Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Drop a Dress Size in 10 Day Belly Buster Challenge

If you want to drop a few kilos fast and if you are serious about losing body fat, this is the right program for you. It's like a fat melting program! And the best part is - it is completely natural.

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Cucumbers



Cucumbers provide our bodies with essential vitamins and nutrients. Cucumbers  are a bona fide tasty and healthy vegetable in their own right. Cucumbers will soon give you reason to eat them on their own!

Types of cucumber include:

Dosakai - A cucumber that is yellow in color, has a round shape and is available in many parts of India. Commonly added in Chutney, Sambar or Soup, Daal and also in making Dosa-Aavakaaya (a type of Indian Pickle).
English cucumbers - Have very little in the way of seeds and can grow to around 2 feet in length.
Mediterranean cucumbers - Skins are smooth with nearly seedless flesh, they have a mild taste.
Japanese cucumbers - A dark green cucumber with a very bumpy skin. Mainly used for slicing, salads and pickling.

Health benefits of Cucumber
  • Researchers have long been familiar with the presence of unique polyphenols in plants called lignans, and these health-benefiting substances have been studied extensively in cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli or cabbage) and allium vegetables (like onion or garlic). Recent studies, however, have begun to pay more attention to the lignan content of other vegetables, including cucumbers. Cucumbers are now known to contain lariciresinol, pinoresinol, and secoisolariciresinol—three lignans that have a strong history of research in connection with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease as well as several cancer types, including breast, uterine, ovarian, and prostate cancers.


  • It is one of the very low calorie vegetables; provide just 15 calories per 100 g. It contains no saturated fats or cholesterol. Cucumber peel is a good source of dietary fiber that helps reduce constipation, and offer some protection against colon cancers by eliminating toxic compounds from the gut.
  • It is a very good source of potassium, an important intracellular electrolyte. 100 g of cucumber provides 147 mg of potassium but only 2 mg of sodium. Potassium is a heart friendly electrolyte helps bring a reduction in total blood pressure and heart rates by countering effects of sodium.
  • Cucumbers contains unique anti-oxidants in moderate ratios such as α-carotene, vitamin-C, vitamin-A, zea-xanthin and lutein. These compounds help act as protective scavengers against oxygen-derived free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that play a role in aging and various disease processes. Their total antioxidant strength, measured in terms of oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC value), is 214 µmol TE/100 g.
  • Cucumbers have mild diuretic property, which perhaps attributed to their free-water, and potassium and low sodium content. This helps in checking weight gain and high blood pressure.
  • They surprisingly have a high amount of vitamin K, provides about 17 µg of this vitamin per 100 g. Vitamin-K has been found to have a potential role in bone strength by promoting osteotrophic (bone mass building) activity. It also has established role in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease patients by limiting neuronal damage in their brain.

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Eating colourful fruits and vegetables each day is a great start


Including lots of fruit and vegetables can also compromise the immune and digestive systems and, ultimately, long term health. By Eating the same type of food every day is not only boring but could lead to deficiencies in certain nutrients if the foods are lacking in key nutrients.
Colorful fruits and vegetables like broccoli, like tomatoes, like carrots, like oranges have lots of different antioxidants, lots of different phyto chemicals. To increase your energy and give your body an invigorating year-long treat... Upgrade to colourful foods and enjoy mountains of delicious, fresh food!

Let's look at the positives:
• Colourful foods have no preservatives, no added colour!
• Provide an abundance of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fibre, water and trace elements.
• Have a high water content - an excellent source of hydration for the body.
• Are visually appetising.
• Their firm textures demand a good chew, so we eat them more slowly and feel full up afterwards.
• Are quickly and easily processed and assimilated by the body - less work for the digestive system.
• Are safer - contain less undesirable man-made chemicals.
• Are as nature intended (unlike processed, pre-packaged modern fast foods!)
• Are pure energy - living food!

And the negatives:
• Colourful Foods have no negatives.
• They are 100% good for you!

Compare the above list to consuming cooked foods:
• Heat destroys the vitalising nutrients in colourful foods. So much so that sometimes, you may as well be eating cardboard for all the good it does your body!
• The effectiveness of fibre in cooked fresh foods is reduced - vegetables that are floppy and overcooked pass through the body with reduced "cleansing" action. If you cook vegetables, always steam them lightly and aim to retain their "crunch"!
• Cooked vegetables tend to turn out soft and therefore require less chewing, which means they are usually eaten more quickly, so are less satisfying.
• Heat also destroys the enzymes in fresh foods, which are essential for digestion. This means the body has to tap into its own precious supply of enzymes to support the digestive process.
• Nature did not intend her beautiful colourful foods to be ruined by heat... just look how pale they look when cooked, isn't that enough of a clue?

Eating colourful fruits and vegetables each day is a great start...