Foods for health
« Previous ArticlesMushrooms should be part of your diet!
Feature by our Editorial Assistant Colleen
Mushrooms are near and dear to my heart and are a delicious addition to my daily meals.
Most of you have seen the regular white and brown mushrooms (the brown ones are baby portobello mushrooms called cremini) that are in every grocery store but there’s also oyster (thin and oyster-shaped, a personal favourite of mine), portobello (often grilled and used in burgers as a replacement for a patty), porcini (often found dried in North America), shiitake, morels (you’ll easily find these at gourmet shops or you might also find them dried) and reishi mushrooms.
You can cook mushrooms in so many ways. You can grill them, oven-bake them, steam them, and sauté them, my method of choice.
I add mushrooms to many of my dishes as they’re amazingly versatile. I can make a gourmet hamburger by adding fresh sautéed mushrooms, or make a mushroom pasta sauce or just bake them and eat them as a side of their own. They absorb flavours well and are great to cook with.
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Greens+ Bone Builder is a great source of calcium
Did you know that a University of Toronto study shows greens+ bone builder is four times more effective than calcium alone in the formation of bone?
A new study at the Calcium Research Laboratory, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, St. Michael’s Hospital and University of Toronto, Department of Medicine, shows that the combination of greens+TM and bone builderTM effectively stimulates the osteoblast cells, the bone-forming cells, to stimulate bone growth in culture – up to 1000-fold increase in the area of mineralized bone nodule growth versus control. Calcium alone only stimulated new growth area 250-fold.
* Indeed, compared to control, bone builder increased the area of bone nodule growth 1000-fold… and was four times more effective than calcium alone in increasing bone growth area.
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Turkey chili or meat chili?
Do you prefer a turkey chili recipe or would you rather eat a meat chili recipe?
I really couldn’t help but ask the question, when this new turkey chili recipe landed in my inbox.
I have to say that I eat both and it’s more a question of mood than anything else.
I always prepare my meat chili with lean grain fed ground veal, so it’s obviously not as fattening as a full fat meat chili would be, but it’s not as lean as a turkey chili because turkey is one of the leanest meats you’ll find!
I have to say that I love chili. It’s not only an easy recipe to prepare, but it’s cost effective and it’s a great way to include more beans in your diet. A bowl of chili contains enough protein to keep you full for a long time.
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Matcha green tea is the MOST powerful antioxidant!
Truthfully, had I known of the powerful health benefits of matcha tea, I would have bought it a long time ago.
The key to optimal health is variety. There are many healthy foods that are packed with antioxidants and the best way to ensure that you consume as many as possible is to have as much variety in your diet as possible.
I’ve been adding DoMatcha green tea to my diet for a few months now and I can say that I’ve not had a cold and I didn’t get the flu shot (I’m not advocating not getting the flu shot, as that is a decision that you have to make with your doctor). I had also bought four months ago some Sencha green tea which has a quality that is slightly inferior to macha tea for my smoothies. I keep my DoMatcha green for tea and green tea lattes (I’ll reveal more later).
I definitely feel energize when I have my little shot of match green tea.
I know you much be asking yourself, what’s the difference between green tea and matcha green tea? I had the same question and lucky there are tea connoisseurs at pretty much any gourmet tea shop that will help you answer that question.
>>> What is matcha green tea?
Here are some interesting facts that should help you understand the incredible health benefits of matcha green tea!
* When you prepare a cup of green tea, you drink an infusion of the leaves, when you drink matcha green tea, you ingest the WHOLE leaf and not the infusion!
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Have you tried black (aka purple) rice?
Since I just bought some purple rice for the first time in my life yesterday, I thought I’d share the experience with you.
I love rice. I love jasmine scented Thai rice, I love Italian Arborio rice, I love brown rice, I love wild rice (okay, not technically rice, but more of a grass that blooms), I love red rice and I even will enjoy parboiled rice a couple times a year. I’ve been eating rice as long as I’ve been eating hot peppers.
The native rice dish from my part of the world originated in Africa and came to South America, Central America and the Caribbean from slavery. It’s one of the rare dishes that most people who have any black and/or Hispanic heritage eat: rice and red beans!
My rice and beans is a much healthier option than what my grandmother use to prepare. She had this habit of double frying the beans after they had boiled and before adding the rice to the mixture. She used to add spices to the fried beans to make them stand out even more and they were incredibly delicious.
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3 cups of tea a day can reduce breast cancer risk
There have been studies reporting that drinking three cups of tea a day can reduce the risk of getting breast cancer by more than 30 per cent in women under 50.
The study by Dr. Nagi Kumor tested women who were between 20 and 74 and each one drank tea three times a day, every day. The 5,000 women tested were all treated for breast cancer and was compared with a group of women who were free of the illness.
The reason that there was a drop in developing a tumour is because tea contains antioxidants, namely polyphenols, which help stop cancer cells from growing by cutting off the new blood vessels from forming which is necessary for tumors to grow. Polyphenols are usually found in plants … which explains the connection with tea.
Surprisingly, white tea especially contains more polyphenols because the tea is derived from leaves and buds that hardly have been processed at all and are considered to be more natural.
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Why should you drink more tea?
I drink a variety of different teas and so do my very closest friends.
I like tea because it has an amazing calming effect and I love the way it feel warm and welcoming in my hands when I hold my cup of tea.
The wonderful thing about tea is that it’s great in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. You get to choose the perfect time of the day to drink your cup of tea.
>>>> Here are a few reasons why you SHOULD drink more tea and why variety is the name of the name of the game when it comes to drinking tea:
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Dr. Oz grocery shopping tips to buying organic foods
Dr. Oz tackled the popular question of “should I be buying organic foods?”
My position on organic foods is quite simple: if I had an Angelina Jolie food budget, I’d buy everything organic. It’s true that organic foods are not purchased exclusively by the very rich (or else it wouldn’t be a billion dollar industry). There are loads of regular people with regular incomes who have made the lifestyle choice of buying organic foods.
I have some items that I’ve been buying organic for a decade now: milk, yogurt and essential oils.
When it comes to eggs, I buy mine free range and I will gladly switch to organic free range eggs when I can get them on sale. When it comes to produce, if there is a sale on organic products, I’ll jump at the occasion and there are certain conventional products (like strawberries) I no longer eat if I cannot buy them organic because I’ve read too much about the amount of pesticides used in the cultivation.
If I could only buy organic meats, I would. Right now, it’s not part of my food budget, but I do buy grain feed meats because they are affordable and they can easily be purchased at the grocery store!
I was a bit surprised to hear Dr Oz admit that organic products can be fairly expensive. It’s important to recognize that, but I was equally happy hear Dr. Oz list some grocery items that should ALWAYS be organic and those that you keep buying conventional.
I actually wrote a post asking readers to share their approach to organic foods with this new recessionary economy. You can still read it here if you’ve missed it: Quizz: Are you still buying as much organic food as before the recession?
>>> Dr. Oz’s suggestions on which food items to buy organic:
I really love these fun games Dr. Oz creates in order to teach the audience about food.
In a recent episode on organic foods he asked two contestants which items should be purchased organic and which are not necessary.
Here is Dr. Oz’s list of MUST when it comes to choosing organic foods:
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