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10 most beneficial foods (part 1)
from: Rustom Warden10 most beneficial foods
It is clichéd, but true: you are what you eat!
How we look, how we feel, how healthy we are, how we perform our daily tasks -- it all narrows down to what we eat.
How
easy it would be if we knew which foods could be beneficial to us -- to
help us feel energetic, to help us improve our health, to help us in
our battle against body fat.
Get Ahead gives you a guide -- in two parts -- as to what we consider the ten most beneficial foods.
These
foods are rated on the basis of the health benefits they provide, the
fibre content, their vitamin and mineral content as well as low fat and
caloric content.
Note: These foods work best when combined with an all round healthy diet and regular exercise regimen.
1. Oatmeal
Touted
as the breakfast of athletes all around the world, this mushy, gushy
delicious grain can be the first addition you could make to your new
and healthy diet and lifestyle change.
Unlike
other breakfast cereals that are loaded with sugar and stripped of all
fibre, which give you a sugar-loaded burst of energy and then drop
drastically, allowing it to drop.
Oats
are slow to digest and thus provide you a steady sustained flow of
energy to take you through the first few hours of the day.
Oatmeal
is also loaded with fibre, especially the soluble kind, and has thus
been proven to be invaluable in the battle against high cholesterol and
triglyceride levels.
Mix
it with milk, fruit, yoghurt or nuts; have it hot or cold; use it in
cooking -- just make sure to make this heart healthy food a part of
your daily diet.
2. Tomatoes
Our tiny little red friends are a lot more powerful and beneficial to us than we could ever imagine.
Tomatoes contain a carotenoid (a class of highly unsaturated yellow to red pigments occurring in plants), called lycopene.
Not
only has this powerful carotenoid been proven to improve immunity as
well as reduce the risk of developing heart attacks, it has also been
proven, believe it or not, to reduce the risk of cancers of the
prostate, breast, lung, stomach, pancreas, colon, esophagus, mouth and
cervix!
While we realise that there are just so many raw tomatoes that we can stomach, here is where it gets more interesting.
Research
shows that lycopene in tomatoes can be absorbed more efficiently by the
body if processed into sauce, paste and ketchup, thus making the tomato
one of the few vegetables that is actually more beneficial in its
processed or cooked form than when its raw.
3. Almonds
Nuts have always managed to get a bad rap due to their high caloric content.
Thus,
they are often overlooked for their fibre and protein content as well
as being an important source of healthy unsaturated fats and numerous
beneficial minerals and vitamins.
While all nuts do have their benefits, if I had to name just one as the most beneficial, it would have to be almonds.
These
tasty, crunchy treats are sprinkled into cereals, salads, ice cream as
well as being a calming cooling airline snack we rely on to curb our
hunger during those long flights.
Little
do we realise that not only do almonds provide taste and texture to
foods, they also provide more complete nutrition in one handful than
you can imagine.
Just
28 grams (around 23 almonds) provide us with 9 grams of
mono-unsaturated fatty acid, 6 grams of muscle building protein, 3
grams of fiber, 200 mg of potassium, 65 mg of bone strengthening
calcium as well as a hearty dose of vitamin E, magnesium, phosphorous,
copper, zinc and riboflavin.
As with most other foods, moderation is important.
Nuts
do have a high caloric content and it is so very easy to inhale an
entire box of these tasty crunchy characters without a thought!
4. Fish
Who would have thought that our smelly friends from the sea could prove to be one of the most beneficial foods in the world?
When we were younger, fish was inexplicably considered 'brain food'.
Studies
in later years concluded that the omega 3 fatty acids were what
actually made fish brain food, as well as making it one of the most
beneficial foods as far as heart health, lowering cholesterol and
triglyceride levels and treating psychiatric illnesses, like
depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, were considered.
Recent studies have also shown benefits of omega 3 fatty acids for people suffering from arthritis and other joint conditions.
Let
us not forget the protein punch that fish provides us with, as well as
delicious taste whether we decide to order it soaked in butter and
garlic or whether we decide to go healthy and have it steamed or
grilled.
As
every fish has its own unique taste and beneficial characteristics,
mackerel and salmon lead as far as omega 3 fatty acid content goes.
5. Milk
Something our mothers always told us to drink before we left our home, when we were kids.
Think
she had any idea that milk is one of the highest quality sources of
whole food protein, with a biological value second only to eggs?
And
let's not forget the calcium content that milk provides us with,
preventing our bones from becoming weak and hollow and developing
osteoporosis later in life.
Recent studies have also proved that calcium could be beneficial in our battle against body fat.
Just
make sure to have low fat or fat free milk, which provides us with the
same important nutrients minus the fat and the cholesterol.
So let's thank our mommies for nagging us all those years and drink away to a lean muscular physique!
PS: Please check that you are not lactose intolerant before you drink milk.
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