Age-Fighting Foods: Look Younger and Feel Better on a Budget

You may be tempted to turn to supplements to look younger, but why bother popping pricey pills when you can get all the anti-ageing wellness you need at your local supermarket. With a  few healthy food additions to your diet, you can truly look younger for longer, and improve your health while doing it!

 

1. Nuts. With a special shout out going to pecans, almonds, walnuts, cashew nuts and pine nuts, all nuts are real super foods, packing tonnes of protein, omega 3 fatty acids and good fats which help to keep your heart healthy and your skin looking fabulous. Plus, nuts aid your wellness from head to toe, easing inflammation, improving brain activity and even giving you gorgeous, shiny hair.

 

2. Berries.

Berries contain everything you need to fight ageing; vitamin C, folate, potassium, magnesium and calcium, to name a few. Plus, blueberries, strawberries, acai berries, cranberries and raspberries can help to reduce your chance of cancer and treat any urinary infections. Winner!

 

3. Vegetables.

Ok, this category is maybe a little broad, but eating your greens and a few tomatoes can take years off you. Green vegetables and tomatoes are great sources of vitamin C, which has wonderful anti-ageing properties, but they also contain zeaxanthin and lutein, which can fight age-related eye problems such as cataracts and weakened vision. Plus, as tomatoes are rich in lycopene, this makes them powerful antioxidants, especially if you cook them. This can help to guard you against cancer, coronary diseases and blood sugar fluctuations.

 

4. Green tea.

You may have noticed green tea popping up on more café menus in recent years, and this is because it has monumental wellness benefits. Not only is green tea a powerful anti-ageing source, but it can protect your well-being against age-related weight gain, dementia, heart diseases and even cancer. But let’s get back to the anti-ageing bit: green tea contains catechins which tackle free radicals, and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) which has fierce anti-ageing properties. I reckon it’s time to stick the kettle on, don’t you?

 

5. Fish.

The reason why fish is such an incredible anti-ageing food is that it contains omega 3 fatty acids, which offer antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. Fish oils do not build up cholesterol levels, but they do build up your eyesight and brain activity and, as an added bonus, fish gives you lustrous hair and glowing skin. You can get your omega 3s from fish such as tuna, salmon and sole.

Categories: ageing properties, anti ageing, berries, Brain Activity, fatty acids, Fish, green tea

How to Overcome the Hunger Pangs of Your New Diet

You’ve read about the latest diet and thought “Now, that sounds easy.” You’ve stocked your fridge with the recommended foods, eliminated all the dangerous temptations and even gone out and bought a new dress which will fit you in two weeks time. However, there you are, day one, mid-morning, and you hear an oh-so familiar sound. It’s your stomach rumbling. Diet over. Feeling hungry is one of the biggest complaints from dieters limiting their calories, but you can guard your wellbeing against hunger pangs – all you need is the right healthy and filling foods to get you through to lunchtime.

Berry Filling – Berries pack so much good-for-you nutritional power they might as well be flying through the sky wearing a cape. According to a study from the Tufts’ Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Centre on Ageing (HNRCA), the antioxidants found in berries boost your brain’s ability to process information. Blackberries and cranberries are good for you, but the real berry trinity is made up of raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. Raspberries contain riboflavin, niacin, folate, magnesium, potassium, copper manganese and vitamin C. Similarly, strawberries are good for manganese, potassium, vitamin C, and fibre, while the rich antioxidants in blueberries help prevent ulcers, lower cholesterol and decrease your risk of heart disease and certain kinds of cancer.

Eggs-tremely Satisfying – The yolks in eggs contain and high level of fat, and so wellness experts believed eggs were bad for you. However, as this has been discovered to be unsaturated fat, eggs have been rightly reinstated in the healthy food category. The antioxidants found in eggs can help fight cancer and reduce the signs of ageing, while the egg whites contain protein which will help you to feel fuller for longer. Plus, on a nutritional level, eggs provide selenium, choline, vitamin B12, riboflavin and iron, along with several other nutrients.

Hunger? Nut a Problem – Just like eggs, nuts contain rich heart-healthy unsaturated fats, which will help to fill you up. You should go wacky for walnuts in particular, as these contain high levels of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). This is an omega-3 fatty acid which has been proven to improve your mood, contribute to your hearth health and lower your LDL or “bad” cholesterol levels.

Categories: berries, Eggs, nuts

Fresh, Fruity and Nutty Ways to Slow the Signs of Ageing

You can end up spending hundreds of pounds a year on anti-ageing face creams and eye serums, but it’s all a waste of time and money if you don’t have a wellness-centred diet as well. So what foods are beneficial to your wellbeing, and also help you to look young and gorgeous?

 

Let’s start with an anti-ageing salad. While you’re popping cucumber on your eyes, save a few slices to munch on as well. Eating cucumber is beneficial to your skin from the inside out – just as long as you don’t peel them. Cucumber skin contains silica, which has been shown to reduce wrinkles and boost collagen. You should also throw a few tomatoes in your salad, as they contain lycopene. This is a powerful phytochemical which acts as a natural sun block for your skin, preventing some of the UV damage that causes dry spots, age spots, wrinkles, and the all round look of old age. As an added bonus, lycopene has also been shown to prevent cancer and heart disease.

 

If you fancy something a little fruitier, bump up your intake of berries. Blueberries are often hailed as one of nature’s superfoods, but all berries have amazing anti-ageing properties. Berries promote cell health and fight the free radicals that cause wrinkles, due to their high content of antioxidants such as flavonols and anthocyanins. If you drink cranberry juice, you can also develop a sparkling smile. As long as it isn’t drenched in sugar, cranberry juice halts plaque built-up, and so prevents your teeth from yellowing and counteracts the bacteria that can cause tooth decay.

 

Nuts and seeds can help you to look and feel young all over. The antioxidant lignin phytoestrogens – found in sunflower seeds – prevents collagen from breaking down and boosts your skin’s lipid barrier. This is responsible for the barrier function of your skin, and so sunflower seeds can protect your skin from moisture loss. Finally, just eating two Brazil nuts a day can help you to look young and fresh, as Brazil nuts contain extremely high levels of selenium. This boosts your body’s production of an antioxidant called glutathione, which not only repairs cell damage, but can actually slow down the ageing process.

Categories: berries, Brazil nuts, Tomatoes

How Women Can Avoid a Heart Attack by Eating Strawberries

They are one of the most delicious of fruits but it seems there’s more to strawberries and blueberries than simply a great dessert. Research shows that eating these two berries every week can prevent heart attacks in women.

The flavonoid plant compounds that are specific to strawberries and blueberries have been revealed to unblock arteries by an enormous US healthy study involving 93,600 women. They were involved in the Nurses’ Health Study II, which monitored their health over 18 years.

The analysis of the results of the study was led by the Harvard School of Public Health and revealed that women who reported eating the most strawberries and blueberries were 32% less likely to have a heart attack than women who only ate the berries occasionally. Other fruits and vegetables did not offer the same kind of protection seen from strawberries and blueberries.

The flavonoids seen in the berries are anthocyanins and these are thought to open up blocked arteries and stop fatty deposits building up on the walls of blood vessels. Other foods that contain the flavonoid may have a similar effect. The study included strawberries and blueberries as they are the most popular berries eaten in the US.

The findings of the research, published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, concluded that eating red and purple berries every week could become an important preventative measure in the fight against heart disease in women.

The analysis of the study took risk factors such as family medical history, age, high blood pressure, weight, smoking and alcohol consumption into account when reaching its findings.

The next stage of any research will be into exactly how berries improve heart health. In the mean time, the researchers suggest that women – and indeed everyone – include berries in their 5 a day.

How Women Can Avoid a Heart Attack by Eating Strawberries

Categories: berries, Heart Attack, risk