Include High Fiber Foods in your Diet

July 9, 2007 · Filed Under Diet · Comment 

Most of us these days have diets that consist mainly of sugary snacks and fast food, with not a lot of food that is actually good for us.

Here’s a suggestion that will make you healthier and feel better - try adding some high fiber foods to your diet.

Fiber is a material produced by plants that we can’t digest. So you’d be forgiven for be wondering why we would want to eat something we can’t digest.

Here’s why you need fiber:

Insoluble fiber dissolves in water and gives your food a thicker consistency. This makes you absorb sugar into your blood stream more slowly. Soluble fiber absorbs water, but it doesn’t dissolve it. This makes your stool moist and helps to clean out your digestive tract.

The most notable benefit from eating high fiber foods is that it can help calm or in some cases even prevent certain diseases.

Read more

Antioxidants and diet

November 21, 2005 · Filed Under Diet · Comment 

Antioxidants play an important part in the diet, fighting a variety of illnesses, including some kinds of cancer, age related degeneration and heart disease.

You could be forgiven for thinking that antioxidant vitamins are things that come in pills, powders and capsules. The marketing of antioxidant vitamin supplements, such as vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E, is intense and relentless. While vitamin supplements can be helpful, however, the majority of antioxidant vitamins should come from food, not from vitamin supplements.

It is important to understand how antioxidant vitamins work to protect the body from harm. Antioxidants work by combining with and neutralizing harmful elements known collectively as free radicals. Free radicals are produced naturally by the body, as a consequence of a number of natural bodily processes. Most of the time, the body is able to neutralize and eliminate these free radicals on its own.

However, stresses such as environmental pollution, a weakened immune system, UV radiation and alcohol consumption can lower the body’s ability to fight these free radicals.

Read more