Infinite Ideas - Good health: How to achieve mind and body well-being

Good health

How to achieve mind and body well-being

Infinite Ideas

Previously published in paperback as Get healthy for good

7. Superfoods

What exactly are superfoods? Comic-book heroes with a mission to save the world?

In their own small way superfoods are indeed our own personal superheroes, as theyre foods that have beneficial effects on our health.

Often the best way to get the best from these superfoods is to juice them so that their goodness is easy to absorb. Lets run through a few of the top superfoods that you could incorporate into your juicing repertoire. Well, a is for apple and unsurprisingly apples are a number one superfood. In fact, the well-known herbalist Maurice Messegue once said, If you could plant only one tree in your garden, it should be an apple tree. So, now you know. Apples contain plenty of vitamin C, and the pectin in apples helps keep cholesterol levels stable. Pectin also protects us from pollution. On top of all this, the malic and tartaric acid in apples help neutralise the acid by-products of indigestion and help your body cope with dietary excesses.

Beetroot was used in Romany medicine as a blood-builder for patients who looked pale and run down. Dont overdo it though, as beetroot is such a powerful detoxicant that too much could be a strain on your system. Broccoli is another big superhero. It has been demonstrated in a number of studies to have a protective effect against cancer. And yet another superfood is the humble carrot. Carrots are so rich in betacarotene that a single carrot will supply a whole days worth of vitamin A requirements. Carrots are also a number one cancer protector.

A great ingredient to add into a juice is a little bit of ginger. Ginger is anti-inflammatory, helps colds and flu and chest congestion, and has been used for centuries as a remedy against sickness and nausea. Another great additive to a juice is parsley, which is full of vitamins A and C and bursting with manganese, iron, copper, calcium, phosphorous, sodium, potassium and magnesium. It acts as a blood purifier.

Although Ive picked out just a few here, most fruit and vegetables are of course superfoods. Each and every one has some benefit to our health. Sometimes there are surprises a kiwi, for example, contains twice as much vitamin C as an orange. And pineapples have both an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory effect. Mother Nature is simply amazing!

Squeeze me!

So how can you obtain the amazing health benefits from superfoods? Why not try your hand at juicing? Some people think this is a better way than vitamin pills to get your nutrition, as juice is easy to assimilate into the body and its in the natural form the body can recognise. If youre serious about juicing, invest in a really good juicer like a Champion Juicer ( www.championjuicer.com ). Further juicers can be found at www.wholisticresearch.com .

What health bonuses do you get by juicing? Well, fruit and vegetable juices are absolutely packed with enzymes, which are vital for digestion, brain stimulation and cellular energy. Theyre also packed with phytochemicals, which are linked with disease-busting properties. Juice is also a concentrated supply of nutrients, which juice you up with energy! And as if this wasnt enough, juices help to balance acid and alkaline in the body over-acidity is the root cause of many health problems. Stress also produces a lot of acid compounds in the body and juices help to neutralise these.

Juicing is the number one weapon in your detox armoury. Detoxing isnt a solution to every health challenge, but it can have a powerful effect on cleansing the body and establishing a foundation for health.

How did it go?

QI cant be bothered to make juices. Isnt there an easier way?

AYes! Cleaning the juicer can really be a pain, but there are hundreds of juice bars springing up so get your juices to order. Alternatively, buy them already made up organic juices are best!

QIf Im new to juicing, what type of vegetable should I start with?

AStart with carrots, which go with any other vegetable and mix nicely with apple juice too. Choose fruit and vegetables that are in season because theyre the sweetest and ripest and therefore contain the most vitamins, minerals and enzymes.

Heres an idea for you

Consider taking superfoods in powder form you can get a days worth of vegetable requirements in one drink. The only downside is that they have an interesting earthy flavour, but dont let that put you off. It could be my imagination, but I swear I feel a definite zing when I drink mine every morning! Check out www.gardenoflifeusa.com or www.kiki-health.com .

Defining idea

One that would have the fruit must climb the tree.

THOMAS FULLER, by the time youve bought the fruit, cut it up, juiced it, drunk it and cleaned the juicer, youve certainly climbed the tree

8. Eat fat

Shops are full of low-fat everything, from cookies and cakes to yoghurt and tofu. In fact, the body desperately needs fats, but only the right kind will do.

Fat has practically become a four-letter word, certainly a feminist issue and definitely public enemy number one. But the new thinking is that fat is your friend so embrace it. Theres one small catch you must make sure that it is the right kind of fat.

We have a complex about fat. So ingrained is the message of how fat clogs up our arteries, increases our apple-shaped girths, sends our risk of heart disease soaring and is linked to the hooded claw that is cholesterol. The expression a moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips was probably specifically invented for this fat phobia.

The impression given by health writers in the 80s and 90s was that fat was definitely public enemy number one. There were well-meaning diet gurus writing books telling us to avoid it at all costs. However, all fat was not created equal and as we are finding out to our cost, avoiding all kinds of fat is detrimental to our health.

Oil in its unprocessed form is highly perishable and before man moved en masse into the towns, oil used to be sold fresh door to door. Although this is hard to believe nowadays due to the highly processed yellow cooking oils available in supermarkets, if oil wasnt kept cool it would go off and be rancid in a matter of days. The advertising boys have managed to persuade us that we should go for the polyunsaturated or cholesterol-free oils, but these oils have often been refined very highly using high heat and bleaches that strip them of any nutritional value and may in fact make them unstable and potentially toxic.

The chemical building blocks that oils are made up of are called fatty acids, and the fatty acids that are essential to human health and cannot be manufactured by the body are called essential fatty acids or EFAs. As their name would suggest, these oils really are essential to human health and without them wed be on the fast track to degenerative disease.

EFAs have a more than magical effect on our health and wellbeing. Our skin is waterproofed with oil, and our hormones and brains work with it. In fact, the brain is more than 60% fat, which makes the insult fat head actually quite a compliment. The list of essential fats great benefits to humankind is really quite impressive. They improve skin and hair condition, aid in the prevention of arthritis and lower cholesterol levels, and thats just for starters. Theyre also helpful in terms of heart disease and eczema, they reduce inflammation in the body and help in the transmission of nerve impulses in the brain. Your body is made up of tiny individual cells, each one crying out for EFAs to make the machine of your body operate. On top of all this, EFAs may help to reduce the likelihood of getting a harmful blood clot.