Achieve Optimal Health, Happiness & Vitality from Nutrition

Nutrition – Foundation for Life: is one of the key elements responsible for developing and maintaining optimal health. Optimal health is defined and understood as a state of where your mind, body and soul/spirit are functioning in optimal unison together.

What Is Nutrition?

Healthy Eating is Happy Eating

Previously the references to nutrition mainly involved molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetic variations. However, there is far more to nutrition in fulfilling the body’s requirements for healing, repair, and optimal health. Nutrition has now become more focused on metabolism and metabolic pathways – biochemical steps through which substances inside us are transformed from one form to another in order to nourish, heal, and keep the body functioning in optimal health.

Naturopathic and integrative medical studies focus on how proper or adequate nutrition can prevent disease, ill-health and other debilitating problems. Health problems can be prevented, reduced, and even sometimes reversed with a change of diet. That being from unhealthy, processed foods to fresh wholesome foods.

To allow nutrition to be the building block and foundation for optimal health, it is essential to have an understanding and identification of how certain diseases and conditions can be caused. These causes are from dietary factors, such as poor or unhealthy diet bringing about malnutrition, food allergies, and food intolerances. It is the increase of chemically laden processed, packaged and fast foods being readily consumed as part of a daily diet that is leading to ill-health and disease. This type of unhealthy diet does not lead you towards optimal health. 

Eating Fresh, Healthy Foods Everyday

Vegetables & Fruit the Foundation for a Healthy Life

Eat four or five different vegetables each day such as:

Sweet potato (more nutritious that regular potatoes): Pumpkin, Carrots, Broccoli, Spinach, Carrots, Peas, Kale, Cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, Cabbage, Capsicum and healthy protein. 

Example serving per day: 1 x Sweet Potato: 1 x Pumpkin 1 x Broccoli, 1 x Kale 1 x Peas

You can change these around on a daily basis or every few days. For extra flavor and health support add onion and garlic when cooking these vegetables.

Bake, roast or stir fry your firm vegetables such as pumpkin, sweet potato: less cooking is needed for your softer vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, spinach, even cauliflower is nice.

Salads can include your baked vegetables and raw vegetables, dark green vegetables, and lettuces.

Fruit eat two to three pieces per day – Choose from ½ cup of berries, 1 banana, 1 apple, 1 pear, pineapple, and 1 kiwi. There are many different fruits that are great to choose from, these are just a few.

Choose an assortment of healthy protein from these sources for Healthy Muscles & Bones:

Meat, Beef, Salmon, Chicken breast, Eggs, Dairy products, Cheese, Yogurt, Beans, Artichokes, Broccoli, Nuts, Oatmeal.

Healthy protein sources: Chicken without the skin, Lean red meat occasionally, Fatty fish such as Mackerel, Salmon, Sardines. Beans, Lentils, Nuts, Seeds, Artichokes, Root vegetables, Soy beans and Eggs.

Eating A Rainbow Of Colors

Eating a Rainbow of Colors for Optimal Nutrition

The benefits of eating a variety of colors with your fruit and vegetables, is because they have specific health benefits and support certain functions in your body. So focus on getting some of each color in your diet every day for maximum nutritional benefits. Fruits and vegetables generally contain little fat, cholesterol or sodium and provide complex carbohydrates, fiber and nutrients. Most are low in calories, and they contain natural sugar, as opposed to refined sugar. Refined sugar being the cause of abrupt fluctuations in your blood sugar level.

Red

Red fruits and vegetables, such as raspberries, tomatoes, guava, watermelon, red cabbage, kidney beans, cherries, strawberries and beets, are rich in the antioxidants lycopene and anthocyanins. A medium raw tomato provides 3.2 micrograms of lycopene, a carotenoid that helps your body make vitamin A. Although, there is no set daily value for lycopene, research by the Mayo Clinic recommends getting 2 to 30 milligrams per day.

Orange and Yellow

Most orange and yellow fruits and vegetables are rich in beta-carotene, which your body converts to vitamin A. A nutrient that not only improves night vision, but also helps keep your skin, teeth, and bones healthy. They also contain folate, an antioxidant that prevents neural tube defects in unborn infants. A 2-cup serving of sliced cantaloupe provides 541 micrograms of vitamin A, more than 100 percent of your recommended daily intake of 500 micrograms, and 67 of the 320 micrograms of folate you need each day.

Green

Green vegetables are good for your eyes, bones, and teeth. They have vitamin K which helps your blood to clot properly. A 2-cup serving of raw spinach provides 290 of the 90 to 120 micrograms of vitamin K you need each day. These foods’ antioxidant vitamins, particularly vitamins C and E, have been found to lower your risk of chronic diseases. They provide the phytonutrients, lutein, and zeaxanthin which may protect you from vision loss due to eye diseases such as macular degeneration. This is according to North Dakota State University.

Blue and Purple

Blue and purple fruits and vegetables contain anthocyanins, natural plant pigments with powerful antioxidant properties that may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. They also contain flavonoids and ellagic acid compounds that may destroy cancer cells, according to Cancer Research. The anthocyanins and ellagic acid in blueberries have been shown to fight cancer cells in the lungs, stomach, breasts, and pancreas. Anthocyanins and ellagic acid also show anti-inflammatory properties that may prevent cancers of the esophagus and colon.

White

White fruits and vegetables, including apples, pears, bananas, cauliflower, and cucumbers are high in dietary fiber which protects you from high cholesterol. Antioxidant-rich flavonoids, such as quercetin is abundant in apples and pears and may lower your risk of stroke. This is according to a group of Dutch researchers who published a study with the American Heart Association in 2011. After a 10-year diet study, they found that people with a high intake of white fruits and vegetables had a 52 percent lower risk of stroke.

In Summary:

By increasing your intake of fruit and vegetables and lowering your intake of animal protein, you will decrease your risk of bowel cancer, stomach cancer, and will improve your immune function. There are so many reasons and benefits that you will reap by making positive improvements to your daily eating. These benefits include the following:

Better quality of life right through to your mature years. Long, healthy life – Research shows that by consuming a healthy diet, you will live longer, be more vital and happier.

Reduced risk of disease – nutrition has a positive impact on preventing and recovering from any form of disease. Examples include heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. Eliminating the risk of obesity that causes a myriad of health problems.

Digestion and stomach disturbances such as heartburn, indigestion, and other digestive dysfunction can lead to disease states such as cancer. Fresh foods and produce have a positive effect on healthy digestion that is essential for optimal nutrient transport to your organs with improved cellular function to support healthy ageing.

Mental health: the brain and nervous system require essential nutrients only available from the foods you eat. These being mainly your purple and green veggies. It has been recorded that there is little evidence of dementia and Alzheimer's in people who have eaten their green vegetables.

Healthier kids – Children grow at an enormously fast rate as you are well aware of. By including fresh foods that provide optimal nutrition, this will greatly improve your child's present and future health. Breastfeeding your baby and introducing fresh healthy vegetables and fruit from the time they are ready for solid foods is the key to your child’s road to healthy eating.

Learn about the Foods to Eat & Why in Julie’s eBook – Eating to Live

Healthy Eating is Happy Eating Because You & You’re Family are Worth it! Click on the Image to Purchase & Download your Copy!

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