Eat Your 5 serving of fruit and vegetables daily

- if not think about a supplement

If you ever feel tempted to go for a burger, fries and a soft drink, consider this: along with the fast food, you are ordering up an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. But the opposite is true, too. According to a new University of Florida (UF) study, if you stay away from processed and fast foods and instead eat a lot of veggies, nuts and fruits, you will actively be helping to prevent or reverse harmful metabolic processes in your body. The result? Better health and a slimmer body.

An important advantage to having plant-based foods as an abundant part of your daily diet appears to result from the phytochemicals they contain. As noted in the UF findings recently published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, these natural substances prevent oxidative stress — a process linked to being overweight and to the onset of diseases including heart disease and diabetes. Phytochemicals include lycopene from tomatoes, isoflavones from soy, beta carotene from carrots, anthocyanins from blueberries, allicin from garlic, and many more.

Without enough phytochemicals and antioxidants to counteract oxidative stress, damaging free radicals cause inflammation and other toxic problems in the body. In overweight people, excess fat tissue and certain enzymes that are more active also trigger the production of excessive free radicals, according to a media statement by the UF researchers.

The research team, headed by Heather K. Vincent, Ph.D., studied a group of 54 young adults divided into a normal weight and an overweight or obese group, analysing their dietary patterns over several days. Surprisingly, the people in both groups took in about the same amount of calories. However, the overweight and obese young people were found to be eating fewer plant-based foods. That means those who were carrying around excess pounds were consuming fewer protective trace minerals and phytochemicals and consuming far more saturated fats.

In addition, those eating less plant-based foods were found to have higher levels of oxidative stress and inflammation in their bodies than their normal-weight counterparts. This is a crucial finding because oxidative stress and inflammation are processes clearly associated with the onset of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and joint disease.

“Diets low in plant-based foods affect health over the course of a long period of time,” Dr. Vincent explained in a statement to the press. “This is related to annual weight gain, inflammation and oxidative stress. Those are the onset processes of disease that debilitate people later in life.”

“People who are obese need more fruits, vegetables, legumes and wholesome unrefined grains,” she said. “In comparison to a normal-weight person, an obese person is always going to be behind the eight ball because there are so many adverse metabolic processes going on.”

In order to get enough protective phytochemicals daily, the UF researchers concluded that people should try to consume plant-based foods such as leafy greens, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes at the start of each meal. As a way to encourage people to get enough phytochemicals from meals and snacks, Dr. Vincent also called for use of a phytochemical index, which compares the number of calories consumed from plant-based, nutrient-rich foods with the overall number of calories taken in each day.

“Fill your plate with colourful, low-calorie, varied-texture foods derived from plants first. By slowly eating phytochemical-rich foods such as salads with olive oil or fresh-cut fruits before the actual meal, you will likely reduce the overall portion size, fat content and energy intake. In this way, you’re ensuring that you get the variety of protective, disease-fighting phytochemicals you need and controlling caloric intake,” said Vincent, an assistant professor in the UF Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Institute, in the media statement.

Adapted from an article by S. L. Baker, features writer  (NaturalNews)

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Problems with the Science (actually pseudo science)

Invariably in my studies I’ve seen these new companies promoting wonder products with hugely impressive health claims. They then go on to quote a Doctor or two who says that they have seen great results and that they recommend/use it with their clients. Once you scratch below the surface the quoted scientific study has some depressingly familar paterns. The study has been done using whole fruit/berries which were tested in the laboratory for their vitamin, mineral, enzyme or phytochemical content.

The juice drink being marketted is so different from the raw fruit being tested that to claim one supports the other is an affront to common sense. Lets just look at the packaged juice:

• it will have added water, flavourings, sugar most likely
• it will be in cheap plastic bottles that will taint the contents with chemicals that will harm you
• it will have a sell by date or a best by date – but it will last without degrading for months.
• it will not need refrigeration
• it will have been stored in a humidity controlled warehouse to protect the packaging not the contents

The juice itself will have:

• been pasturised to kill off any bacteria that could cause the product to spoil
• it will have added preservatives to prevent spoiling

The net effect is that:

• the juice drink is effectively lifeless as the heat of pasteurisation will have destroyed any phytochemical activity, any enzymes and most of the vitamins.
• the chemical preservatives are causing free radical damage to your systems and are often bio accumulative.
• the drink is loaded with cheap sugar to make t acceptable for most people to drink – sucrose is not good for us in large amounts
• the drink is often highly flavoured with cheap flavours to mask the unpleasant natural taste

So the bottom line is this. Don’t waste your money on nicely packaged exoticaly named juices – the claims are laregly unfounded (possibly fraudulent), the science is not valid as it relates to the whole fresh fruit, the juice in the bottle is effectively dead and nutritionally virtually useless.

This breif expose will doubtless anoy many marketers who proudly sell these products beleiving the marketing training they have been given. The truth is that they too have been deceived.

My firm belief is that we should be eating whole, locally grown fruits and vegetables, grown without pesticides and eating them in a raw state. Cooking does not help most food – mushrooms, tomato and a few other exceptions.

If you must get your nutrition from a drink then juice it yourself and drink within a few minutes of processing. Leave your juice an hour or more and you’ll find that the enzymes will have been at work and much of the nutritioanl value will have already gone.

The best juicers are made by Solo Star, Rhino and Matstone.

Matstone Juicer	Rhino Blender	Solo Star II Juicer