Veggie Colors Will Tell How They Can Help You!

Can These Veggies Save Your Life?

Would you like to live a long time? Most of us would.

Would you like to be healthy and disease free? That’s a pretty easy question, since the alternative is being sick and miserable.

So how do you go about it? One simple way to be leaner, healthier, and full of energy is to do what grandma told you—eat your veggies.

Why? Because vegetables are full of chemicals that your body uses to fight disease and stay healthy. These are things that you can’t get anywhere else.

Plants are made up of chemicals. Some of the chemicals help the plants fight off viruses, bacteria and pests. It turns out that these same chemicals help our own bodies in countless ways.

The details would fill a book, but here are a few examples:

Purple: plums, prunes, raisins, and other berries — these fight off cancer, heart disease and help your memory.

White: garlic and onions — these help fight cancer and infections, and they lower blood pressure.

Orange and yellow: peaches, sweet potatoes, and carrots — fight cancer and heart disease.

Green: broccoli, peas and cabbage — help your vision, fight heart disease and reduce risk of cancer.

Red: beets, apples, and tomatoes — lower risk of prostate and lung cancer, and help your circulation.

So how do you go about it? It’s simple. Pick by the color. Eat a variety of colored fruits and vegetables, and you can’t go wrong.

And it’s particularly important if you are trying to take off weight. When you are reducing calories, you need to pack in all the nutrition you can. And these colored gems are the way to do it.

By Dan Curtis

Dan Curtis, M.D. can help YOU lose weight. Sign up for our free newsletter: Dr. Dan’s Super Weight Loss Tips, Tricks and Secrets. It's free! Click here http://www.superweightlossplan.com/newsletter/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Curtis

Brain Power - Are You Keeping Your Brain Well Nourished?

Do you ever stop to think how hard your brain works for you every Day? Most of us do not consider the importance of our brain while we focus on the rest of our body. Your brain is the most essential organ and yet it is the organ least cared for.

You need not study hard or become a bookworm to boost your mental faculties. Just a few smart tricks, techniques, habits, changes in diet, lifestyle and behavior could energize your grey matter and get the best results from your brain.

Here are some thoughts to help your brain stay healthy and alert.

1. Physical exercise strengthens your brain. Exercise benefits your brain cells. The blood vessels inside your brain dilate and increase blood flow when you engage in regular exercise. Exercise helps to excrete toxins and allows oxygen and other nutrients to flow into your brain strengthening your brain cells.

2. Start your day with a healthy breakfast. Skipping breakfast affects your brainpower and performance at home, school or work.

3. Kick-start your brain with problem solving in the morning so that it wakes up and is all ready to go when you start. Why don’t you start off your day with a crossword puzzle or sudoku from your morning newspaper? Your brain needs these teasers to be more efficient during the first few lazy hours in the mornings.

4. Research backs up the support in favor of omega-3 fatty acids. Fish is the best brain food. Omega 3 fish oil is not just healthy brain food for babies. It's also an essential brain food for children, adolescents and adults. The EPA and DHA in fish oil seems prevent dementia.

5. Here is a trick to remember something important for the next day – read and review over the matter needed for the next day before you go to sleep the previous night. While you sleep your brain does its sorting and filing for you and stores it for you. When you think about it the next day your brain supplies this information fresh out of its memory cells.

6. Did you ever get stuck with a small detail when your brain just stops and you experience a mental block? Try darting your eyes from side to side. You would be amazed at the results! What is the reason behind this? Everyone has a left and right hemisphere in the brain. They communicate constantly on a daily basis throughout your thinking process.

Sometimes when this communication link or connection gets weaker for some reason you may experience a memory lapse. Darting your eyes helps to strengthen this connection to jerk your memory and bring back into focus that little detail you had forgotten all along. All it takes is 5 to 10 seconds to jolt your brain. Try it.

7. Good sleep, music, busy life and plenty of water are also factors that help in building your brainpower.

It is possible to boost your brainpower at any age. Try these strategies and you would start praising your brainpower in as little as two weeks!

Are You Getting Enough Fiber In Your Diet? Benefits Of Fiber In Your Diet.

High Fiber Diet Benefits

A diet high in fiber foods is tremendously important for many reasons. Adequate amounts of fiber are essential to good health, in that it keeps your digestive system working smoothly, helps elimination from the body and most of them are rich in vitamins and nutrients.

A study conducted at the Harvard School of Medicine found that men who consumed 30 grams of fiber a day were half as likely to develop precancerous colon changes as men whose daily fiber intake was 12 grams or lower.

Scientists are not exactly sure why fiber can help reduce the risks of colon cancer but it is thought that insoluble fiber adds bulk to stools, which helps speed their transit through the intestines, leaving less time for carcinogenic changes.

Other studies have shown that good levels of fiber can also help against breast cancer, heart disease, digestive disorders, diabetes and obesity. If you suffer from constipation, increasing your fiber content should help. It also helps to drink adequate amounts of water daily to help the fiber through your system.

An increased amount of fiber can also help you feel fuller faster and longer, which is important if you’re watching your weight.

An easy way to start the day with an adequate amount of fiber is to have a fiber-rich breakfast of cereal and fruit. Vegetables and fruits are very high in both soluble and insoluble fibers and also many other important nutrients. They are what you might call "nutrient dense".

Many people eat breads and cereals types which are very low in fiber. Even some brown bread varieties only have a small amount, so it’s best to check your package labels and make sure you’re getting a natural whole grain product with sufficient fiber. Find ways to consume more fiber every day.

Now that you know some of the benefits of adding fiber to your diet, here are some quick tips to help you increase your fiber intake:

Tips To Increase Your Fiber Intake

Eat vegetables with every meal, and add more raw veggies into your diet.

Switch from processed carbohydrates such as white bread and pasta to whole grains (these are higher in fiber and nutrients).

Add some high fiber grains, nuts, or fruit to your cereals, and add some vegetables like sprouts, lettuce, spinach, or avocado onto your sandwiches.

Add beans to casseroles, chili or many other foods. Beans are an especially good source of fiber.

Snack on fruits and vegetables with their skin on when possible. The skin and the immediate area under it is where a lot of the 'goodness' lies. If you peel it some of the fiber and precious nutrients are lost.

Fruits like grapes and berries are particularly high in fiber and apples and pears for example should be eaten with the peel on also.

Eat dried fruits such as raisins, prunes, figs, and apricots. These are easy to sprinkle on cereal or add to homemade muffins. The varieties are virtually endless.

There are some great prepackaged trail mixes available today in most groceriy stores and they are very convenient to take with you and snack on during the day. You can use the bulk food bins to mix up some of your own dried fruit and nut favorites.

A psyllium supplement can easily boost your fiber intake and help you take advantage of no added calories. You can get the bags of bulk psyllium or capsules if you prefer. It is an inexpensive way to get more fiber and very convenient. I take psyllium supplements daily to ensure that I get enough roughage into my diet.

Some cereals produced today have psyllium added to increase their fiber content. There are many more ways to add more fiber into your diet and they will support you well on your journey to making healthy lifestyle choices and creating abundant energy supplies to greet each day.