Nutrition Tips

Cholesterol Reducing Foods

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Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol has been shown to increase health risks including cardiovascular disease. Therefore, it is important to keep your LDL cholesterol within the recommended range. One of the easiest ways to protect your health is to eat foods which lower the amount of LDL in your bloodstream. Below is a list of cholesterol reducing foods which can easily be incorporated into your diet.

Spinach contains an abundance of carotene which has been shown to reduce cholesterol. Eating 1/2 cup of cooked spinach three times a week will significantly improve your health. If you prefer raw spinach, try a healthy spinach salad. To increase the benefits of a spinach salad add some mandarin oranges and red onions. The pectin in the mandarin oranges lowers cholesterol, and the quercitin in onions has been shown to prevent damage to your artery walls.

Garlic is known for its many beneficial properties. But did you know that it also helps remove cholesterol and prevent blood clots? Experts recommend eating one clove of garlic per day. To incorporate into your diet simply roast a clove of garlic and make some scrumptious garlic bread.

Olive oil can be used in many different dishes including salads, pasta and vegetables. Olive oil can replace many cholesterol raising fats including butter. Make a simple vinaigrette use 3 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar. For a delicious pasta dish combine 1 pound cooked pasta, 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, 4 cloves of chopped garlic and 1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley.

Nuts, especially peanuts, contain vitamin E as well as folic acid. Vitamin E protects your arteries from the damages associated with cholesterol, while folic acid has been shown to reduce homocysteine levels. Increased homocysteine levels has been linked to an increased risk of both heart and blood vessel diseases.

Beans provide soluble fiber which help lower cholesterol. Beans can be incorporated into your daily diet by using several different recipes. One of the easiest ways to use beans is to make a bean salad. Combine several of your favorite beans with green peppers, onions, celery, oil and vinegar. This bean salad will keep for up to 5 days in the refrigerator, making it a simple side dish for your meals.

One glass of red wine a day will increase your good cholesterol while lowering your bad cholesterol. Too much of a good thing can cause more harm than good; therefore, it is important to drink in moderation.

Tea contains many wonderful properties including catechin. Catechin has been shown to protect your artery walls by lowering your bad cholesterol while increasing your good cholesterol. White, green or black teas all contain catechin, so choose your favorite and drink up!

Apples are known to promote good health including reducing cholesterol and protecting your heart. Apples contain pectin and flavonoids; both of which reduce cholesterol. The best way to eat apples is to eat them raw; however, cooked apples will also benefit your health.

Incorporate the aforementioned cholesterol busting foods into your diet to help lower your bad cholesterol while maintaining your good cholesterol. It is easy to include these foods into your diet when you have the knowledge of how to properly use them for the maximum benefit.

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Explaining What You Need to Know About Fruits and Veggies

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You’ve always heard it from your parents when you were a kid: “Eat your vegetables!” But do you know why you should stray further away from meat and lean more towards produce? These nutrition tips below will explain why fruits and vegetables are the way to go.

The benefits you’ll receive from fruits and vegetables are quite numerous. For starters, you’ll be ingesting a lot less fat, a lot less carbohydrates, far fewer calories, and you’ll be receiving the essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs to thrive. You’ll start to look better and feel better. And with the amount of fiber in produce, you’ll actually feel fuller than eating a piece of fatty meat.

There’s no replacement for fresh produce; you’ll simply get more nutrients out of it. So it’s always best to buy in season. Of course, some products aren’t available depending on the season, while others will be. So you should plan your menu around what’s locally available.

A farmer’s market is more likely going to give you organic produce that hasn’t been treated with harsh chemicals. And since they cut out the middleman and the subsequent shipping costs, you can buy the product for less money. Best of all, homegrown items taste better than mass-produced items.

Fruits and veggies that aren’t organic may have come from China or somewhere else where they’ve long passed their peak of ripeness. Secondly, and more obviously, the herbicides and pesticides used on non-organic produce can harm you.

Apples are great, but Brussels sprouts are even better for you. Swiss chard is a great vegetable. Opting for turnips and carrots and other root veggies instead of potatoes will give you a more nutritious option. You just have to look beyond the obvious choices.

When you juice produce, you’re actually pulling out more of the essential vitamins and minerals, because you’re juicing the skin, stem, core and seeds of the item in some cases and not just eating the flesh. This obviously gives you a lot more bang for your buck.

Being creative will make fruits and vegetables more appealing to you and to your family. Try removing the noodles from spaghetti and using spaghetti squash instead. Use fresh berries to make cold smoothies instead of eating ice cream or drinking a milk shake. Grill pineapple for a filling, smoky, tasty snack. The sky is the limit here.

If you cannot find a fruit or vegetable in season but really want to purchase it anyway, then you should always opt for a frozen item over a canned item. Frozen items are usually picked at the peak of freshness and are instantly flash frozen when they’re still raw. With most canned items, however, they’re cooked inside of the can to pasteurize the items, and they lose all their freshness.

Reading these tips, you should have a good idea of what to look out for in the store and why you should be eating more fruits and vegetables. It’s easy to incorporate these items into a healthy diet. You only have to want to make the change.

A Healthy Body For All

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Everyone needs to have a healthy body. There is no person on this planet that should not want to have a properly functioning and healthy body. So how do you know if your body is healthy? Well the answer is simple, if you are taking care of it properly. When you keep your body properly nourished, then you are maintaining a healthy body. To learn how to nourish your body, have a look at the tips that follow.

A lot of people neglect to eat enough in a given day because they feel like they are going to get fat. The truth is you need to eat a reasonable amount of food a day. The changes you can make are the types of foods you eat. Instead of eating unhealthy foods, start adding in foods that are more nutritious for your body. Pick up the vegetables that you enjoy and start munching on those more. Do not be afraid to try new fruits and see if you start to like it after awhile. You do not have to change how much you eat, as long as you are not going hungry, but you should be practicing healthier eating habits.

One of the essential parts to having a healthy body is filling it with enough protein. Look at all of the foods you eat and see if there is enough protein in your diet. If you feel like your diet is lacking in protein, then consider adding protein rich foods to your next meals. Protein is great and you can find large amounts of protein in meats, fish and different nuts. So, whether you are adding protein to one of your meals, or as part of a snack, it does not matter. Just add protein to your diet to help your body carry out its functions.

Ensure that your body is getting enough vitamins regularly so that it can have a strong immune system. Vitamins carry out an assortment of tasks for your body but overall, they make your health and vitality increase. So, start filling your body with the right amounts of vitamins. You are going to want to add in fruits and vegetables that are rich with vitamins, but if you cannot, then supplements are fine as well. Just as long as you are taking vitamins your body should remain healthy.

Make sure that you are clearing out your body. So start eating foods that are rich in fiber so that you can clear out your intestines. Fiber rich foods help pick up all the junk that builds up in your intestinal tract which helps you clear our your body better. Many people choose to eat fiber in the morning so that they can clear out their stomach and get ready for their long day ahead of them.

Once you know how to practice healthier nutritional ways of living, it becomes easier to follow them. The one problem people have about following proper nutrition is that they do not know what they should be doing for their body. Now you do though, so start using this advice and see how much of a difference it makes.

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Simple Steps to Good Nutrition

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Everyone knows how important proper diet and nutrition are to a healthy body and lifestyle. However, we also know that it’s not as easy as it sounds! If you like the idea of improving your diet and adding nutritious foods to your menus, you can ease your way into better health by using some of these simple ideas!

The best way to start formulating a more nutritious diet is to eliminate any canned, packaged or processed foods from your grocery list and cupboards. Sure, these foods frequently go on sale, but the money you save is little incentive when you consider the chemicals, preservatives and abundance of sodium they offer. Pre-packaged and canned foods are also loaded with fat and extra calories. Learn to love fresh foods instead!

Always read nutrition labels on the foods you buy. Everything you need to know about a product can be found here. Be sure to look at what a serving size actually is. You may think a can of chili is a serving, when in fact, it may be 2 or more servings! Look for clues like fat and cholesterol content, as well as calories, sugar and carbohydrates.

Instead of purchasing prepared sauces, gravies and dips, make your own from fresh ingredients and recipes you find in cookbooks or online. Sauces and dip recipes abound, and they can be fun to experiment with. Look for recipes that incorporate fresh salsas into salads and chicken recipes, or yogurt dips for fruit trays. Make them colorful and delicious!

Discover the magic of smoothies! If you don’t have time to cook breakfast in the morning, get the ingredients for a healthy smoothie together the night before. The whole family will enjoy a fruit smoothie made with yogurt, bananas, strawberries or any other favorite fruit. Add ice for some slush and a spoonful of bran for some fiber, and you have a complete meal!

Whenever you see an ingredient in your recipe or menu that is not nutritious, find a replacement for it. Instead of using fatty ground beef in your spaghetti, use ground turkey instead. For stir-fry, use brown rice instead of white. There are endless substitutions that won’t take away from the flavor of a dish but will add to its nutritional value. A great “hidden” tip is to throw a handful of spinach leaves into your recipes for some great nutritional value. You can use this trick in soups, casseroles or sandwich spreads. No one will ever know!

Finally, we know how important drinks are to many people. There are few people who don’t enjoy sugary soda or fruit juice drinks. Some drink soda all day long! Studies have shown that by cutting out soft drinks, you can lose up to 10 pounds in a year without dieting. That may not seem like a lot, but the sugar and empty calories you won’t be ingesting will make you healthier in the long run. Get creative and make your drinks attractive as well as nutritious. Drink plenty of water, and try adding lemon and lime slices for a twist. Drink club soda with a few strawberries thrown in for color plus a snack. Use your creativity and drink your way to good health!

As you can see, although implementing a nutritious diet into your life can seem daunting at first, these simple steps shared here will get you started. Do a little research, tap into your creative side, and soon you and your family will be enjoying better health as well as wonderful meals!

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Maintaining A Healthy Body

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Nutrition is something many people all over the world lack. So many people want to give their body the right amount of nutrients on a daily basis, but few actually do so. This makes many people feel very unhappy with their bodies and lives. If you want to successfully manage a healthy, nutritious diet for your body then read on, the advice from this article is going to help steer you in the right direction.

You should already know what foods are nutritious for you. You just have to start making the efforts to eat them. Avoid unnecessary ingredients such as trans fats or high fructose corn syrup. Read all labels and consider if all of the ingredients are what you want to put into your body. The thing you want to do is fill your body with plenty of fruits and vegetables, and give yourself enough protein to help your body function properly. Look at food pyramids so you can see what kinds of foods you should be filling your body with; this is a good indicator of how your diet should change.

The best kind of diet for your body consists of the normal amount of food someone of your proportion should consume on a daily basis. Diets do not mean that you have to eat less, but that you have to eat right. You can still eat the same, just eat more of what is good for you. Take the time to eat healthy foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner and to replace unhealthy snacks with healthier ones.

Your body needs carbohydrates in order to function properly. All of the energy you get to function throughout the day comes from carbohydrates, so keeping carbohydrates in your diet is a good thing to do. You may want to cut down on the carbohydrates that you consume if you are consuming too many, but at least make sure that you have enough to manage a good amount of energy throughout the day.

Exercise helps you get fit. When you exercise your body builds muscles and maintains a good metabolism. Exercising is a very good thing for not only your body, but your mind as well. So yes, exercising is a great way to help your body stay healthy. You should be eating healthy foods as well as practicing a regular exercise regime in order to make your body as healthy as it can be. Get a gym membership or dedicate some time to running or biking daily. As you work out over time you will notice a good change in your mood and personality, try it out and see how you feel.

When your body is malnourished you can feel it. When you are always feeling drowsy, you feel agitated at times and you just do not feel normal is when your body is malnourished. If you are always hungry then this is a sign that you need to nourish your body. Make sure that you are eating enough daily and that you try your best to get enough vitamins and minerals into your body so that you can avoid becoming malnourished.

Nourishing your body does not have to feel like a hassle. Once you start to practice healthy diet habits, you feel good about yourself over time and everything becomes routine. Start nourishing your body properly and see how you feel after a few weeks, because your body should be feeling good when you start taking care of it.