7 surprisingly affordable superfoods!

Looking to stretch your food budget -- but eat a little healthier? Registered dietitian Lisa Grudzielanek with Your Tasty Life joins Real Milwaukee with seven surprisingly affordable superfoods.

For literal pennies, you can feed your family a food that rivals blueberries in its levels of disease-fighting antioxidants. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables may reduce the risk of cancers and other chronic diseases. How much? Between 2 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups of fruits and vegetables each day. This varies depending on the number of calories you need to consume for your weight and level of activity.

#1 Black Rice
Black rice bran contains more health-promoting antioxidants that are found in blueberries, but with less sugar and more fiber and vitamin E antioxidants.

#2 Sweet Potato
• What`s not to love about their shelf life? Sweet potatoes last about 3-5 weeks in the pantry and about 2-3 months in the fridge.
• Sweet potatoes are among the richest sources of beta-carotene, a nutrient your body converts to vitamin A after consumption.

#3 Apples
• Enjoy local apples & they`re in season right now!
• Eat the peel & it boosts antioxidant levels up to 6 times higher than the apples' flesh.
• The phytonutrients and antioxidants in apples may help reduce the risk of developing cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.

#4 Beans
• Kidney, pinto, black, and navy beans stand out for being packed with fiber, folic acid, iron, potassium, and zinc.
• Zinc is required for a healthy immune system and proper action of many hormones.
• Bags of dried bean can be purchased for $1
• Pressure cooking is all the rage and can cut down cooking time drastically.

#5 Cranberries
• Beat out coffee, blueberries, and even red wine for most antioxidant-rich foods.
• Cranberries are a rock star superfood with a very good source of vitamin C, dietary fiber, and manganese, as well as a good source of vitamin E, vitamin K, copper and pantothenic acid.

#6 Coffee
• The combination of caffeine and antioxidants may be significantly reducing heart disease.
• There is considerable evidence that caffeine may protect against Alzheimer`s and Parkinson`s disease
• Do we need any more reasons?

#7 Green Tea
• Ranks high in antioxidants just behind coffee.
• Japanese researchers have also shown that women who drink 5 or more cups of green tea a day slash their risk of dying from heart disease by about 30%.
• Contain catechins, one of the most effective compounds for preventing sun damage.

http://fox6now.com/2017/10/04/bargain-buys-loaded-with-health-benefits-7-surprisingly-affordable-superfoods/

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Black Beans Lower Blood Pressure, Reduce Degenerative Disease and Much More

Black beans contain proteins that act as antioxidants and can lower blood pressure and remove toxic metals from the body, according to a study conducted by researchers from Mexico’s National School of Biological Sciences of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN-ENCB).
The findings were awarded the National Prize in Science and Technology of Food in the Business category for Food Science.

Promising for heart health

Researchers ground up dried black beans, then isolated and hydrolyzed two of the main proteins found in the Jamapa variety of black beans: fasolina and lectin. The proteins were then tested using computer simulations.
They found that the two proteins demonstrated chelating activity, meaning that they removed heavy metals from the body. In addition, when the proteins were hydrolyzed with pepsin-pancratin, they also demonstrated antioxidant and antihypertensive activity.
“With the research we have [discovered] the essence of the legume, and identified the nutritional components such as carbohydrates, starch, proteins, fats, phenolic compounds that have related antioxidant effects,” lead researcher Gloria Davila Ortiz said.
The findings may partially explain why studies have shown beans to be so beneficial for heart health. The researchers expressed hope that their findings could lead to new treatments for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease by targeting oxidative stress and high blood pressure.
“The Jamapa black bean proteins have biological properties and nutrients that help lower glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides,” Davila Ortiz said. “Thanks to a collaboration between the IPN and the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubiran, diets for people with diabetes were developed and it was found that glucose in blood decreased. In the future we intend to develop products containing proteins which would be aimed at treatment and prevention of diseases, seeking specific effect on blood pressure and as an antioxidant.”

A humble superfood

Beans form the basis of many diets around the world and are also one of the least expensive foods in terms of both weight and nutrient content. Beans are known to be rich in essential nutrients, with one cup of cooked black beans including fiber (59.8 percent of the recommended daily intake), protein (30.4 percent), iron (20 percent), folate (64 percent), magnesium (30.1 percent), manganese (38 percent), molybdenum (172 percent), phosphorus (24 percent), tryptophan (56.2 percent) and vitamin B1 (28 percent).
Soluble fiber, like that found in beans, has been shown to reduce cholesterol levels. Indeed, clinical trials have shown that eating beans (canned or dried) reduces levels of total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and triglycerides, while increasing levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol.
Beans are also rich in phytonutrients, which are now considered responsible for many of the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. Many of these phytonutrients have antioxidant properties.
According to a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, three of the four foods highest in antioxidants are actually beans: the red bean, the red kidney bean and the pinto bean. Another study, conducted by the Colorado State University Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, also found that red beans were highest in antioxidants, but ranked black beans at number two. This study found that antioxidant content was linked with a dark color in the bean’s coat, because the pigments in the seed are produced by antioxidant phytonutrients such as phenols and anthocyanins.
Antioxidants remove free radicals from the body and are believed to thereby lower the risk of chronic diseases and slow the effects of aging. Indeed, beans have been linked with many of the health effects associated with antioxidants: a lower risk of diabetes, obesity, degenerative diseases, and a wide variety of cancers.
– Source: fitlife.com
http://www.healthdigezt.com/black-beans-lower-blood-pressure-reduce-degenerative-disease-and-much-more/

The Raw Food Diet: Trend Worth Trying or Half-Baked Hype?

Advocates of this diet make enticing claims: Look younger! Slim down! Cure your ailments! Here's what you need to know about eating raw.

By Rachel Mount

The way its proponents talk, raw food can sound like a magic potion served in a salad bowl. "When I transitioned to an all-raw lifestyle," says Karyn Calabrese, a restaurateur in Chicago, "I felt like I could walk on water. I didn't just stop aging; I began to feel as if I were actually growing younger." The 64-year-old—who could easily pass for 40—is brimming with energy. It's enough to make you want what she's having, which might be a portobello napoleon with "blue cheese" made from cashews, or an avocado puree with wakame and olives wrapped in nori. 

A raw diet consists of foods (typically produce, grains, seeds, nuts, and beans) that haven't been heated above a certain temperature, usually somewhere between 104 and 118 degrees. Cooking destroys enzymes that raw foodists believe are essential to human health; without those enzymes, the thinking goes, we're not getting the full, life-supporting benefits of our food. 

But this theory overlooks an important fact, says Andrea Giancoli, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. "While it's true that cooking causes enzymes to unravel, the same thing happens to those enzymes as soon as they hit the acidic environment of your stomach." She says raw foodists enjoy so many health perks for a simpler reason: They're eating a lot of plants. Comprehensive lifestyle studies—like the China-Cornell-Oxford Project, which lasted 20 years and followed 6,500 participants—have found that plant-based diets greatly reduce the risk of chronic diseases and conditions. 

Still, says Eat to Live author Joel Fuhrman, MD, a specialist in nutritional medicine, there is some magic in raw fruits and veggies. It's not denatured enzymes that worry Fuhrman so much as the loss of vitamins and minerals that occurs and the carcinogens that are produced at high temperatures. He recommends eating a mix of cooked and uncooked produce, because some nutrients (like lycopene in tomatoes and carotene in carrots) are better absorbed after they've been heated. And when you do cook, opt for stewing or steaming. "As a rule," Fuhrman says, "if you cook things at a lower temperature for less time, you'll be moving in a healthy direction." 

Four years ago, Gena Hamshaw started shifting toward a mostly raw diet. "Not only did I feel better," says the certified clinical nutritionist, who writes a blog called Choosing Raw, "but, more importantly, I fell in love with the delicious taste of fresh food." Her advice is to start by adding simple uncooked dishes to your regular diet, like vegetable sides and blended soups. "Don't agonize over complicated recipes. Just eat a big chopped salad and you're on your way." 

http://www.oprah.com/food/Should-You-Go-on-a-Raw-Food-Diet-Raw-Food-Diet-Benefits