YOGURT
Yogurt, along with other milk products, is one of the best sources of calcium, essential for bone health, and it provides a concentrated hit of many vitamins and minerals.
People think of bacteria as being bad, but there are 1,500 kinds in your gastrointestinal tract and many of these are considered to be good for your health since they combat bad bacteria and help to maintain healthy cells lining the GI tract.
Yogurt is basically milk fermented by bacteria. Some yogurts contain additional good bacteria called probiotics.
Preliminary research suggests probiotics may help defend against viruses and harmful bacteria, reduce lactose intolerance, protect against vaginal and bladder infections, prevent food, skin allergies and asthma in children, ease symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, suppress bacteria that cause stomach cancer and ulcers, protect colon cells against cancer, and fight cavities.
Research says: In the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals involving 18,000 children, teenagers and adults, higher intakes of yogurt and other milk products resulted in statistically significant and often large increases in the intake of essential nutrients, including magnesium, potassium, zinc, vitamin A, riboflavin and calcium.
BLUEBERRIES
All berries are antioxidant all-stars, but blueberries are the leader of the pack.
Few foods are as well equipped to wage war against those nasty, cell-damaging free radicals in your body that can cause heart disease, cancer, aging and more.
They're good fresh, dried, frozen and cooked.
Frozen berries are also perfect for whipping into a tasty smoothie, or to heat in the microwave and serve over low-fat frozen yogurt. In fact, all types of berries can fit into a healthy diet, including blackberries, strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, elderberries, black currant and chokeberries.
Research says: In animal studies at Tufts University, blueberries improved balance and co-ordination, and reversed short-term memory loss that comes with aging. A blueberry-rich diet prevented symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in mice genetically programmed to develop the disease.
University of South Florida research showed that mice fed blueberries suffered 50 per cent less stroke-induced brain damage.
Berries appear to protect the brain through multiple mechanisms: as a shield against free radical damage, reducing inflammation, enhancing brain cell communications and increasing the formation of new brain cells.
WHOLE GRAINS
For better health, you've got to eat the whole food. That's one of the golden rules of nutrition today and whole grains are a perfect example of this.
They fight heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, and help you maintain a healthy body weight. In contrast, refined grains like white bread are tied to a higher risk of disease.
All grains, whether from wheat, oats, rice, barley or other sources, are made up of three parts: the bran, the endosperm and the germ. Each part has a special contribution to make.
When grains are refined to make foods like white bread or white rice, the bran and germ are discarded.
But when you throw away the bran and the germ, you throw away a whole lot of good stuff. More than 80 per cent of the health-protective plant compounds are found in the bran and germ.
Many nutrients are found in them as well. We can see this by comparing the nutritional value of white flour to whole-wheat flour.
Whole wheat contains two times more calcium and selenium, three times more copper and phosphorus, four times more potassium, zinc and fibre, six times more magnesium, 12 times more lutein and zeaxanthin, and 14 times more vitamin E.
Research says: In the Harvard Nurses' Health Study involving about 75,000 women, those who ate the most whole grains reduced their risk of heart disease by 25 per cent, stroke by more than 30 per cent and diabetes by almost 40 per cent. They were also 50 per cent less likely to experience major weight gain.
SALMON
Salmon is one of the most delicious and best sources of Omega-3 fats, which can help slash your risk of heart disease and stroke, chase away the blues, and protect your brain from the ravages of aging and diseases like Alzheimer's.
It can cut your risk of the most common cancers (breast, prostate and colon), reduce symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, allergies, and guard against eye diseases like macular degeneration and cataracts.
Can the Omega-3 fats found in higher-fat fish like salmon, mackerel, herring and rainbow trout really do all that?
Accumulating research says yes.
Research says: Some researchers consider these fats the most important nutritional factor influencing heart disease risk.
Scientists first suspected their importance back in the 1970s, after observing rock bottom rates of heart disease among Greenlanders and the Japanese on Okinawa, where seafood consumption is high.
Much evidence has accumulated to support the heart-healthy benefits of higher-fat fish.
Not only are regular fish eaters less likely to have a heart attack or stroke, if one does occur, they are much less likely to die from it and damage to the heart muscle is greatly reduced.
Omega-3 fats are critical for brain development. They help preserve thinking skills and memory as we get older and are linked to better intelligence or school performance in children. |
