3 Things About Food and Health

Plants Are Good… All plants, because they grow outside in the sun, are saturated with phytonutrients and antioxidants. This helps keep them healthy and alive. Everything from avocados to almonds and zucchini to cherries are full of these health promoting compounds.Due to media headlines Americans load up on blueberries one year, and then pomegranates the next.Know that all plant foods have these compounds in different configurations. The best strategy is to eat a large variety of plant foods. Collards and pears grow outside and have concentrated nutrients which foods that are made in a building, like crackers and boxed cereals, do not.

Be Colorful… Studies have shown that different colors in food represent different concentrations of important nutrients. Concentrated colors like the purple in beets or the orange in acorn squash represents concentrated nutrients. Think of all the different colors and try to be colorful in the foods you eat. Green, orange,red, and purple all have different % of the nutrients we need.

Taste is Very Important… A Ben Franklin quote goes something like this, "that which you relish, nourishes." If you love the aroma and flavor of green tea, that's great. Conversely, if you really like black tea, but drink green tea because you think it will make you healthy, I think you are doing yourself a disservice. All tea has antioxidants and all tea promotes health. Again, because all tea is a minimally processed plant that grows in the sun. Laughter has been proven to be health promoting, and I believe that sensual satisfaction, as Ben Franklin suggests, does the same thing.