Healthy best foods you can eat everyday

We have here some of the best foods in the world to eat. These are common everyday superfoods which are very healthy.

List of common healthy foods

This is our list of some of the common food that are very healthy to eat everyday.

Yogurt: homemade or branded like Activa
Eggs: in any form
Fish: for Omega 3 essential fatty acids
Oats: for its soluble fiber content
Olive oil: for its Mono-unsaturated oils

Why is yogurt considered a health food

Yogurt has been considered a miracle food from time immemorial. Regular consumption of Yogurt has been associated with long life. In fact one of the first Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to Russian Biologist Ilya Mechnikoff for his research on Yogurt. He won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1908 for his studies on Yogurt. Mechnikoff was the first modern scientist to seriously study the effects of yogurt on longevity. He was curious as to why the Bulgarian peasants lived so much longer than other people. His research led to the discovery that these peasants consumed a large quantity of yogurt daily. Further research made him conclude that the ‘probiotics’ or the living bacteria in the yogurt are responsible for making people live longer. He identified the main bacteria in yogurt and named it ‘Lactobacillus Bulgaricus’ in honor of these long living Bulgarians. Dr. Mechnikoff’s theory was that the good, friendly bacteria in yogurt (probiotics) neutralizes the disease causing bacteria and thus prolongs life span.

The benefits of Yogurt include: lowering cholesterol, prevent colds and allergies, strengthen body’s immune system, fights diarrhoea and other intestinal diseases, useful in vaginal infections, mouth ulcers, body odor and many more. Whether these claims are true or not, there is no harm in us including a good portion of yogurt in our daily diet.

Scientists at the US Department of Agriculture researching on the effects of yogurt on salmonella infections, discovered that rats fed on a diet containing yogurt, not only beat the salmonella infection, but they lived much longer than the mice not on a diet containing yogurt.

What is Activa yogurt, what does Activia do for you

Activa is a branded yogurt from the company Danone. Probiotics Yogurt Brands like Danone Activia contains live bacteria (probiotics) in the yogurt. Danone Activia Yogurt with probiotic live bacteria should be kept cold and is available in most of the Supermarkets. Benefits of Activa Probiotic Yogurt are many as explained above.

Recipe to make yogurt at home

It is very easy to make Yogurt at home by culturing milk with any Yogurt which contain live probiotics, like Activia. Add about 2 tablespoon of fresh Activa Yogurt to about 2 to 4 cups of milk in a vessel. The milk should be warm, a little warmer than our body temperature. About the same temperature as someone having slight fever, about 100°F or 37°C. In cold climates the vessel should be kept insulated. One way to keep the yogurt making vessel warm would be to keep it a plate half full of slightly warmer water than the milk and to wrap both vessels with a thick cloth or Towel.

It takes about 12 hours for the yogurt bacteria to fully culture and turn the milk into yogurt. For daily supply of yogurt you need to culture fresh milk overnight for the next day’s supply of yogurt. Yogurt will keep fresh in the fridge for a few days. You need about half a cup of live yogurt as the stating culture for 4 cups of milk. The milk can be made with milk powders like ‘Nido’. Once you get the process started, you can take the half cup starter yogurt from today’s yogurt and use it to culture the milk for tomorrow’s yogurt.

Is it good to eat eggs daily

For a long time eggs have been off the list of good foods, because of Cholesterol in eggs. Now researchers are finding out that cholesterol is good for you. Now most doctors advise to eat an egg every day. Eggs contain all essential amino acids which our body cannot make on its own. This makes eggs one of the best foods in the world to eat daily.

Many research projects carried out to study the effects of eggs in our diet, point to the fact that eating up to 2 eggs per day will not harm us, on the contrary, it may be beneficial for us. Eggs provide many nutrients which our bodies require and cannot make on its own.

One reason to eat eggs, the world’s oldest person at the age of 116, eats three eggs every day.

To quote from TIME Magazine, dated May 16, 2016, headlined

“The Oldest Person In the World Attributes Her Long Life to Eating Eggs..”

…. “The Guinness World Records confirmed on Monday that Emma Morano of Verbania, Italy is now the oldest living person at 116 years and 169 days old. The spry supercentenarian was born on November 29, 1899, making her the only person whose life has touched three centuries.
In a 2015 interview with the New York Times, Morano shared that she attributes her long life to eating three raw eggs a day — she has since gone down to two eggs a day.….MORE

Why do we need Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids

Essential Fatty Acids (EFA) are an important type of polyunsaturated fat. Our body cannot make it, so they must come from food. The health benefits of Essential Fatty Acids or Omega Acids are many. For older people, it is really important to improve our memory. Many claims are made that Omega-3 prevents disease like Dementia and Alzheimer’s. It is also good for the heart. Research also suggests that it may be of benefit to people with depression, schizophrenia, type-2 Diabetes and Arthritis. With so much promise of health benefits, you should add Essential Fatty Acids, especially Omega-3 in the form of oily fish to your diet. Also consider taking Omega-3 supplements in the recommended doses.

There are two Essential Fatty Acids called Omega-3 and Omega-6. They were discovered in 1923 and were originally called Vitamin ‘F’ but later were classified as Essential Fats. The best Essential Fatty Acids or Omega 3 are in body oils of fish like Sardines and Mackerel. Other Foods that contain Omega 3 or Foods high in Essential Fatty Acids are in plant oils, like canola oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, etc. The EFA in vegetable oils are mostly Omega-6. The ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 is important. It is believed that the Omega-3 Omega-6 ratio in the diet of early humans was 1:1, but now the Omega-3 Omega-6 ratio in our typical modern diet is almost 1:10 due to increased use of vegetable oils rich in Omega-6. Many scientific researches suggest that increasing the amount of Omega-3 in your diet will have very beneficial health effects.

What foods are high in soluble fiber

Some of the foods high in soluble fiber are oats, lintels, beans, fruits, potatoes, carrots, barley and psyllium. Soluble fiber ferments in the large intestine producing short-chain fatty acids. Short-chain fatty acids are good for health. These short-chain fatty acids help in stabilizing blood glucose levels, lower LDL or low-density lipoproteins, the “bad” cholesterol and increase the good bacteria in our large intestines. Blood glucose levels in diabetic patients are lowered when soluble fiber food is consumed by them.

There are two types of dietary fibers; ‘soluble fiber’ and ‘insoluble fiber’. Soluble fiber absorbs water and swells up to become jelly like, whereas the insoluble fiber has no reaction in water. High Dietary Fiber Foods helps in the movement of food through our digestive system and keeps the stools soft and helps to get it out easily. Foods with lots of fiber are whole grain flour, bran, nuts and many vegetables are the best sources for insoluble fiber.

Which type of cooking oil is best for health

Cooking oils can be classified into 3 types, Saturated, poly-unsaturated and mono-unsaturated oils. Almost all edible oils consist of a mixture of the 3 types, but are classified based on which group is most in a particular oil.

Saturated oils: Oils of Coconut, Palm and Animal fats like lard, butter, etc.
Poly-unsaturated oils: Oils of Canola, Soy, Sunflower, etc.
Mono-unsaturated oils: Olive oil

Saturated oils are not good for us, because the body converts it into the bad cholesterol. Poly and mono unsaturated oils are not only good for us, but should be an essential part of our daily diet in limited quantities, because it increases the good cholesterol in our body.

Remember all oils have the highest calories among foods. Olive oil, which is consumed regularly in the Mediterranean Region, has become world famous. It is recommended that about 25 grams of unsaturated vegetable oils are consumed daily.

Also, some of these oils contain an essential nutrient for humans, the Essential Fatty Acids (EFA), discussed above.

Why is olive oil considered healthy

Many studies have shown that the health effects of Olive Oil are due not only to its high content of monounsaturated fats, but also to its high concentrations of antioxidants like polyphenols tyrosol, Omega 3 Essential fatty acids, carotenoids, Vitamin-E, etc. For the full benefits of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, it is best consumed raw, that is without heating like in salad dressings.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the premium Olive Oil which is obtained from the first pressing of the olives and has the best Olive flavour and all the benefits of all the best health beneficial ingredients of like antioxidants. Olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fat which is beneficial to health. The famous Mediterranean diet contains a lot of vegetable oils which are used liberally as salad dressings and also in cooking. It is an anomaly that in the Mediterranean region where they consume a lot of oil, mainly Olive Oil, their rates of diseases such as cardiac diseases, atherosclerosis, asthma, diabetes, and arthritis are low compared with other parts of the world they consume much less oils other than Olive Oil. Research on Olive Oil has revealed that LDL Cholesterol formed with monounsaturated fats of olive oil are resistant to oxidation and does not stick to arteries to form plaques which lead to blocks and heart attacks.

Artificial Sweeteners

The sweeteners commonly available are Sucralose (Splenda) and Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel). All artificial sweeteners, at one time or another, been accused of being not good for health. But after extensive studies, Sucralose (Splenda) and Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel) have been declared not to harm health and been approved for use by all the advanced nations of the world. When comparing Sucralose vs Aspartame, Sucralose is considered the safest of the lot and is stable when heated and can therefore be used for cooking or baking. The best known brand of Sucralose is ‘Splenda’ and Splenda Health risks are almost non-existent.

Sweeteners are a great way of helping us enjoy our coffee, tea or porridge without thinking about the calories. It is wise to be careful and not to go overboard with the use of sweeteners. Limit the daily use of sweeteners to a maximum amount equal to what would be required for six cups of coffee per day

Food habits of our Ancestors – the evolving Humans

Scientists estimate that humans branched off from the Monkey or the chimpanzees (closest relative of human beings) about 5 to 7 million years ago. What did these ancestors of ours eat while they were evolving? Think of it, cultivation of grains like rice, wheat, barley, corn etc. was only started by humans about 5000 years ago. So for millions of years the evolving humans were eating off the land, nuts and fruits from trees, eggs from bird’s nests, and whatever else they could find. Meat eating and cooking of food by humans were only started after humans learnt how to make weapons, about a hundred thousand years ago. Humans learnt to make a fire from about the same time.

So the human bodies have evolved on fruits, nuts, eggs (may be a Dinosaur egg once in a while!!) and wild grains off the land for most of the last 5 million years. Meat was introduced into the human diet for not more than a hundred thousand years, that is one fiftieth the period of the evolution of humans. Grains came into the human diet for not more than 5000 years. So humans used grains only for a period of about one thousandth of the period during our evolution.

Remember that our bodies produce our own cholesterol. We can have high cholesterol even if we are completely on a cholesterol and fat free diet, eating only grains like polished rice. This is because our body turns the excess energy into fat – saturated fat, the bad fat. Our liver will convert this bad fat into bad cholesterol. So just eating a fat free carbohydrate diet of cereals is not good. Nuts on the other hand, is a balanced food, containing the required proteins, carbohydrates and the good oils – mono and polyunsaturated fats which are turned into good cholesterol.

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