100 Healthy Living Tips - #12 - Eat Bananas

What are the health benefits of eating bananas? Bananas are rich in potassium which makes people who eat them less prone to high blood pressure. Potassium is also important for heart health. Besides reducing sodium, getting more exercise and taking other important steps for heart health, eating bananas and other potassium rich foods like cantaloupe, peaches and oranges.

The average banana contains about 467 mg of potassium, plus lots of fiber. Eating bananas also helps your body absorb bone-building calcium.

Add bananas to cereal or yogurt or to your daily smoothie.

Try this blueberry breakfast salad to get bananas and other superfoods into your daily diet.

Check out our other 100 Healthy Living Tips We aren't to 100 yet but more are added weekly!

100 Healthy Living Tips #11 - Enjoy the Health Benefits of Ginger

Ginger is a powerful herb with great health benefits, plus it's easy to find, affordable and tasty. Adding ginger to your daily diet helps reduce inflammation which causes arthtitis and joint pain, heart disease, allergies, ulcerative colitis and more. Ginger also aids good digestion and has been used as a treatment for digestive ailments, such as diarrhea, nausea and gas.

Ginger is also a warming herb and is used in Chinese medicine to reduce fever, reduce the congestion of a cold and sooth tired muscles.

What's the Best Kind of Ginger?

Ginger can easily be found in teas, powder and fresh. Fresh is the best type of ginger and is available in the veggie section of your local supermarket. Fresh unpeeled ginger keeps about 3 weeks in the frig.

How to make Ginger Tea?

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan.

Peel a 2-inch piece of ginger and slice into very thin strips. Add these to the boiling water.

Reduce heat  and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Strain out the strips of ginger and enjoy.

Add honey and lemon to taste.

Ginger is also great in recipes.Click here for a list of delicious ways to add ginger to your daily menus.

Other Immune boosting tips and recipes

100 Healthy Living Tips #10 - Subscribe to the Path2HealthyLiving Newsletter

Interested in healthy living tips? Subscribe to my Path2HealthyLiving  Newsletter, a monthly collection of healthy recipes, health tips and more, right to your email inbox.


Here is a copy of my October Healthy Living Newsletter:




What you’ll find in October’s issue of Path2HealthyLiving Newsletter.

• Health benefits of chocolate

• Drinking chocolate recipe just in time for winter

• More Tips and Recipes about drinking chocolate

Winter is here in many parts of the country. Cold weather means warm drinks and nothing warms you up like a cup of nice hot cocoa. Here are is some information about why that chocolate is good for you, what type of chocolate is best and how to make a luscious cup of drinking chocolate.

Here are just a few of the benefits of eating or drinking chocolate:

• Helps decrease blood pressure and improves circulation - German Researchers recently found that as little as two squares of dark chocolate lowers blood pressure as well as prescription medications.

• Defends the body against destructive molecules called free radicals, which can trigger cancer, heart disease and strokes.

• Chocolate has phenols-the same antioxidants in wine-help prevent arteriosclerosis

• Contains a chemical called phenyl ethylamine (PEA)- a mild mood elevator-produced by the brain if people are happy or in love

• The cocoa butter in chocolate contains oleic acid, a mono-unsaturated fat. This “good fat” like that found in olive oil is thought to raise good cholesterol (HDL).

• Dark chocolate contains 3 times the catechins found in tea-these are a flavonoid which could help prevent heart disease and boosts the immune system.

What kind of chocolate should you eat?


Minimally processed dark chocolate is preferable to milk chocolate, which often contains sugar, dairy products and other additives. Choose dark chocolates with a higher percentage of cocoa content- at least 70%.
 
Recipe for Luscious Drinking Chocolate
 
Ingredients
 
2 1/4 cups whole milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 generous cup of superfine Baker's Sugar
1 3.5 ounce bar of bittersweet chocolate-at least 70% cacao, chop finely
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa loosely packed.
 
Directions
 
Combine milk, water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat mixture over medium until it reaches a rolling boil. Add the chopped chocolate and cocoa powder. Whisk these ingredients into milk mixture and return to rolling boil.
 
Mixture will thicken. Reduce heat to very low.
 
Blend for 5 minutes with an immersion blender or in a regular blender for 1/2 minute or until drinking chocolate is thick and foamy.
 
Now that you know how good chocolate is for you, make yourself a cup of deep, dark drinking chocolate and cuddle up by the fire with a good book.


Stay tuned next month for health and wellness gift ideas for the holidays.

 

Looking for health and weightloss tips? Check out my healthy living blog, To Your Health!

Are you a baby boomer interested in boomer news and issues? Check out my Tips For Your Boomer Years blog.

Copyright 2009 Path2HealthyLiving. No content may be used without express written permission.  

Subscribe to future newsletters at Path2HealthyLiving.com

Superfood Recipe - Carrot and Blueberry Salad

I'm always looking for new recipes to add superfoods to my diet. This festive, colorful blueberry salad recipe includes two superfoods. Besides blueberries, this superfood salad also contains heart healthy walnuts and fresh carrots.

Ingredients

Juice of 1 lemon

4 tsp of maple syrup – use sugar free if you’d like to save calories

½ tsp salt

Dash pepper

1 c diced green pepper

2 tsp olive oil

1 2/3 c blueberries, fresh or frozen and thawed

3 large carrots

1/3 c walnuts

½ c pineapple pieces

Directions for Superfood Salad

Squeeze juice from lemon and remove any seeds.

Add maple syrup, salt, pepper and oil to lemon juice and blend.

 

Add blueberries, mix and set aside.

Peel carrots. Using a vegetable peeler, peel carrots into strips. Set aside

Chop walnuts. Then combine carrot strips, walnuts and pineapple in a salad bowl, then add blueberries and mix gently.

 

Makes 6 servings of superfood blueberry salad

This superfood recipe contains only 105 calories per serving using sugarfree syrup!

Healthy Recipes - Low Fat Blueberry Pancake

Low Fat Blueberry Pancake

Think you can’t lose weight while still enjoying a luscious pancake for breakfast? This low fat version of the

traditional blueberry pancake recipe gives the added nutrition of whole grain fiber, which keeps you filled up.

Ingredients for blueberry pancakes
¼ c whole wheat flour
¼ c all-purpose flour
¼ c rolled oats
¼ c cornmeal
1 tbs honey
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 egg whites
2 tbs plain nonfat yogurt
2 tbs skim milk
2 tbs water
¾ c blueberries
Directions

Preheat oven 200 F. degrees.

Mix wheat and all-purpose flour and blend with oats, cornmeal, honey, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

In a separate mixing bowl whisk together eggs, yogurt, milk and water, then fold in blueberries.
Slowly add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix only until just moistened.

Spray skillet with cooking spray and heat to medium high.

Pour batter into skillet, using about 1/3 c of batter for each blueberry pancake. Brown on both sides and make sure middle is cooked before taking from heat.

If your blueberry pancake browns too quickly, turn heat down.

Recommended Product by Kitchen Universe - All-Clad Stainless Fry Pan 10-in

As you cook each pancake, add it to a baking dish, cover with foil and place in warmed oven until ready to serve.

Instead of sugary syrup, try topping these blueberry pancakes with sugar-free syrup or blueberry low-fat or fat free yogurt.
Makes 4 Servings

Nutritional Information per serving

Calories 134
Fat 0.7g
Sodium 547mg
Carbohydrates 24.5g
Fiber 3.25g
Protein 6g

100 Healthy Living Tips #9 - Add Heart Healthy Oils to Your Diet

Evidence is piling up that healthy fats are essential to good health. They help protect your body from age-related diseases like heart disease and arthritis and high blood pressure and cholesterol. So which fats are heart healthy? The oils which contain unsaturated fats such as olive oil, flax oil, walnut, peanut and grapeseed oils help you stay healthy and contain omega 3 and omega 9 fatty acids. An added bonus is that these oils provide a wonderful variety of tastes for any cook.

So today's healthy living tip is to replace less healthy oils, like vegetable oil and corn oil, with these healthier oil alternatives.

So what is the best way to use these heart healthy oils? My two favorite oils are olive oil and grapeseed oil, which offer different flavors and different ways t use them.

1.  Olive Oil - Look for Extra Virgin or cold pressed. Contrary to popular beliefs, olive oil shouldn't be used for cooking at high heat as it looses important flavor and nutrients. Instead use olive oil in salad dressing, as a condiment to dip your bread and other low temperature uses. Olive oil contains Omega 9 oils a healthy
monounsaturated fat which is important in your diet.

Make a healthier salad by making your own salad dressing.


2. Grapeseed Oil is a wonderful oil for oil because it has a very high smoke temp (480°F/250°C for refined oil) so it is resistant to break down during cooking. Grapeseed oil can be used in Chinese stir fry and in place of peanut oil. Grapeseed oils is high in polyunsaturates and anti-oxidants which helps it to resist becoming rancid better than many vegetable oils.

Read more about the health benefits of grapeseed oil. 

3.  Flaxseed oil is most often sold as a food supplement and not for cooking. It contains an Omega-3 fatty acid called alfa-linolenic acid.

4.  Walnut Oil - Should also be used for low heat cooking applications and salad dressings. Adds a deliciously nutty flavor and is loaded with omega 3 fatty acids.

5.  Peanut Oil - Has a light flavor which doesn't detract from recipe flavorings and can be used in Chinese cooking. Peanut Oil has a high smoke point so can be used in high temperature cooking but is lower in polyunsaturated fats than grapeseed oil.

One thing to remember in adding fats to your diet is that although essential to good health, whether they are heart-healthy or not, they do add the same amount of calories to your daily diet.



Check out our other 100 Healthy Living Tips. More are added daily.

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