tomatoes

Are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable?. Botanically they are a fruit, technically they are a berry, but legally they are a vegetable. In a 1983 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court the tomato was legally classified as a vegetable because it is used as one.

Tomatoes are usually red, but they can vary in color from yellow, to green and even brown. The shape and size can differ from round and small to elongated and large. There are around 7500 varieties grown for different purposes. To mention some, the globe, slicing tomato we find in supermarkets. beefsteak tomato, large used mainly for sandwiches. plum tomatoes, oblong in shape and used in tomato sauce, cherry tomatoes, small and sweet used whole in salads, campari tomatoes also sweet are larger than cherry tomatoes but smaller than plum tomatoes.
Commercially grown tomatoes are usually picked unripe  and ripened in storage with ethylene ( a hydrocarbon gas), tomatoes ripened artificially have a longer shelf life but poorer taste than those ripened on the plant. Also this tomatoes have a pink or orange color instead of the bright red shade of the ones ripened in the plant.

Nutritional Value

• Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, when cooked, specially with oil its nutritional value is enhanced, carotenoids are fat soluble nutrients,fat improves their absorption. The carotenoid lycopene has been shown in several researches to have an effect in the prevention and reduction of prostate cancer. Also there is evidence that lycopene in tomatoes protects against stomach and lung cancer.
• Lycopene is one of the most powerful anti-oxidants thus protecting the heart against oxidative damage and reducing the risk of heart attacks.
• Tomatoes also contain other powerful phytochemicals that fight disease, they are the three anti-oxidants: zero-carotene, phytoene and phytofluene.
• They contain phenolic acids that have the potential to fight lung cancer.
• If it wasn't enough, tomatoes shave lutein, a compound that protects the eyes against macular degeneration and helps prevent the thickening of the arteries (atherosclerosis).
• Tomatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C, mostly concentrated in the jelly like substance that surrounds the seeds. Tomatoes grown in a hothouse have half the amount of vitamin C than those vine- ripened.
• Also they contain vitamin A and B complex, as well as potassium and phosphorus.

http://www.cookingnook.com/facts-about-tomatoes.html

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5545383_nutritional-value-tomato-juice.html

nuts

Nuts are an excellent source of protein and fat. Not long ago nuts were avoided for those trying to lose weight due to their fat content, but now we know better, the fat in nuts is mostly monounsaturated and some polyunsaturated fat. Those are the good fats. Nuts are rich in vitamin E, which acts as an immune system enhancing antioxidant.

Rancid seeds and nuts, warning!

• Nuts become rancid when hulled or shelled. The deterioration begins immediately and continues even when they are vacuum packed.
• Rancidity causes irritation of the lining of the stomach and intestines.
• If rancid the oils cannot be assimilated or digested effectively.
• Rancid seeds or nuts contributes to poor immunity, cancer and other chronic diseases.
•  Buy nuts only in the shell. Buy organic.
  

Remember it is better not to eat nuts, than to eat rancid ones.

 Nutritional benefits

• Nuts have been proven to help avoiding heart coronary disease, HCD. Just a handful of nuts a day, several times a week are enough to avoid heart attacks and heart disease.
• Nuts contain arginini, which is an amino acid that protects the inner lining of the arterial walls.
• Arginini is also needed to make an important molecule called nitric oxide, which helps relaxing constricted blood vessels, easing the blood flow.
• The fat in nuts is the good fat, mostly monounsaturated fat, associated with lower levels of heart disease and cancer as well as a longer life spa.
• Nuts are a great source of phytonutrients which have powerful antioxidant activity.

http://www.veghealthguide.com/nuts-seeds/ 

http://www.healthcastle.com/nuts-benefits.shtml

chickpeas

Chickpeas are an excellent source of nutrients, they are also known as garbanzo beans. They were one of the first cultivated crops and one of the most popular in the world. They appeared about 3,000 BC in the Mediterranean basin and spread to India and Ethiopia. They are very popular in Middle Eastern and Indian dishes as hummus, falafel and curries.
They belong to the class of food called legumes, including beans, lentils and peas as well. There are two types of chickpeas, the cream colored ones, kabuli type, which are the popular ones in our food stores and the Desi-type, which are darker in color and smaller. The kabuli type represents only 10 to 20% of the chickpeas cultivated worldwide.
They have a nutty like taste and buttery texture. They are very versatile and can be used in salads, mixed with pasta, tomatoes, made into a paste with garlic and olive oil, etc.

• Eating chickpeas regularly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and improve the levels of good cholesterol, (HDL).
• They contain 12.5 g of fiber of which 2/3 is insoluble fiber and reduces the risk of colon cancer up to 40%. 
• They reduce the absorption of sugar as well, which is important to those suffering from diabetes as well as those with blood sugar challenges (metabolic syndrome).
• Remember also that foods high in fiber will fill you up longer.
• Very rich in calcium and magnesium in a 1:1 ratio.
• They are very rich in potassium as well.
• Chickpeas contain selenium, a powerful antioxidant.
• Chickpeas have some phosphorus and copper as well.
• They are rich in iron.
• Folate is present as well, except when canned it is reduced.
• They are beneficial for the pancreas and stomach.

When using canned be sure the cans don't contain BPA in their lining. BPA is Bisphenol-A a plastic and resin ingredient used to line metal food and drink cans. It is linked to cancer, birth defects, miscarriages and insulin resistance. As always it is better to cook your chickpeas.
http://organicgrace.com/node/316
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/639231.html

eat healthy

Add color to your meals. The predominant beige color is not healthy, ( french fries, rolls, fried chicken, cookies, cakes, pancakes, breakfast sausages and so on).

Fruits and vegetables are very colorful, pleasing to the eye and excellent sources of vitamins and nutrients.

Breakfast ideas

1 orange
!cup of quinoa with blueberries and 1 sliced banana
1 cup of coffee (you can add 1 tsp of honey, no sugar)

Quinoa has all that excellent protein, calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, manganese and zinc. Also contains lots of fiber.


Mid morning snack

1 glass of carrot and apple juice, you can use 100% organic carrot juice and add one apple and blend it.


I can guarantee you that you won't experience that mid morning  tiredness typical of those fast acting foods, that most of us indulge in for breakfast. The snack will bring you to lunch feeling good and not ravenously hungry for more starch.

glycemic index

Did you know that about 25% of adults in America suffer from diabetes, if you are over 45 and overweight the chances that you have it are 1 in 2.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 1 in 4 U.S. adults aged 20 years or older, 57 million people, had pre-diabetes in 2007.

Insulin resistance is reversible, you get it by eating the wrong foods, yet you can cure it by eating the right ones.

If your blood sugar levels are up and down on a regular basis, eventually your body will sustain some damage in the inside and your risk of developing heart disease, cancer and memory loss will increase dramatically. This path of self-destruction can be reversed. Nothing happens overnight and you can halt these bad eating habits and substitute them with healthy ones.

Fast Acting Foods

You get up in the morning and you feel sluggish, you need a quick boost of energy, so you reach for a toast or bagel, some jelly, candy bar, coffee with  two sugars and out you go. These foods dissolve quickly in your stomach and reach the blood stream, flooding your body with blood sugar, glucose. But this surge of energy doesn't last long, pretty soon you feel worse off than before. Your energy level sinks, so what's for lunch, what about a sandwich on a bun, a soft drink and a couple of cookies and  you are ready for another ride in the roller coaster. What goes up must come down. By 2pm you feel so tired that you reach for a snack, maybe a candy bar. Sad but true.

Blood Sugar Matters

If you eat a health oriented diet of whole foods and exercise on a regular basis, but lets say once in a while indulge in a big meal and your blood sugar skyrockets, your body will bring it down in a couple of hours, only those with untreated diabetes have high blood sugar levels most of the time. But remember that even if you are healthy, if your blood sugar levels after meals are high on a regular basis, this situation can be damaging to your body over time even if you never develop diabetes.


When you eat a big meal, specially one with starchy and/or sugary foods, the food is converted into glucose and gives you a boost of energy. But more often than not you get much more glucose than you need, therefore rising the blood sugar levels twice as much as a healthy meal would. The body can bring the blood sugar down by releasing insulin, an hormone produced by beta cells in the pancreas.  Insulin signals the body to let the blood sugar into cells that would use it as fuel and to store the rest.

If you eat a load of french fries or a big sub, your body has to deal with a serious flood of blood sugar, so it overreacts pumping to much insulin, all that extra insulin brings the blood sugar down too far. Now your blood sugar stays low, you feel dragging, you have no energy, may be even a headache.

Your body recognizes that your blood sugar is too low and releases hormones to elevate the blood sugar levels and your brain tells you that you are hungry, even that your lunch was very rich on calories, consequently you reach for may be a doughnut, sounds familiar?
Well the chain of problems continues, that excess of blood sugar also stops burning fat for fuel so the body can use up the blood sugar. Here comes obesity.

A diet like that contributes to weight gain, also clogs your arteries and elevates your blood pressure and raises the level of inflammation in the body as well.

High blood sugar produces unstable forms of oxygen called free radicals. These molecules damage the arteries, blood has more difficulty flowing and cholesterol sticks to their walls. As you probably know, if you eat healthy meals you are helping your heart function.

On The Road To Diabetes?

Type 2 Diabetes is the one people develop in their forties and it is related to lifestyle. In this type of diabetes the body can't make enough insulin to keep the blood sugar levels under control. Eating fast-acting meals increases your chances of developing type 2 diabetes by 40% in middle age men and by 50% in middle age women.

The good news is that diabetes takes years to develop and you can halt its progress at any time. Of course the sooner you get off that path of self-destruction the easier it will be to change directions.

Insulin Resistance

The more foods that you eat that raise your blood sugar the more insulin that your body has to pump out to handle the load. eventually the body needs more insulin to do the job.
Insulin helps transport glucose into tissues so it can be broken down and used for energy. This mechanism helps maintain the normal levels of glucose in the blood.

When insulin resistance is present, the tissues start to resist the effects of insulin, the normal response to a given amount of insulin is reduced, thus the pancreas has to produce more insulin to maintain the normal blood sugar levels. Over time the pancreas becomes unable to sustain the increased insulin production. This results in high blood sugar levels and the onset of type 2 Diabetes.

http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/conditions/insulin_resistance-2.html

http://www.medicinenet.com/insulin_resistance/article.htm

sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes are not related to potatoes at all. The Ipomoea batata is a member of the morning glory family and it is a tuberous root.  Sweet potatoes are not related to yams either, yet in the USA people call them yams. The yams are bigger and their flesh is white and not as sweet as the sweet potatoes, their nutrition value is not as impressive either.

  Sweet potatoes are native to South America, the Incas in Peru cultivated them over ten thousand years ago. In Quechua they were called kumar, in Polynesia they were called kumara. Columbus imported them to Europe in his first trip in 1492. From there they were introduced to the Philippines and East Indies, then to China, India and Malaysia.

Nutrition Value

Sweet potatoes are packed with nutrients and  disease fighting fiber of which 40% is soluble fiber, this type of fiber helps lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

• They are very rich in carotenoids, these orange and yellow pigments play an important role in helping the body respond to insulin.
• Sweet potatoes are rich in chorogenic acid, which may help reduce insulin resistance.
• They are an excellent source of vitamin C.
• They are rich in potassium, a mineral that helps bringing the blood pressure down. They contain more potassium than a banana.
• They are rich in beta carotene, which is a precursor to vitamin A, an average medium sweet potato provides more than 100% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin A.
• They also provide plant stenoids, which are cholesterol lowing compounds.

Tips

• When buying sweet potatoes choose those that are heavy for their size, with intact peel.
• Keep them in  a cool and dark area, away from any heat source, do not refrigerate them.
• If you duffer from diabetes minimize your intake of sweet potatoes. Even that they are loaded with nutrients, they are a starch and their glycemic index is about 10, still be cautious.

cooking methods

All cooking methods break down food for easy assimilation and add a warming quality to the food that after eating it, it brings more warmth to the body than in its raw form.

Steaming

Adds moist, brings out the flavors of vegetables, the cooking time is shorter.

• Put about an inch of water in a pot and bring to boil.
• Place vegetables in a steamer, lower heat and cover.
• Steam until vegetables are crisp, depending on the vegetables the time varies from 8 minutes for spinach to 20 minutes for sweet potatoes. don't overcook or the vegetables will lose their nutrition value.
• For faster cooking cut them in small pieces.

Water Saute

• Place a small amount of liquid in a pot. Bring to a scald, just below boiling
• Add ingredients.
• Reduce heat and simmer until they turn bright colored and tender.

Waterless Method

• This method cooks the vegetables in their own juices. Enhances flavors and appearance.
• Preheat a heavy pan and add a couple of tablespoons of liquid to create steam until the vegetables release their own juice.
• Bring water to a scald and add vegetables, reduce heat.
• Cover and cook slowly until tender.

Sauteing

• This method is quick and tasty, it uses oil to seal the flavors. Be careful not to overcook oils, they become rancid.
• Preheat a heavy pan, brush it with oil.
• Maintain the high heat and add vegetables.
• Toss the vegetables gently using a wooden spoon for about 5 minutes.
• Stir constantly for another 8 minutes.
• Cover for a minute or so to let the flavors permeate.
• A slight variation is water-oil sauteing, cover the bottom of pan with water, heat and add a little oil on top of the water and follow the steps for oil sauteing.

Oven Method

• This method adds a more warming quality and reduces moisture. 
• Baking, cook without liquid, uncovered.
• Oven fry, brush slightly with oil and bake.
• Pour a small amount of water over the vegetables, cover and cook.

Pressure Cooking

• Concentrates the nutrients and flavors, saves time and energy.
• Bring a few tablespoons of water to a boil, uncovered, in a pressure cook.
• Put in vegetables and bring up to pressure.
• Follow cooking times according to the vegetables you are cooking.
• Cool down right away by placing pressure cooker under cold running water.
• Remove vegetables at once.

Cooking Vegetables

Raw vegetables are excellent since their nutrition value is intact, however by cooking them properly, not overcooking, we still preserve 90% of their nutritious value. Cooking breaks down the cellulose structure making nutrients more accessible than in their raw form.

• Cooking destroys parasites and amoebas that enter the digestive system when vegetables are raw.
•  Once cooked, vegetables should be eaten within 24 hours, refrigeration of leftovers reduces their flavor and aroma.
• Cooking the vegetables unpeeled or whole is a way to retain their nutrients, as well as cooking them for a short time with little water.
• Vegetable roots, tubers and gourds are cooked when a fork enters without difficulty. Leafy greens are cooked when they turn a bright green.
• Beets should be cooked alone unless you don't mind the foods cooked with them to turn red, the same goes for red or purple cabbage.