CNC Delia Quigley - The Everything Superfoods Book: Discover What to Eat to Look Younger, Live Longer, and Enjoy Life to the Fullest (Everything (Health))

Supercharge with Superfoods

365 Ways to Maximize Your Health

Delia Quigley and B.E. Horton, MS, RD

Avon, Massachusetts

Copyright 2010 by F+W Media, Inc.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.

57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.

Contains material adapted and abridged from The Everything Superfoods Book , by Delia Quigley, CNC with Brierley E. Wright, MS, RD, copyright 2008 by F+W Media, Inc., ISBN 10: 1-59869-682-3, ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-682-0.

ISBN 10: 1-4405-0236-6

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0236-1

eISBN 10: 1-4405-0709-0

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0709-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available from the publisher.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.From a Declarations of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

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Contents

Top Ten Reasons for Eating Superfoods

1. Each Superfood listed contributes significant vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients to support the proper functions of your body.

2. Numerous international scientific studies confirm that Superfoods should be a part of your diet on a daily and weekly basis.

3. The vitamins and minerals contained in Superfoods are more easily absorbed and assimilated by the body than any supplements.

4. The twenty-five Superfoods listed are natural whole foods that have helped human beings evolve on this planet over thousands and thousands of years.

5. The high amounts of antioxidants in Superfoods protect your body from damage caused by free radicals in the environment.

6. Superfoods can be eaten for everyday nutritional support and can be used to help cleanse, heal, and rejuvenate the body.

7. People who eat Superfoods harvested from the sea have been shown to have fewer problems from mineral depletion and tend to live longer, healthier lives.

8. The Superfood garlic has been called the natural antibiotic for its powerful antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties.

9. Superfoods provide essential carbohydrates, proteins, and quality fats needed in your daily diet.

10. All the Superfoods have been recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for achieving and maintaining optimal health.

Introduction: Supercharge Your Health, Life, and Happiness

No doubt youve read about the high rates of obesity, heart disease, and cancer affecting not only adults but young children and teenagers as well. What you eat affects the state of your health. Approximately 1.6 million out of a total 2.1 million deaths a year in the United States are related to poor nutrition, according to the former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. This can be easily remedied by eating a well-balanced diet of whole grains, fruit, vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and lean animal proteinand eliminating junk-food snacks. If youre looking to change what you eat, then you probably already know that the difficult part is taking those first few steps toward doing something about it. Its easy to feel trapped in an endless loop of cravings, weight gain, and depression. Perhaps youve lost a few pounds trying the latest fad diet only to regain twice as much as you lost, leaving you feeling frustrated and defeated.

Well, if youve picked up this book youve taken your first step toward changing your health and life for the better. If you were to replace just one of the less healthy foods you eat each day with one of the Superfoods listed in this book, you would be taking twenty-five steps toward significantly improving your diet. Think about it: By reading one chapter at a time and implementing the knowledge you gain, you can successfully cleanse, purify, renew, rejuvenate, and rebuild your body. That is the power of eating a Superfoods diet. Whats more, an overwhelming evidence of research points to the benefits of eating specific whole foods for optimal health and well-being.

As a wise and ancient philosopher once wrote, The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. This book gives you the first twenty-five stepsfrom broccoli preventing cancer to salmon boosting your mood and beans being budget friendlyto supercharge your health, life, and happiness. The remainder of this chapter will introduce each of the twenty-five Superfoods, all of which will help you sustain a healthy life. Lets begin!

What Are Superfoods?

Superfoods are particular types of food containing high amounts of phytonutrients (or phytochemicals), organic components of plants that promote health. In fact, youre probably familiar with some of the more common ones: carotenoids, polyphenols, isoflavones, etc. Phytochemicals are not essential for life in the way that other vitamins and minerals are. Individually, phytochemicals offer specific important health benefits, and taken as a whole they boast a major defense against disease and the ravages of free radicals, environmental toxins, and heavy-metal contamination. You can find numerous articles on the benefits of foods considered super, but for the most part the twenty-five foods detailed in this book can almost unanimously be found on all the Superfood lists.

The Familiar and Not-so-Familiar

The majority of these Superfoods should not appear unusual; as a matter of fact, you probably eat most if not all of them on a daily basis. Take apples for instance, a favorite snack loaded with antioxidants that can be eaten plain or with a smear of nut butter or transformed into an apple crumb pie. Blueberries, on any list of favorites, are low in fat and high in fiber and easy to use in smoothies or smothered in another Superfoodprobiotic-rich yogurt. Perfect for your digestive system, a plain, tart yogurt can be pured with the powerful cruciferous supervegetable broccoli for a healthy soup or vegetable dip. Quinoa may be new to most of you, coming only recently from the mountains of Peru, but its high protein content makes it a must-have on your shopping list. And it pairs well with chopped almonds. Not many people can live without their chocolatethe darker the healthier, so go ahead and find out why you can enjoy a bite of decadenceor eggs for breakfast. Add half of a vitamin C-rich grapefruit for a double dose of Superfoods at breakfast.

This Superfoods list would not be complete without both land and sea vegetables. The oceans provide an amazing storehouse of mineral-rich foods to rival the most nutrient-dense land produce: dulse, arame, hijiki, and kombu are proving themselves to be effective in weight-loss studies and preventing osteoporosis.

South of the border they know how to appreciate the healthy fats in avocado. These are the good fats you want to include in your diet because when you balance them with a few sprigs of the blood-cleansing parsley, everything flows along nicely. Add wild salmon to the menu and you have the ideal source of omega-3 fatty acids, essential fats your body needs for clear beautiful skin, shiny hair, and a well-functioning brain. Beans, a budget-friendly vegetarian source of protein, provide you with nutrients and fiber, and there is a wide variety to choose from. Kale and cabbage are powerful cancer-fighting vegetables that are super easy to prepare.