Super Natural Foods
When do natural foods become, super natural foods?
Can Mother Nature's super natural foods cure everything from cancer to hay fever?
Natures foods give modern health consumers everything we need.
A hit of essential nutrients in an edible form (even if it's not always to your taste).
There's also that hint of the exotic which appeals to consumers willing to experiment with peculiar foodstuffs.
It's pretty clear that our appetite for natural foods is becoming increasingly insatiable.
Super Natural Foods - To you and I, it seems that super natural foods are popping up faster than birds infected with the avian flu virus.Barely have you managed to track down a good source of the latest data when it seems it has been superseded by another.
Super Natural Foods - Pomegranates are already yesterday's news.
The latest super natural foods is the wolfberry.
This deep-red, dried fruit is grown in China. It's about the size of a raisin and tastes like a cross between a cranberry and a cherry.
It's a small powderkeg of goodness, containing 500 times the amount of vitamin C by weight than oranges, with even more antioxidants than pomegranates, and it is the richest source of beta-carotene of all known foods.
Wow, how's that for a heavy hitter?
Super Natural Foods - Recent research has found that wolfberries, also called goji berries, significantly reduced blood glucose levels, bad cholesterol and triglycerides (fatty acids in the blood stream that lead to heart disease, diabetes and weight gain).
Meanwhile the journal International Immunopharmacology has reported that wolfberries had a significant effect on the size of cancer tumours in mice.
Further research in China has found the fruit to be effective in preventing the growth of leukaemia cells.
Chinese studies also suggest that wolfberries have anti-ageing properties.Super Natural Foods - perhaps if the wolfberry isn't appealing, you could opt for maca.This addition to the super natural foods group is a root vegetable, sort of like a sweet potato but sold in the West as a powder.
It's been dubbed "natural Viagra", with double-blind trials suggesting that it improves sexual desire, sperm count and sperm mobility.
Super Natural Foods - then there's hemp oil, one of the richest sources of essential fats.
Hemp oil plays a key role in our brains function, reproduction and food metabolism, also in ailments such as heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and arthritis.
This oil is also a good source of GLA, which is believed to help in the treatment of pre-menstrual tension.
A recent study published in the Journal of Dermatological Treatment, compared dietary hemp oil with topical treatments for dermatitis and significant improvements were noted in the group taking the hemp oil.
The problem with our super natural foods list is that the foods themselves are often expensive and can be hard to come by.
Super Natural Foods Update - The humble broccoli stalk no longer quite cuts it in the "new" super natural foods category.
It seems the more far-flung the source, the more we love it.
More importantly, there is no single authoritative definition of what makes foods "super" natural.
Ask your doctor which super natural foods will work best to combat heart disease, alleviate osteoarthritis or normalise the pH of your stomach or prevent cancer (claims all being made for the pomegranate) and chances are you'll get a blank stare.
We believe that foods become "super" if they are nutrient-dense and capable of combating serious disease and restoring our body.
Super Natural Foods - There are over 200 fruits and vegetables that have already been called superfoods or are awaiting the necessary publicity -- such as the strawberry which, it appears, is going to be this years blueberry.
Super Natural Foods - A true super natural food provides the most concentrated, usable form of nourishment to cells which govern our immune systems, our hormones, our weight and our ageing processes.
It's important we not rely on a single super natural food and expect it to achieve wonders.
Many can only be eaten or taken in small quantities.
They do provide extra help, but the most important path is to maintain a varied and healthy diet.
Super Natural Foods - The British Nutrition Foundation agrees.
While acknowledging the benefits of less common super natural foods such as bee pollen and sea vegetables.
The key message is that a wide variety of the less expensive fruits and vegetables is necessary to keeping us all healthy.
Super Natural Foods - What identifies super natural foods comes down to who you ask.
A nutritionist is more likely to opt for natural foods that are the most nutrient-packed and most easily digested.
A doctor might list those fruits and vegetables that have been subjected to the most scientific research. Among the recent being broccoli, which is rich in isothiocyanate and sulphoraphane.
These are substances that are believed to help the body fight cancer.
Any fruit and vegetable will help your health and the more the merrier.
Super Natural Foods - According to a recent study in the medical journal The Lancet, reports that there is strong evidence that we should eat more than five servings a day of these foods if we want to maximise our protection against heart disease and stroke.
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