Posts Tagged ‘body’
Five a day of fruit and vegetables is considered the minimum necessary for healthy eating. But five a day of what, and what constitutes a portion for the five a day diet?
Five a Day
‘Five a Day’. That’s the slogan that’s being promoted to encourage us and our children to eat more healthily. Five a day refers to the number of portions of fruit and vegetables that each person, whether adult or child, needs to eat to keep themselves in good shape.
What Does Five A Day Mean?
While the slogan is one that most people are now aware of, what does it actually mean in practice? To put the issues into two simple questions, “If you need five a day, what is that five of?” and, “If you need five a day, how much makes one?”.
Five A Day of What?
The requirement for five a day refers to any vegetable or fruit. It doesn’t really matter whether its raw, cooked, tinned,frozen,pureed, sautéed, steamed, mashed or turned into a smoothie. They’re all good. That’s good news for parents who have difficulties persuading their children to move beyond burger and fries.more
What is important to remember, however, is that any one type of fruit or vegetable can only be counted as ‘one’ of the five a day once during the day. It’s no good drinking five bottles of strawberry smoothie (probably the nicest single way of eating fruit!) and thinking ‘that’s my five a day’. Because different fruits and vegetables bring different benefits, and contain different minerals, amounts of ruffage and vitamins, the body (and the mind) needs a variety of fruit and veg to keep it working at full efficiency. So, remember, mix up the fruit and vegetables and makes sure that everyone in the family gets a ‘real’ five a day.
The Size of a Portion
Now that the mix of five a day is determined, what makes an appropriate five a day portion? Basically, a portion of fruit or vegetable should be about the size of a fist. So,
• if it’s peas, cooked cabbage, turnip or carrot, two or three heaped tablespoons should do the trick
• an apple, orange or grapefruit is very handily sized being about the size of a fist, so one of those constitutes a portion
• plums are a little smaller, so two or three will fit the bill
• for smaller berries, a third of a breakfast cereal bowl is about right
• if it’s a mixture of salad leaves, the lower density means that a portion constitutes a larger volume.
Staying Healthy Through a Good Diet
Five a day is both a slogan and something people should aspire to. (There are those who suggest that people need more than five a day, something closer to eight.) For those who don’t already have many fruit and vegetables in their diet, it’s something to work towards. For parents, thinking about how to get the kids interested in eating healthily can provide a lot of mental stimulation (also good for you)! There are lots of interesting ways of preparing fruit and veg to make them appealing to kids. The internet is awash with recipes and many can be found here at Suite101. Take a look around. Five a day can and should be enjoyable and fun and it constitutes an essential part of a healthy lifestyle.
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A juice fast is a type of detox diet. A juice fast involves the short-term intake of raw vegetable and fruit juice and water only. Proponents of juice fasting use juice because it’s thought to be a good source of vitamins and antioxidants.
A juice fast is considered an extreme form of detoxification because no solid food is consumed. More moderate detox methods, such as the detox diet include solid food.
Who Shouldn’t Try a Juice Fast?
• Pregnant or nursing women or children shouldn’t try a juice fast.
• People with diabetes, low blood sugar, eating disorders, kidney disease, liver disease, malnutrition, addictions, underweight, anemia, impaired immune function, infection, nutritional deficiency, low blood pressure, ulcerative colitis, cancer, terminal illness, epilepsy, or other chronic conditions shouldn’t try a juice fast or should do so only under strict medical supervision.
• People shouldn’t try a juice fast before or after surgical procedures.
• A juice fasting can reduce blood proteins and change the way prescription drugs react in the body. People taking prescription medications should consult a health professional skilled in detoxification before trying a juice fast, and should never discontinue or reduce their medications on their own.
It’s important to consult a qualified health professional before trying a juice fast.
Possible Side Effects of a Juice Fast
Common temporary side effects of a juice fast include headaches, tiredness, hypoglycemia, constipation, acne, increased body odor, and bad breath.
Other side effects of a juice fast can include fainting, dizziness, low blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, weight loss, hunger, vomiting, diarrhea, and kidney problems. If these side effects occur, there is a worsening of symptoms, or new symptoms appear, the fast should be discontinued and it should prompt an immediate visit to a qualified health professional.
Another possible side effect of a juice fast is diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration and electrolyte loss.
If continued for a longer time, juice fasting can lead to nutrient deficiencies, particularly protein and calcium deficiency.
Grapefruit juice should not be used during a juice fast, especially by people taking certain prescription drugs. A compound in grapefruit can change the way certain prescription drugs are metabolized in the body. Recent evidence suggests that pomegranate juice may also have the same effect.
How Long Does a Juice Fast Typically Last?
A juice fast typically lasts for one to three days. A longer fast requires medical supervision and possibly monitoring to ensure that nutrient deficiencies don’t result.
What Does a Typical Juice Fast Involve?
• Proponents of juice fasting suggest fasting only during the warmer months of the year. Spring is thought to be the best time of the year for juice fasting.
• Seven or more days before the fast, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, sugar, dairy, wheat, animal meat, fish, and eggs are typically reduced or eliminated from the diet. This preparation diet often consists mainly of organic fruits, vegetables, and beans.
• Between 32 and 64 ounces of juice is usually recommended per day during the fast. The juice is sipped throughout the day. Typical fruits and vegetables include celery, carrot, kale, cabbage, apple, pineapple, cranberry, spinach, beet, and greens. Citrus fruits are often avoided.
• Approximately 6 glasses of room temperature or warm filtered water is often recommended in addition to the juice.
• Organic fruits and vegetables are usually recommended. If organic produce isn’t available, practitioners suggest peeling the skin off fruits and vegetables or washing vegetables with a non-toxic produce cleaner, usually available at health food stores.
• Freshly juiced fruits and vegetables are preferred, but if unavailable, practitioners suggest buying it from the health food store or juice bar as fresh as possible.
• Green vegetables and sprouts contain the pigment chlorophyll, which juice proponents believe are especially beneficial during a juice fast.
• A combination of fruits and vegetables is recommended.
• Variations on the strict juice fast include eating one meal a day in addition to the juice.
• Certain fruits and vegetables and their parts should not be juiced, such as the pits of peaches, apricots, cherries, and other fruits, apple seeds, citrus peels, carrot and rhubarb tops, tough skins (such as kiwi, pineapple, mangoes), and bananas and avocados.
What Do People Eat After a Juice Fast?
There should be a gradual return to solid foods. Read the sample guidelines on how to break a fast.
In this busy lifestyle, we have become highly dependent on unhealthy junk food and seem to have forgotten the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. A fruit vegetable diet is very effective when it comes to a healthy life. Read on to know more about fruit and vegetable diet plan, an important aspect of a balanced diet.
The first thing that comes to mind when we hear the term ‘fruit and vegetable diet’ is a vegan type of diet, which includes various types of fruits and vegetables, most often eaten raw, and totally excludes meat. But this is a myth when it comes to fruit and vegetable diet plans. The meat exclusion part of the diet plan makes many faces frown and its not surprising as meat tastes better than plants. Excluding meat from the diet is not a wise thing to do, more importantly because it fulfills the protein requirements of our body, but at the same time one should also understand that fruits and vegetables provide us with various vitamins and nutrients required by our body for healthy functioning, and thus should not be ignored.more
Fruit Vegetable Diet Ingredients
Fruits do contain fructose, a sugar which is easily converted to body fat, but the benefits of eating fruits are much more than the disadvantages. The fructose content is high in some fruits but moderate in others. Vegetables have two main advantages over fruits: firstly they contain complex carbohydrates which cannot be easily converted to fats and secondly they are low in calories. But this doesn’t mean that fruits are not important in the diet. A balanced diet should contain vegetables as well as fruits. Fruits such as apples, oranges, pears, strawberries, blueberries, papaya, cantaloupe, guava and blackberries contain fairly less amount of sugar and hence are ideal fruit vegetable diet ingredients. In fact green apples have the least amount of sugars in them. On the other hand, fruits like bananas and grapes should be consumed in less amounts or are best avoided owing to their high fructose content. Some important vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, lettuce, tomato, spinach, eggplants, collard greens, alfalfa sprouts and Brussels sprouts need to be compulsorily incorporated in your fruit and vegetable diet plan.
Fruit and Vegetable Diet Plan
In order to live a healthy life and for successful weight loss, a person is recommended to have at least nine servings of fruits and vegetables in a day. An ideal breakup would be four fruit servings and five vegetable servings a day. To make sure one is not overeating, the servings should be small and frequent rather than large and few. This will ensure that you are full throughout the day and also help you to stay away from unhealthy and unhygienic fast food. Cooking is also an important aspect of your fruit and vegetable diet plan. Raw foods are high on nutrients and if at all you want to cook them before eating, baking or steaming them is much wiser than boiling them as boiling tends to lower their nutritional value. Another important thing to be kept in mind is that the fiber content in a whole fruit makes it more nutritional than the fruit juice. It’s ideal to include fruits or fruit juices in your breakfast in the early morning. Halfway between your breakfast and lunch you can either eat some fruits or sip another glass of low-sugar (sugarless) fruit juice. Lunch should include a variety of vegetables, either raw or steamed. Boiling and deep frying will make your healthy fruit vegetable diet unhealthy. A fruit or vegetable salad can be an ideal evening snack, followed by dinner consisting of easy to digest food. More importantly your last serving should go in at least an hour or two before you go to bed.
Initially, getting used to a vegetarian diet will be a bit tough, especially if meat is the most important component of your diet but slowly you will get used to this healthy diet regime. A balanced diet is the key to success and this balanced diet should include all the nutritional fruits and vegetables. Good fruit and vegetable diet plans have many health benefits. It reduces the risk of various cancers and heart diseases. Eating fruits and vegetables will make you feel full and you won’t have to depend on unhygienic fast food which is the biggest threat to your health. Remember that the only success formula for a healthy and long life is a balanced diet, and balanced diet is not possible without fruits and vegetables
Without proper nutrition, bones can become weak and brittle and joints can become damaged.
The health related benefit of a high consumption of fruit and vegetables on a variety of disease has been gaining increasing prominence in the literature over a number of years. A number of observational experimental clinical and intervention studies over the past decade have suggested a positive link between fruit and vegetable consumption and the skeleton (or bones). The skeleton itself has been referred to as “a giant ion exchange column loaded with an alkali buffer,” as 80% of body carbonate, 80% of body citrate, and 35% of body sodium are contained in solution within the hydration shell of bone and are released in response to metabolic acid.more
A variety of population based studies published in the later part of the 1900s and more recently between 2001 and 2003 have demonstrated a beneficial effect of fruit and vegetable potassium intake on indices of bone health in young boys and girls, premenopausal women, perimenopausal women, postmenopausal women and elderly men and women.
Calcium can be found in foods such as low-fat milk and yogurt, dark green, leafy vegetables such as kale and broccoli, carrots, yams and fruits such as oranges.
Acid – base homeostasis is critical to health and it is well documented that extracellular fluid pH remains between 7.35 and 7.45. A major requirements therefore of our metabolic system is to ensure that hydrogen ion concentrations are maintained between 0.035 and 0.045 m Eq/L. Acid-forming foods (protein and carbohydrates) drain calcium from the bones; alkalizing foods (fruits, vegetables, seaweeds) neutralize the acids and prevent calcium drain.
• Effect of dietary acidity:
On a daily basis, humans eat substances that both generate and consume protons and, as a net result adult humans on a normal western diet generate approximately 1 mEq per kg body weight of acid per day. Of course, the more acid precursors a diet contains, the greater the degree of systemic acidity. We know that as humans becomes older their overall renal function declines which include their ability to excrete acid. Hence with increasing age humans become slightly but significantly more acidic, leading to negative calcium balance. Furthermore, osteoclasts and osteoblasts appear to respond independently to small changes in pH in the culture media in which they are growing. There is evidence that a small drop in pH close to the physiologic range, causes a tremendous burst in bone resorption.
• Role of potassium carbonate:
From a clinical point of view the study by sebastian and colleagues in 1994, which demonstrated that potassium bicarbonate administration resulted in a decrease in urinary calcium and phosphorus, with overall calcium balance becoming less negative or more positive is a very important study in the investigation as to whether alkali is important for bone health. Changes were also seen in markers of bone metabolism with a reduction in urinary excretion of hydroxyproline (bone resorption) and an increased excretion of serum osteocalcin (bone formation). Long-term studies looking at alkali administration on indices of bone health throughout the lifecycle are now urgently required.
• The DASH Diet:
Further support for a positive link between fruit and vegetable intake and bone health can be found in the results of the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stopping Hypertension) and DASH sodium intervention trials. DASH diets rich in fruit and vegetables were associated with a significant fall in blood pressure compared with baseline measurements. However of particular interest to the bone field were findings that increasing fruit and vegetable intake from a 3.6 to 9.5 daily servings decreased the urinary calcium excretion from 157 mm/d to 110 mg/d.
Foods for improving bone health:
• Dairy foods provide the major, readily absorbed sources of calcium. Women aged 40 and over should consume 3-4 serves of low fat dairy food daily. Other, non-dairy sources of calcium include fortified breakfast cereals, canned fish with edible bones, some nuts, seeds and green vegetables.
• If calcium supplements are required, the best absorption rate is from a dose of 500-600mg of calcium once or twice daily.
• Avoid salty foods and adding salt to meals and during cooking.
• Vitamin D supplements may be necessary for elderly women with inadequate sun exposure