Berries

You may like all types of berries or just one or two favorites, but you can never go wrong by adding a few fresh berries as a quick energy snack or frozen berries made into a luscious smoothie in place of calorie laden desserts. Berries are high in vitamin C across the board, but some are high in other nutrients as well. Choose ripe blueberries for vitamin C and heaps of anti-oxidants for the health of your circulatory system. Gogi berries are less well-known but are wonderfully rich in many of the nutrients your body needs to be nutritionally and physically fit.

Citrus

The foods of the citrus family are widely recognized as a valuable source of vitamin C. Choose fully ripe citrus fruits for the best nutritional value and choose citrus as near to the tree as possible. Tree ripened fruits picked at the peak of perfection and consumed with hours of picking give you the top nutritional rating. Try grapefruit for breakfast. Add a dash of fresh squeezed lime to your salad as a dressing and enjoy slices of orange with coconut in a light honey dressing for dessert.

Vegetables

The variety of vegetables is amazing. For people who are vegetarian or vegan, choosing vegetables to be part of a nutritionally sound diet is a way of life. Your vegetable group provides many of the minerals required in a good diet. For example, you may realize that potassium is necessary for healthy nutrition. Many people claim the benefits of potassium found in a single banana. But did you know, you can also get adequate potassium in your diet by eating a stalk of broccoli? Try a salad of fresh young spinach topped with pine nuts and stirred with lightly cooked penne’. Feta cheese and a light vinaigrette dressing to create the perfect light luncheon meal.

Whole Grains

Like many other of the best foods, choosing only one type of whole grain for your meals doesn’t provide all the variety you need to be nutritionally sound. Often, mixing two or more whole grains together will give you complete proteins. For example, brown rice and wheat kernels with a spicy seasoning are a popular dish in many countries.

Salmon

Salmon is lean fish and nutritionally one of the best fish choices. It is rich in Omega-3 oils that are noted as helping improve the functioning of the brain. Salmon baked whole with just lemon or lime as a seasoning makes a fantastic main dish or a hearty luncheon featured menu item. Salmon is also commonly found in chilled seafood dishes.

Legumes

A legume is the name for a variety of fruits with a single dry seed. Legumes are sometimes called pods. Examples of edible legumes are soybeans, peas, dried beans and peanuts, among others. Legumes are rich in iron and high in fiber, making them excellent nutritional choices. Peanuts are a type of legume that have been used to make hundreds of different products some edible and others with various types of helpful uses.

Nuts and seeds

Nature has packed a lot of goodness into small packages. Most everyone has heard of walnuts and pecans which are very good nutritional products, but did you realize that flax seeds are brain food–containing critical non-meat sources of the Omega-3 oil.

Lean proteins

The keyword here is lean. Americans eat far too much protein compared to the rest of the world. Cut down of portion sizes–three ounces will provide all the needed protein needed for your day. Also, trim all visible fat from your protein source. Alternatively, use non meat substitutes such as the complete proteins found in vegetable dishes like beans and brown rice.

Tea

Depending on the type of tea you prefer, you can get an energy boost from a cup of green tea, or the calming effect of chamomile tea. Get going with mint teas or start your day with Earl Grey Breakfast Tea. Herbal teas are soothing, tasty and good for you. Non herbal teas will help you to stay alert when you need help to function.

Olive oil

Olive oil is probably the healthiest substance you can use to keep fat in your diet. You can use it on your salad, mix it with a little vinegar to create your own, or fry other foods in the hot oil. Just make sure that the temperature is not too hot so that the oil is broken down.

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There are dozens of variations of food poison, and none of them are pleasant. One of them is Bacillus cereus. While not usually life-threatening, this common form of food poisoning can cause diarrhea, nausea, cramps, and vomiting. Symptoms usually appear 8-16 hours after exposure to the bacteria and can disrupt your life for a few days.

Bacillus cereus is usually caused by improper cooking. The problem can be exacerbated by improper refrigeration, which just allows the spores to further grow. Cooked rice that is improperly refrigerated is one of the most common carriers of Bacillus cereus.

However, researchers are learning that there may be ways to protect our bodies from the ravages of such bacteria. It appears that teaís catechins may protect our bodies from bacteria like Bacillus cereus. Tea has far more anti-microbial properties than previously realized.

One particular study reported by the UK Tea Council evaluated the anti-microbial activity of seven green tea catechins and four black tea theaflavins, both important anti-oxidants. They also evaluated actual infusions of 36 commercial black, white, green and oolong teas, as well as herbal teas.

Photo: @JulieK

These anti-oxidants and infusions were evaluated to determine their antimicrobial activity against Bacillus cereus. This study concluded that all eleven of the anti-oxidants evaluated contained anti-microbial properties.*

In fact, most of the compounds were more active than medicinal antibiotics such as tetracycline or vancomycin at comparable concentrations. The study also concluded that the brewed infusions of true tea that contained these catechins and theaflavins also had anti-microbial properties as well, particularly freshly brewed infusions. However, herbal brews did not have anti-microbial properties.

So, just what does this mean to our real life? Well, it means that drinking tea can protect your body against certain harmful bacteria like Bacillus cereus. If we consume tea on a regular basis, we may be able to ward off these harmful bacteria before they wreak havoc on our bodies.

The presence of the antioxidants in tea may be enough to keep us from getting sick from these bacteria, or at least be sufficient to lessen their effects.

This is likely just the tip of the iceberg. We already know that green tea prevents many serious illnesses, such as heart disease, Alzheimerís disease and some forms of cancer.

Photo: @cafealternativo

And, if we’ve determined that it can kill bacteria such as Bacillus cereus, then thereís certainly potential that it can act as an anti-biotic against other harmful bacteria, as well.

Certainly, it has been determined from this along with many other studies that tea is an important part of living a healthy life. In Japan, the medical community recognizes green tea as a known cancer preventative, and itís likely that medical communities in other countries will soon follow suit.

This information, combined with the other studies that have shown green tea to be effective in preventing heart disease should be enough to convince us that drinking a few cups of green tea each day is a simple way to protect our health.

But, why is does it seem that so many of the positive findings are associated with green tea, and not black tea too? Well, it stems from the way the tea is processed. While the study noted here on the anti-microbial activity of tea didnít find a difference between the two, in most health studies green tea beats black tea every time.

Black tea is fermented during processing; green and white teas are not. The fermentation process changes the anti-oxidants in the tea from their natural, original state, into a slightly different compound.

While black tea is still healthy, and still contains important anti-oxidants, the more natural anti-oxidants in green and white tea are far more powerful.

The research done so far has mostly been performed on green tea because it is much more widely consumed. However, it is likely that researchers would find that white tea is just as healthful since its anti-oxidants are preserved in their natural state, just like those in green tea.

Green tea first gained notice as a health preserver because of the much lower incidence of heart disease and cancer in Asian countries, where green tea is a staple. Scientists decided to back up this anecdotal evidence with research and the findings have been astonishing.

In addition to evidence suggesting that green tea protects our health, there has also been evidence to suggest that green tea may even be effective as an alternative cancer treatment. Some studies have shown that green tea slows the growth of certain cancers.

Other studies have shown that administering green tea along with chemotherapy makes the chemotherapy more effective than when it is administered alone.

So, it appears that green tea may be one of the most promising natural health products we can consume. As time goes on, and more studies are conducted on human subjects, weíll learn more definitive information about this wonder beverage.

Itís amazing to think that something many of us has been drinking all our lives just for the taste could hold so much power to protect our health.

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