Category: Nutrition

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Science shows that everyday, delicious whole foods can put health-improving benefits on your plate. Choose the improvement you want and shop for tasty foods that are good for improving mood, energy, metabolism and memory. “Food can reshape our medical destinies for the better,” says David Katz, MD, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center.

For mood: walnuts & asparagus

Walnuts deliver a high amount of the amino acid tryptophan, which the body uses to create serotonin, a natural mood-regulator. Plus, your body digests walnuts slowly, which helps you tolerate stress.

Asparagus contributes to good mood with the B-vitamin folate. This vitamin helps the body synthesize neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, which all contribute to good mood.

For weight loss: spring garlic & legumes

Spring garlic tastes milder and sweeter than the dried white bulbs available year-round, making it easy to consume more. (It can even be enjoyed raw.) When you eat more garlic, you’ll get more of the aromatic compound allicin, which contributes to making you feel sated sooner and gives garlic its distinct, delicious smell.

Legumes work two ways to contribute to weight loss.

The high fiber content makes your body work harder to digest legumes, burning calories just by eating. And the protein in legumes sends satisfaction messages to your brain’s hunger center.

For energy: spinach & artichoke

Spinach leaves are a great source of iron, which red blood cells need to deliver energizing oxygen to muscles. These greens also increase the efficiency of your cells’ energy-producing mitochondria.

Artichokes are rich in magnesium, a mineral that’s part of your body’s energy-generating biochemical reactions–along with more than 300 other functions. Adequate magnesium helps your muscles react faster and endure longer.

For skin: salmon & strawberries

Salmon provides an omega-3 fatty acid, elcospentaenoic acid (EPA) that blocks the release of collagen-reducing enzymes that are otherwise induced by exposure to UV rays. Strawberries are rich in antioxidants that help skin repair damage caused by exposure to pollution and UV rays.

For memory: eggs & blueberries

Egg yolks are full of choline, which your body uses to produce acetylcholine, a brain chemical that helps you store memory. Blueberries contain anthocyanins, shown to increase signals between brain cells and enhance learning and memory.

At Full Circle Market, we love sharing healthy food with all its benefits.

Source:

• Superfoods

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[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Your food plays a role in your mood. It makes sense, when you realize that food fuels the brain’s processes and helps form its building blocks. Let’s look at what food does for your brain.

Your nervous system uses foods in many ways. The body breaks down foods into substances used as chemical messengers, including neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, melatonin, and epinephrine. Food also provides amino acids–glutamate, tryptophan, GABA, tyrosine, taurine, and others–that are the precursors to neurotransmitters. Food also contributes to the development of stress hormones such as cortisol, and to natural opiates like endorphins.

Food is processed by the digestive system, and the gut’s health influences your mental state. The gut’s nervous system contains approximately 100 million nerve cells and uses more than thirty neurotransmitters. The gut holds 95 percent of the serotonin in the body. Lastly, the balance of bacteria in the gut plays a critical role in mood and behavior.

Food affects the processes of the nervous system, and contributes to gut health that helps impact mood. A typical Western diet, however, is often high in sugar, gluten, omega-6 fatty acids, and toxins, which contribute to the negative effect of inflammation.

Inflammation often results from high insulin levels, a consequence of consuming sugary foods and high carbs. Food allergies, gut bacteria imbalances, and consumption of trans fats and toxins also trigger inflammation. The brain responds to the stress of inflammation by releasing immune system messengers known as cytokines. When produced in excess, cytokines interfere with the brain’s ability to receive and process signals from the rest of the nervous system. This cycle of inflammatory stress can affect cognition, learning, memory, and mood.
Fortunately, there are ways to incorporate different types of food to help support your brain and bodily processes. Consume a balanced diet that provides the proper nutrients, alleviates and tries to avoid inflammation, and helps your gut bacteria stay in balance are all important to your body. Here are additional suggestions of how to “eat yourself happy”
• Include whole, nutrient-dense fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts.
• Eat frequent small meals to maintain adequate and steady blood sugar levels.
• Increase omega-3 fatty acids from foods like fish, walnuts, flaxseeds, and leafy greens.
• Help promote healthy gut function with prebiotic foods such as asparagus, dandelion greens, bananas, and garlic, and with probiotic supplements.
• Limit consumption of inflammatory foods such as gluten, sugar, and oils and omega-6 fatty acids (found in meat and corn, soybean, and canola oils).
• Consider food allergy testing.

Source:

• Eat yourself happy

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[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Nutritionists, physicians, and health gurus have a shopping bag full of very good reasons that we eat our vegetables. Here are five compelling arguments for a veggie-rich diet, direct from the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

Vitamins

Vegetables are an important source of many nutrients, including vitamin A and vitamin C. Vitamin A keeps eyes and skin healthy and helps to protect against infections. Vitamin C helps heal cuts and wounds, keeps teeth and gums healthy, and aids in iron absorption.

Minerals

Diets rich in potassium may help to maintain healthy blood pressure. Vegetable sources of potassium include sweet potatoes, white potatoes, white beans, tomato products (paste, sauce, and juice), beet greens, soybeans, lima beans, spinach, lentils, and kidney beans. Dark green vegetables are also good sources of another important dietary mineral, calcium.

Other nutrients

Based on their nutrient content, vegetables are organized into five subgroups: dark-green vegetables, starchy vegetables, red and orange vegetables, beans and peas, and other vegetables. Beans and peas, also known as legumes, add plant-based protein to the diet. Red and yellow vegetables provide beta carotene.

Fiber

Fiber is important for healthy digestion, helping reduce constipation and diverticulosis. Fiber-containing foods such as vegetables help provide a feeling of fullness with fewer calories. And, dietary fiber, as part of an overall healthy diet, helps reduce blood cholesterol levels and may lower risk of heart disease.

Calories

Vegetables are typically lower in calories per cup than many other food options per cup. And they make you feel full longer, thanks to that fiber content. So increasing the volume of veggies you eat can help you lower your overall calorie intake.

How much is good enough?

An adult woman needs about 2-2.5 cups of vegetables every day, and an adult man about 3 cups. Children 2-3 years old should eat 1 cup of veggies per day, with amounts increasing to adult levels over the years.

At Full Circle Market, we’re happy to bring the bountiful goodness of vegetables to your family.

Source:

• Choose My Plate

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