Spice Up Your Winter: Foods to Help Keep You Warm

As the winter weather slowly starts to creep in, you start to put away the fans and swimwear and bring out your woolly jumpers and electric blankets. However, covering up isn’t the only way to get warm this winter; you can also keep warm and cosy by including certain foods in your diet.

 

1. Spices – For a warmer body temperature, as well as flavour and aroma, you can’t go wrong with warming spices like cinnamon sticks, cloves, ginger and pepper. Ginger contains thermogenic properties that help to increase your body temperature – as well as being extremely beneficial for your digestive wellness – while cloves have an amazing capacity to warm the body and freshen the mouth.

 

2. Vegetables – Whether you boil them, steam them or blend them up in soups and smoothies, nothing warms your inner furnace as quickly as vegetables. As an added bonus, eating plenty of veg helps to boost your immunity, increase your blood flow and give those cheeks a rosy glow.

 

3. Honey – The winter blues can send your sugar cravings into overdrive, and so honey is a great, healthier alternative to refined sugar. Adding it to warm water makes for the perfect drink on a long winter’s night, and the natural sweetener is also works wonders for your complexion.

 

4. Onion – So it gives you bad breath and may induce tears, but all will be forgiven when you realise how beneficial onions are to your winter wellbeing. If you include onion as part of your daily diet, it acts as a persistent body heater, helping to ward off that constant chill.

 

5. Chillies – As chillies are so hot and spicy, they work to stimulate your body temperature by enhancing your blood circulation. Plus, the reason why chillies’ flavour is so pungent is due to a substance called Capsaicin, which also works to increase thermo genesis.

 

6. Green Tea – This beverage packs a triple threat to fight that winter chill, as green tea contains caffeine, catechins and antioxidants. The latter component helps to improve your metabolism, which warms you up, while the other two together increase thermo genesis by up to 77%.

 

7. Coconut Oil – As coconut oil is mostly made up of medium-chain fatty acids, it’s an excellent way to increase thermo genesis and help to raise your body temperature.

Categories: body temperature, Coconut Oil, foods, green tea, honey, increase thermo, spices, thermo genesis, Winter Warmers

Comfort Food: How to Beat Arthritis with Your Food Habits

To avoid arthritis from debilitating your wellbeing, you need to ensure that you follow the proper treatment and management plan. This involves your choice of foods, as well as exercise and the medicines that your doctor prescribes. What you eat can worsen the wellness symptoms of arthritis, but the right kinds of foods can also help you relieve your pain and discomfort.

Firstly, spice up you diet with more vegetables such as garlic, onions and ginger. According to renowned dietician Naini Setalvad, ‘I would even suggest simply chewing on ginger all day long – that truly helps!’ You should also stock up on your supplies of chillies, getting a good range of everything from capsicum to fresh green chillies, and use other spices such as cloves and cinnamon. Setalvad adds that rotis made of jowar, nachani, raagi and bajri are great for your arthritis-ridden joints because they contain nutrients that help ease the problem.

Next, make sure you’re getting plenty of healthy fats to soothe your joints. These can be found in nuts such as walnuts, cashew nuts, pistachios, as well as seeds like sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and flax seeds. You can also get these fats by cooking your food in extra virgin olive oil, and they work to lubricate your joints and provide them with nutritious vitamins. If you have whipped up some rotis, Setalvad says don’t forget to dab them with ghee or coconut flesh to get some healthy fats in there too.

Keeping a food diary can help you to become more aware of foods that worsen the pain. As a rule, these foods tend to comprise of tomatoes, lemon, dairy products and wheat, and so should be avoided where possible. However, the downside to cutting these foods is that you could be depriving your body of much-needed vitamin C, which is vital in fighting inflammation. Therefore, make sure you get the amount you need from other sources, such as guava and blackcurrants. Also, make sure you avoid white foods; namely white flour, sugar and table salt, and replace them with wholemeal flour, natural sweeteners like dates and rock salt and sea salt, which contain additional healing minerals that are not available in white table salt.

Comfort Food: How to Beat Arthritis with Your Food Habits

Categories: Arthritis, Food, foods, Healthy Fats, Salt, Seeds, spices, table salt, White Foods

Turmeric and Almond Oil: Spices Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

One day, drinking a glass of milk and munching on cheese and crackers will be all you need to guard your wellbeing against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. This is according to Dr. Mahesh Narayan, associate professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at El Paso, whose recent studies have led him to suggest that everyday spices could prevent neurodegenerative diseases from damaging mental health, as well as overall wellness.

Dr Narayan has recently undertaken studies, in which he found that everyday spices such as turmeric, most commonly found in Indian food, neem, almond oil and the creosote bush may contain key neurodegenerative disease-preventing ingredients. Narayan, a native of India, explained, ‘The long term prospect for us is to actually lace everyday food, such as potato chips, milk, cheese, etc., with these ethno-pharmaceuticals, and then have them neuro-protect you without you even knowing.’

A brain process called “protein misfolding” is the most commonly known to cause many neurodegenerative diseases, and Dr Narayan’s experiments with curcumin, a polyphenol in turmeric, show the potential of these kitchen table ingredients to intervene in this process. Free radicals help to spread Alzheimer’s [AD] and Parkinson’s [PD], and Narayan explained that polyphenols are good at scavenging free radicals. This helps to prevent the progress of the pathogenesis of AD and PD.

Narayan is currently working with Dr Edward Castaneda, chair and professor of psychology, and Dr Manuel-Arrango, assistant professor of biological sciences, at UTEP, with the shared goal of moving on to animal studies. Commenting on his future contributions to Narayan’s research, Castaneda said, ‘If you develop a drug that is useful for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, you don’t know if it will be useful unless you investigate the behavioural effects of that drug.’ The researchers aim is to explore an animal model, and the effects that polyphenols have in diminishing and or preventing the animal’s neurodegenerative diseases.

Narayan commented, ‘The more we exploit the more possibilities.’ None of the spices studied are related to one another, but each of them contain polyphenols-rich extracts. Narayan noted, ‘The ingredients are mild. We hope they are incorporated into diets and the general population is neuro-protected without them having to do much about it.’

Turmeric and Almond Oil: Spices Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

Categories: almond oil, alzheimer, Alzheimer's Disease, Disease, dr narayan, everyday spices, Free Radicals, narayan, neurodegenerative, neurodegenerative diseases, Research, spices

How to Maintain a Balanced Diet While Dieting

Every year, many people turn to dieting as a way to achieve or maintain their ideal shape. The idea of dieting can invoke feelings of dread and images of self-starvation and eating the same flavorless foods day after day. However, it is important for dieters to remember a few key tips in the interest of maintaining their weight in a way that is healthy and also to increase the likelihood of successfully following their diet of choice.

 

Variety

Dieters who find themselves getting bored while on a diet plan may be relieved to know that variety is an important key to remaining healthy. Foods come in a broad spectrum of colors. These colors correspond to certain nutrients. For example, brightly colored fruits and vegetables are often high in Vitamins A and C. Incorporating foods of a variety of colors every day is an effective way to include diversity in a diet plan and, more importantly, to consume a variety of essential nutrients. Meal replacements such as those by Ideal Shape can also help for those that don’t have time to cook every meal.

 

Spices

One key to maintaining health and lower body weight is to avoid ingredients that add flavor to food along with other unhealthy elements. Sodium, excessive butter consumption, and shortening are examples. These additives can often be substituted with healthy spices and oils. For example, olive oil is a rich source of heart healthy fats and adds flavor to salads. Many fragrant herbs like thyme, rosemary, and basil can be grown at home and offer health benefits when added to food. Dieters should explore the many herbs and spices that are in everyday grocery stores and possibly even their pantries. Finding the right combination of herbs and spices can totally eliminate the urge to add salt, sugar, or butter to a meal.

 

Water

Staying hydrated is important for everyone. Nevertheless, dehydration can play a significant role in weight loss as people often mistake the body’s thirst signals for hunger. Dieters should ensure they are consuming at least eight ounces of fluid each day along with their diet. By avoiding dehydration, dieters may find they are less tempted to snack unnecessarily throughout the day.

Looking good and feeling healthy are two of the most obvious benefits of dieting. By remembering to diversify their nutrient intake, drink enough water, and spice things up when it comes to seasoning their foods, dieters can greatly enhance their ability to remain on their diet program and ensure their bodies are getting what is needed for it to be healthy.

Categories: balanced diet, diet, dieters, foods, Healthy, ideal shape, meal nbsp, nutrition, spices