up and fuel the body's engine.
There are two types of carbohydrates: sugar and starch. Sugars include fructose and lactose. Starches are grains, pasta and potatoes. The body converts all sugars and starches to glucose - a source of energy. Diabetics need to watch how many carbs they consume, however, because their bodies regulate glucose in the bloodstream differently than most.
Choosing whole grains plus eating a variety of fruits and vegetables and reduced fat dairy products are positive carbohydrate choices...and those choices matter for overall health. The carbs found in packaged cakes, pies and cookies are highly processed and don't contribute to a healthy diet. Cutting them out of your meal plan means eliminating empty calories, which makes sense if you are watching your weight. For instance, 4 1/2 teaspoons of sugar may have about the same calories and carbohydrates as a medium apple, but the medium apple is a far healthier choice.

Protein
Proteins bring oxygen to blood, produce antibodies and help muscles contract. About half of the protein we consume creates enzymes, which help cells carry out necessary chemical reactions. The body needs a constant supply of protein to repair and rebuild cells that are worn or damaged. In general, women should consume 45 grams of protein per day, and men should consume around 55 grams each day.
~ From Comfort Food Diet Cookbook, Aunt Millie

How Carbs Work

Carbohydrates are contained in a vast and varied array of foods; everything from the most virtuous vegetable to the most decadent treat. All carbs contain sugars. These sugars, though, exist in several different forms and go by a variety of names, including sucrose (table sugar), lactose (in diary), and fructose (as found in fruit).
Despite that similarity no one who has ever craved a sugar doughnut has been satisfied by broccoli. The opposite might also be true, though it's difficult to find people who suffer from insatiable cravings for green vegetables.
It's easy to tell by taste which carbs are highest in sugars, and which yield their sugars most readily. It probably comes as no surprise that a milk chocolate bar gives up its sugars more freely than one made of dark chocolate; or a pineapple yields its sweetness faster than a grapefruit, or a slice of supermarket white bread produces blood sugar faster than a coarse-grained health food cracker. The more sugar there is, and the faster it's released, the more acutely we sense that sugar "rush" - the relief that courses through our bloodstream as we heed the call for carbs. Internally, though, our bodies treat all carbs in basically the same way - digestion is in large part the process by which our bodies extract the sugars from carbohydrates and turn them into fuel, which we either burn or store. Burning the fuel is good - that means we're active enough to make efficient use of the food we eat. Storage of a little fuel is all right, but anything more than that is not good. You know that excess stored fuel by another term: body fat.
The job of carbohydrate digestion starts in our mouths, when we chew the food into bits and our saliva begins the chemical process of separating each mouthful into its components. In our stomachs, the food is further shredded by the organ's muscular contractions and gastric acids. Our bodies want to get at the sugars contained in carbs, but this happens at varying speeds, depending on certain factors. Essentially, the less encumbered these sugars are by other substances, the faster they enter our bloodstream.

Carb Competitors

Which substances get in our bodies way? Fiber is the major factor that slows the absorption of sugar. That's the reason the highly processed oatmeal was worse, diet-wise, than the steel cut variety - the latter had all the fiber still intact, and so before the stomach could get to the sugars in the oatmeal, it had to separate them from the fiber. Once isolated, the fiber passes undigested through your system; its dietary importance comes from the ability to slow digestion down. It's an obstacle to digestion - a good one.
This was proven not long ago in a scientific study in which half the subjects were given the fiber known as psyllium (you probably know it better as Metamucil)15 minutes before lunch. The other half had lunch without the psyllium first. In the hours after the meal, the fiber group reported less hunger than the others. As the day wore on they ate less, too. The reason is simple: In their stomachs the psyllium mixed in with what they ate and drank and slowed down the digestion. Slower digestion of carbs, less insulin. Less insulin, less dramatic drop in blood sugar. Less of a sugar rise and fall now, less hunger later.
Fiber isn't the only thing that slows the digestion of carbohydrates. Fat, too, slows the speed at which your small intestine accessed the sugars you've eaten. That's why, in the study of overweight adolescents, the omelet breakfast created the least desire to eat more later. We have found other factors that slow the digestion of carbs and therefore benefit dieters. Acidic foods such as lemon and viegar slow the speed with which your stomach empties, therefore cutting back on the rise in blood sugar. You can dress salads or vegetables in both and enjoy the benefit. Even sourdough bread, while not high in fiber, is acidic, and will slow stomach emptying and thereby slow digestion.
This is an important lesson in eating properly and losing weight. This is why we call earbs containing fiber good, and why we also think of certain fats as good, too. Anything that slows the process by which you process the sugars in carbs is by definition, good. *~ Aunt Millie

* Taken from The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston, M.D. For more details, go to http://www.southbeachdiet.com