Superfoods for Every Taste

Food…Glorious food!

We love food!  We live for food!  Food is ubiquitous and besides that, it’s EVERYWHERE!!  Food is such a wonderful thing!  It gives us pleasure.  It gives us energy.  Indeed, it gives us life!  We cannot live without food.

Even to this day, there are people in this world who die for a lack of food, and yet we live in a country that has never known famine.  The “amber waves of grain” from the United States have fed much of the world.  We grow so much corn we need to devise ways to use it so we put it in shampoo, other hygiene products, make plastics out of it and even ferment it into alcohol to burn in our cars!

With all this food it should be obvious that we would be well-nourished, but this may not be the case.  Our biggest health problems come from too much nutrition.  Energy, in the form of calories, is abundant in sugar, starch, fat and protein.

However, most of the foods with these do not contain the antioxidants needed to prevent disease, disability and death.  Heart disease still ranks as the number one cause of death, and cancer is a close second, both of which are caused primarily by inflammation from too much energy.

Inflammation also causes:

• Arthritis
• Parkinson’s disease
• Cataracts
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Enlarged prostate
• Macular degeneration
• And other “degenerative” diseases

Indeed, aging is a process of inflammation.  However, we now know we don’t have to decline — even in our “declining years.”  There are many foods known as “superfoods” to help us remain alert and active throughout our lives.

Superfoods are those foods that contain a lot of nutrients and antioxidants, but not a lot of calories.

• They prevent us from aging, declining, and breaking-down.
• They protect us from toxins and inflammation.
• They help keep our youth and energy.

And, what’s so wonderful is that there are superfoods for every taste.

1. Super GREENS

Green vegetables were the first to be recognized as a super food.  Popeye ate a can of spinach and immediately had the power to flatten Brutus and win the love of Olive Oyl.

While spinach is a great food, there are many more types of green leaves with high nutrient value.  Swiss chard is very nutritious, as are beet greens, and all forms of lettuce.  Ironically, most of our salads in the United States primarily contain iceberg lettuce, which is the least nutritious.  Branch out and use dandelion, arugula and chard in your salads.  These green leafy vegetables are packed with antioxidants and minerals.

The color green comes from the magnesium in the chlorophyll that helps the plant make energy.  Chlorophyll helps detox the body of heavy metals such as mercury, lead and arsenic.  The list of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients is very long, but they are short on calories, so they don’t create free-radicals.  Mom was right: “Eat your greens!”

2. Super Sprouts

Ounce-for-ounce, sprouts contain up to 100 times more enzymes to help you digest and absorb nutrients than raw fruit and vegetables.

• The quality of the protein, meaning the available amino acids improves when beans, nuts, seeds and grains are sprouted.
• The fiber content also increases as starch is turned into fiber.
• Sprouting increases both the vitamin and essential (omega-3) oils by as much as 30 times within a few days.
• Moreover, minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, are bound to protein, making them more bioavailable.

Sprouts are best eaten between meals to replace chips, cookies, and other high-calorie-and-low-nutrient snacks.  Enjoy all kinds of sprouts from alfalfa to wheat, beans to chia.  Sprouted peas and sunflower seeds are among the most nutritious of all.  You can buy them, the fresher, the better, or you can sprout them in your own kitchen!  It’s easy!

3. Super Berries

Karen had fibromyalgia and was in pain for years and had trouble sleeping every night.  She had been to many doctors and was given pain medications that only “dulled” the pain because they “dulled” her brain.  In spite of this, she was unable to get off of the medications.  On the advice of a friend she tried gogi berry juice and was amazed that she actually felt better.  Within weeks she was able to get off of all the narcotics and was sleeping well!  When she ran out of the juice she found that the whole berries would work just as well.  Now, several years later, she is free of drugs, and continues to feel great.

Undoubtedly, the most delicious, sweet, and nutritious superfood is berries.  It’s hard to beat the antioxidant power of these little fruits.  Not only do they contain minerals and vitamin C, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and berries of all varieties contain large amounts of anthocyanin that gives them color, as well as provides antioxidant properties.

Most of the exotic berries like acai and gogi are generally as good, but are rarely available fresh.  Berries are best eaten fresh to get the full benefit. They:

• Keep your eyes from degenerating
• Keep your prostate from enlarging
• Keep your heart beating regularly
• Prevent cancer

Moreover, berries are not high in sugar so they don’t contribute to obesity, diabetes and inflammation.  These fruits really are super!

4. Super Pomegranate

Katie is a long time patient with Crohn’s disease, an inflammation of the bowel, which had caused her to have large portions of her intestine removed.  Over the years she struggled with pain, cramps, nausea, diarrhea and infections.  Then, one day she ate a pomegranate and felt better.  She ate more of them every day and got better and better.  She was finally able to eat foods that she hadn’t touched in years!

The pomegranate is definitely a super food.  It is very nutritious, with few calories, and is an excellent antioxidant, keeping the oxygen free-radicals low.

One day there were no pomegranates in the store because they were out of season.  Katie went to other stores, but could find none.  She finally decided to buy pomegranate juice, but it didn’t help.  She suffered again until the next season — only the fresh pomegranate kernels kept her Crohn’s disease under control.

The moral of the story is that very often when even super foods are processed into juice, powder, or concentrate, they may lose some important element.  It makes sense that we eat them whole, and as fresh as possible — the fresher, the better.

5. Super Brassica — or cruciferous?

x“Brassica” is the scientific genus name for a group of vegetables called “cruciferous.”  These powerhouse vegetables are in a class of their own because they contain special nutrients.  In fact, the following are among the highest nutrient-to-calorie ratio of any food:

• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Mustard greens
• Collard greens
• Kale

This particular class of vegetables have plenty of protein, minerals, and vitamins.  What’s more, they have lots of sulfur amino acids, which:

• Keep your skin young
• Your tendons and ligaments strong
• Your bones resilient

The cruciferous vegetables also:

• Help make glutathione, one of the most important antioxidants in the body that protects your liver, lungs, and brain from oxidation and cancer.
• Help maintain hormone balance with DIM, and repair DNA and lengthen your telomeres with I3C.
• Protect from viral, bacterial, and yeast infections, as well as prevent cancer.
• Truly help maintain youth more than any other food.

Boiling these wonderful superfoods destroys or leaches many of the nutrients.  The best way to prepare them is about 4 minutes in a steamer, which releases the nutrients without destroying or washing them away.

Find ways to incorporate these into the diet of children, as well.  When I was young my mom would put finely-chopped mustard greens, collard greens, or kale into fried rice.  She would also put broccoli, kale and cauliflower into soups.  When my brothers and I complained, she said, “You can’t even taste it — just eat it!” and we did.  Now, I enjoy it, and do the same to my kids!

6. Super Spices

Modern food is engineered for taste.  People expect consistency in taste.  They want their salsa in Peoria, IL to taste the same as what they had in Houston, TX.  So, food engineers look for sameness.

The problem with nature is that there is no consistency – a spice grown in Asia will have a slightly different flavor from the same spice grown in Africa.  Because of this our food is now flavored with “flavorings” (natural and artificial) that are always the same, instead of spices.  The problem is that spices contain so much more than just flavor; they are really SUPERFOODS!!!

Here are just a few examples of what spices can do for you:

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  Cilantro – Removes mercury from the body better than intravenous EDTA chelation.
• Garlic – Antioxidant, lowers cholesterol, prevents heart disease and blood clots.
• Turmeric – Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory.
• Cinnamon – Lowers blood sugar, prevents insulin resistance.
• Ginger – Improves adrenal function.
• Black Pepper – Increases nutrient absorption of all other foods.
• Licorice root – Heals the stomach and intestines, helps the adrenal glands.
• Oregano – Inhibits candida and bad bacteria.
• Peppermint – Calms the stomach.

USE SPICES!!!

Use the real thing.  Fresh is better, if you can get it.  Don’t use “flavorings” like “imitation vanilla” — just get the real stuff.  Learn how to incorporate more and different spices into your cooking.  Using spices will improve your health, keep your body working longer and prevent the aging process.  Besides that, your food will taste better!

CAVEAT

Finally, I would like to add a word of caution to this list.  People see something called a SUPERfood and think they have to eat it every day in order to be healthy.  This is NOT the case.

It’s important that you vary your diet and rotate your superfoods.  Eating the same thing every day makes your body less able to utilize the nutrients.  Even kale, with the highest nutrient-to-calorie ratio, contains substances that can inhibit mineral absorption and lead to goiter.

The best rule to follow is FEAST and FAMINE. In other words, eat some for a while — a few days, a week, or a month — and then take a break for just as long.  This keeps your body efficient, and keeps the nutrients in your superfoods effective!

 

If you had to eat one thing for the rest of the life, what would it be?

 

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