Tag Archives: nutrients

Kernels against Cancer

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Corn has been a stable food in America since ancient times. And meals made with corn dating back about 7,000 years. Corn is an excellent basic food source, and combined with other vegetables in the diet, it is a good source of protein, carbohydrates and vitamins.

Today, the United States is still one of the largest commercial growers of corn. But the humble food’s health benefits often get overlooked. It turns out that corn may offer a powerful contribution in the fight against cancer.

A research conducted at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles found that an orange-red carotenoid found in corn: beta-cryptoxanthin, was protective against lung cancer. The scientist found that men who ate the most food containing beta-cryptoxanthin had a 15 to 40% less change of getting lung cancer, compared with the men who ate the least.

Another research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, found that a compound of fiber that is found in abundance in corn: inositol hexaphosphate, prevents the growth of colon cancer cells in test tubes. Researchers found that it stops the cancer cells from dividing.

Soluble Fiber
Corn contains soluble fiber, which binds with bile, a cholesterol-laden digestive fluid produced by the liver. Since soluble fiber isn’t readily absorbed by the body, it passes out in the stool, taking the cholesterol with it. It has the same potential as wheat bran and oat to lower cholesterol.

Low in Calories and Loaded with Nutrients
A great advantage of corn is that it provides a lot of energy while delivering a small number of calories – about 83 per serve.

Corn is an excellent source of thiamin, a B vitamin that’s essential to convert food into energy. An ear of corn provides 0.2 mg of thiamin, 13% of the Daily Value (DV) for this nutrient. And since fresh sweet corn consists primarily of simple and complex carbohydrates, it’s a superb energy source. It provides our energy needs without providing us with a lot of fat.The little fats in corn are polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which are much healthier than the saturated fats found in meats and high-fat dairy foods.

How to buy and to prepare corn
Make sue it’s mature.
When you buy corn at the supermarket, look for corn that has full plump kernels. When it is at the optimum stage of maturity it contains most nutrients. To check if corn is ripe, puncture one of the kernels with your finger nail.
If the liquid that comes out of it is not milky-colored, the corn is either immature or over ripe and you should not buy it.

Get the whole kernel
No matter how diligent you are when eating corn on the cob, you invariable leave a lot behind. To get the most out of each kernel, you’re better off buying frozen or canned corn. Or you can cut the kernels from the cob with a knife. Unlike eating it right off the cob. You get more of the corn’s benefits by having a mechanical cut that takes the entire kernel off.

Buy it vacuum-packed.
While canned corn can be almost as nutritious as fresh, it loses some of it’s value when it’s packed in brine, a salty liquid that leaches nutrients from food during processing. Look for vacuum packed corn to get the most vitamins, which doesn’t contain brine. Corn that’s vacuum packed (you can read it on the label), usually comes in short, squat cans. Or choose frozen corn instead. Studies at the FDA showed that frozen corn is just as nutritious as fresh.

In the Kitchen
Corn on the cob is very easy to prepare. All you have to do is strip off the husk and corn silk, and steam the ears for a few minutes. Here are a few tips for maximum taste.

Don’t heat corn rapidly but cook it right away to avoid the sugar to turn into starch. Don’t use salt, this will draw moisture from the kernels,and makes them tough and hard to chew.

Strip the Kernels.
When you have a graving for fresh corn but don’t want to wrestle with the cob, just strip the kernels off. Hold the cob upright in a bowl. Using a sharp knife, slice downward, cutting away a few rows at the time. When all the kernels are removed, scrape the dull side of the blade down the sides of the cob to extract the sweet, milky juice.

Soy Foods – Controls Your Weight

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This highly versatile food is loaded with beneficial nutrients, like fiber, omega-3 fatty acids,
low-fat protein, and a series of important vitamins and minerals. Also, it’s low in saturated fat,cholesterol and calories. When you take soy you get many of the health benefits you usually find only in fruits and vegetables. Soy can lower your risk of heart disease, and because it contains less fat and calories than meat, it can also help to control your weight.
Once hidden in Asian supermarkets and health food stores, soy is decidedly mainstream.
Sales of soy foods in the United States have skyrocketed – from $300 million in 1992 to $3.9 billion by 2004.

The new bottom line on soy? Choose it if you are looking for new alternatives to high-fat
mainstream protein products like meat and cheeses.
Skip it, if you never loved the taste of it.
And if you are at risk for breast and prostate cancer, be cautious ( the jury’s still out on
whether plant hormones in soy might stimulate tumor cells).Here’s what you need to know.

Soy foods faced big setbacks in 2005, when a US government panel decided that there was
protect bones from osteoporosis. In response, the National Institute of Health said it would
stop paying for new soy studies. That fall, soy producers withdrew a petition that asked
the FDA to permit food labels to claim that soy protein helps prevent cancer.
Behind these changes were new studies that put soy foods in perspective.

Modest cholesterol benefits
An American Heart Association review of soy research concluded that a daily dose of soy
might cut cholesterol by just 3%. The panel said the slight drop was probably due to the
fiber in soy and low fat, not to estrogen – like isoflavones in the beans.

No significant help for hot flashes
Out of eight randomized controlled trials of soy foods, only one found a significant reduction in the frequency of hot flashes, according to a report from the Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute. While three out of five studies of soy isoflavone extracts found that isoflavones did help, they only cooled hot flashes by about 10% to 20%. And soy didn’t
improve vaginal dryness at all.

Doubt about cancer protection
While eating soy foods in childhood may help protect against breast cancer in adulthood,
studies have found that eating soy as an adult didn’t seem to help at all, according to Linus
Pauling Institute experts. Researchers had thought that the plant estrogens – called isoflavones- in soy could protect against breast cancer, triggered by more potent human estrogens, but studies showed that it doesn’t seem to help.

Soy Safety
Experts advice to be careful with soy products – especially for women who’ve had breast
cancer or are at risk. Because the isoflavones, which researchers worry, could have an impact on estrogen-fueled breast cancers.According to soy experts from the National Cancer Institute there is not enough evidence to say whether soy foods or supplements increase risk for developing breast cancer, or having a recurrence. Prostate cancer survivors
should be cautious too, say Tufts University cancer experts.
Even if you like soy and have no cancer risk you shouldn’t have more than 50 to 70 milligrams of isoflavones per day. That’s the equivalent of 1 to 2 (8-ounce) cups of soy milk or 6 to 9 ounces of tofu

Good reasons to Try Soy
For most people, soy foods like tofu, tempeh, and other meat replacements made with soy,
can be a healthy replacement for higher fat content meats and cheeses. “There are lots of reasons to add soy to your diet just from a basic nutritional perspective,” says prominent
soy researcher Mark Messina, PhD, of Loma LInda University in California.
For example, a half-cup of tofu provides about 20 grams of protein, or 40% of the Daily
Value (DV). The same half cup supplies about 258 milligrams of calcium, or more than 25%
of the DV, and 13 milligrams of iron, or 87% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA)
for women and 130% of the RDA for men.

While soy foods are moderately high in fat, most of the fat is polyunsaturated.
Soy foods contain little of the artery-clogging saturated fat found in meat and many dairy foods, says Dr. Mesina.

How to Eat Tofu
You can eat tofu anyway you like. It has little taste of its own but it takes on the flavor
of whatever you cook it with. You can use it in soups, vegetable dishes or desserts.
There are two main types of tofu.

Firm Tofu
It has most of the water removed, making it more solid.
Soft (or silken) tofu
It contains more water, giving it a soft, creamy texture.
It is often used for salad dressings and desserts.

Rinse both types with cold water before using.
Keep it submerged in fresh water or frozen.
Remove excess water which will help the tofu to maintain its shape during preparation.

Tempeh
These are chunky, tender cakes, made from fermented soybeans, that have been laced
with mold, giving them their distinctive smoky, nutty flavor.
You can grill tempeh or add it to spaghetti sauce.

Eat the Right Nutrients when Aging

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When we age, we have to eat well and adjust our eating habits. As we get older, our needs for certain nutrients will change significantly. We produce less saliva, and our swallowing reflexes slow down.
As a result, food may not be as easy to digest and to swallow. Many of us experience changes in taste and appetite as we get older, so we may eat less.
We also have less stomach acid, that means, we don’t digest foods or absorb some nutrients as well as we used to.

An Israeli study that looked at 414 elderly patients in hospitals found that less than 20%
were well nourished. The study also found that those with poor dietary habits had less successful outcomes from their visit to the hospital. But even with this information and other studies available, doctors don’t always think to check for nutritional deficiencies in older adults.
This is unfortunately, because a simple lack of nutrients can easy be mistaken for a more serious illness. Nutritional deficiencies in older people can even be misdiagnosed as dementia.

Vitamin B12 is essential for maintaining healthy blood and nerve function. It’s also one of
the nutrients that requires adequate amounts of stomach secretions in order to be absorbed.
when acid levels decline, getting enough vitamin B12 can be a problem.
This is of particular concern for people who use antacids. You can get plenty of vitamin B12 from meats and other animal foods. Clams are the best source of vitamin B12.
One small steamed clam provides an astonishing 9 micrograms of vitamin B12, more than
100% of the DV.

Apart from vitamin B12 deficiency, many people in their late fifties and older may be deficient in vitamin B6. Chickpies and potatoes are good sources of vitamin B6.
One cup of chickpeas contains 1.1 milligrams, slightly more than halve of the DV.
A baked potato provides 0.6 milligram, or about 1/3 of the DV.

Another B vitamin that’s important for protecting the cardiovascular and nervous systems
is folate, which is found in green vegetables, beans and whole grains. A cup of canned pinto beans, for example, provides 144 milligrams of folate, or more than 33% of the DV.
Asparagus is also a good source of folate. One cup of cooked asparagus contain
263 milligram of folate.

As your bones get older, it’s essential to get extra calcium and vitamin D to prevent them
from becoming brittle. Many older people think that they can’t eat dairy foods because they are ‘lactose tolerant’, but in fact, most people can eat moderate amounts of dairy without trouble.
Low-fat and fat-free (skim) milk, cheese, and yogurt are your best sources of calcium.
One cup of fat-free yogurt contains 415 milligrams of calcium, or 41% of the DV.
One glass of fat-free milk provides 302 milligrams or 30% of the DV.

Iron is one of several minerals that can be hard to get in the correct amount. Some people
don’t get enough, while others get too much. Women’s need for iron declines in their later years after they stop menstruating.

To ensure that you’re getting the right amount of nutrients for your particular needs, i
t’s best to talk to your doctor to find out whether or not you need to take supplements of certain nutrients, such as iron, calcium, vitamin D and vitamin B12.

Even though we may need to eat more of certain foods in order to live longer, researchers
are finding that the opposite can also be true: people who eat less may live more years.

A Louisiana State University study followed 48 people for 6 months as they either followed
a normal diet or different types of calorie restricted diets. It found that prolonged
calorie restriction can lower people’s fasting insulin levels and their body temperature,
which are both markers of longevity.

Experts think that calorie restriction “resets” your metabolism so it works more efficiently,
and your body shifts its focus from growth and reproduction to long term survival.
and when you take less calories, your body produces less free radicals as it turns food
into energy.

However, it’s hard for humans to reap the benefits from calorie reduction that lab animals
have shown. For those among us who like to eat, it’s probably not a viable strategy.
In addition, drastically reducing your calories without medical supervision can leave you
malnourished.

While life can throw many challenges at us, health and independence are possible to the very end of our days. However, it requires an understanding of how our nutrition and health needs change in our later years.
https://www.compass.info/featured-topics/health-wellbeing

For now, a good way to get some benefit from calorie reduction is to make sure that you
eat a “prudent” diet that provide the nutrients you need without excessive calories.
If you do decide to restrict your calories, talk to your doctor to make sure your diet
meets your nutritional needs. See also my article about Flavonoids

Good Nutrition Tips #2

Health & Nutrition, , ,

Are your body cells getting the nutrients they need in order to work optimally?
Good nutrition and regular exercise are the basic components for healthy living.

Our modern lifestyle is characterized by degenerative diseases, like stroke, cancer,
heart disease, diabetes, arthritis etc. The cause of all this is the build-up of free radicals,
which are caused by smoking, stress, lack of exercise, bad nutrition, pollution in air and
water, radiation from the sun and soil depletion.

To combat these free radicals our body needs a large intake of antioxidants.
If there are not enough antioxidants available to  neutralize the free radicals,
“oxidative stress” will occur. It’s the process by which the oxygen our body use,
cause the body to rust like metal does. It’s the cause of all degenerative diseases and
even the aging process.

We can get  antioxidants out of  fruits, vegetables and nuts. However, it is unpractical
and almost impossible to get the required amount of antioxidants out of our diet alone.
The nutritional value of our fruits and vegetables has enormously declined in the past
50 years, caused by soil depletion.

So in order to get a sufficient amount of antioxidants we have to supplement our diet
with high quality nutritional supplements.
However, the nutrients have to be in a form that the cells can accept them and the cells
have to be in optimum condition to be able to absorb the nutrients.

These are the keys to successful nutrition and two often overlooked facts.
That’s why most nutritional supplements miss the mark.
They don’t address the cellular condition of the body.
Even worse, many are in a form that is unacceptable for the cells themselves and they
don’t contain biological available substances that are useful for the cells in your body.

There is however one remarkable exception: the nutritional supplements designed and
manufactured by USANA Health Sciences
USANA is the only company that guaranties potency, the ingredients are bio available,
well balanced, and they work together in synergy.

For information about nutrition, multivitamins,and weight management,
visit my website: https://www.nutrobalance2.net