Categories

• No categories

Eat more: UV-blocking foods

Comments (0)

By Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N, October 9, 2010

It's true: Certain fruits and vegetables act as sunscreen from within. Researchers found that women whose diets provided 16 milligrams of lycopene every day were protected from the damaging effects of UV-rays, including reddening of the skin and cellular damage.  And lycopene is no one-trick pony: It's also been found to help ward off heart disease and osteoporosis.

Skin Saving Superfoods

Lycopene is found in watermelon, guava, and tomatoes.  Cooked tomato products like salsa, tomato juice, and spaghetti sauce are especially good sources. You can get a skin-saving dose of lycopene from:

• 1/3 tomato puree
• 1/2 cup salsa or marinara sauce
• 6 ounces of V-8
• 2 cups watermelon balls

Make sure to eat some of these skin-loving foods every day! For more foods that keep your skin healthy and glowing, check out SELF's Food Lovers Guide to Great Skin

antiaging, Food and Drink, Healthy Aging, healthyeating, Heart Health, Nutrition Research, nutritionresearch, Osteoporosis and Bone Health, skincancer, skincare, sunsafety | Balls, Cellular Damage, Cup Salsa, Diets, Effects Of Uv Rays, Food Lovers Guide, Fruits And Vegetables, Guava, Heart Disease, Loving Foods, Lycopene, Marinara, Milligrams, Nbsp, Osteoporosis, Spaghetti Sauce, Tomato Juice, Tomato Products, Tomato Puree, Trick Pony, Watermelon

Are your drinking habits healthy?

Comments (0)

By Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N, August 30, 2010

These days, it may not seem like a big deal to have a drink before dinner and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. Yet, according to the National Institutes of Health, consuming that amount of alcohol puts you in a high risk category. Rethinking Drinking, a website run by the NIH, can help you assess the risks and/or benefits of your drinking habits.You might be surprised to see how just low the threshold for "low-risk" drinking is, especially when you consider the size of a "standard" drink is just 1.5 ounces of hard liquor. The newly (or once again) popular martini drinks usually contain the equivalent of 2 to 4 servings of alcohol. What do you think? Is this too heavy-handed an approach? Are we American's showing our latent puritanism here?  Are the risks of moderate drinking being overstated? Tip: See SELF Magazine's Guide to a Healthy Happy Hour For those who are motivated to make a change in their drinking habits, the site offers tools and strategies that are consistent with the proven approach developed by James Prochaska and outlined in his excellent book Changing for Good. See also: Fitting Alcohol into Your Weight Loss Program

Online Surveys & Market Research

Food and Drink, Healthy Aging, Heart Health, Policy and Regulation | Amp, Amp Nbsp, Drinks, Fitting Alcohol, Glasses, Happy Hour, Hard Liquor, High Risk, James Prochaska, Market Research, Martini, Moderate Drinking, National Institutes Of Health, Nih, Puritanism, Risk Category, Self Magazine, Surveys, Threshold, Weight Loss Program, Wine

Can Phil Mickelson beat arthritis with vegetarian diet?

Comments (0)

By Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N, August 17, 2010

Golfer Phil Mickelson recently announced that he suffers from psoriatic arthritis, an autoimmune disease that has more in common with rheumatoid arthritis than with regular wear-and-tear osteoarthritis.

Read:  "Mickelson diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis" in Golf Digest.

The good news is that he's been able to control the symptoms with a combination of medication and lifestyle changes, including adopting a vegetarian diet, featuring "lots of fruits and vegetables and some whole grain wheat and pastas and stuff." 

See Also: Safest and most effective OTC Painkillers

Although this is no doubt a big nutritional upgrade for Mickelson, who has a notorious love of fast food, if reducing inflammation is the goal, he might want to go easy on the fruit and whole wheat pasta.


Grains and legumes (including soy) typically loom large in vegetarian diets. However, because they are quite rich in carbohydrates, they can moderately elevate blood sugar, which tends to exacerbate inflammation.  Fruit and fruit juice are both high in sugar, which can do the same thing. Although there's room for whole grains and fruit in a healthy, anti-inflammatory diet, it's important to balance these foods with others that counter-act the inflammation process.

Tip:  The IF Rating on Nutrition Data.com tells you which foods fight inflammation and which foods make it worse.

Diet advice for Phil and anyone else battling inflammation

A vegetarian diet can be a healthy choice but it's not necessarily anti-inflammatory. And although you can if you want to, you don't have to eliminate meat to have an anti-inflammatory diet. Here's a quick and dirty guide to foods that fight inflammation.

Eat plenty:

fish (especially salmon, sardines, and herring)

olives and olive oil

almonds

leafy greens and other colorful vegetables

citrus and berries

garlic, ginger, chili peppers, and curry powder

Eat in moderation:

whole grains

tropical fruits

beans and legumes

seeds (such as sunflower)

lean pork and beef

eggs

dairy

Steer clear:

refined flour

sugar

fruit juice

fried foods

organ meats (such as liver)

veal

hydrogenated oils

Learn about anti-inflammatory diets and IF Ratings

arthritis, dietadvice, Healthy Aging, Inflammation, ND Tips and tools, sports | Anti Inflammatory Diet, Arthritis Diet, Chili Peppers, Colorful Vegetables, Diet Advice, Dirty Guide, Fruits And Vegetables, Golf Digest, Grain Wheat, Healthy Choice, Leafy Greens, Lifestyle Changes, Nutrition Data, Phil Mickelson, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Tropical Fruits, Vegetarian Diet, Vegetarian Diets, Whole Grains, Whole Wheat Pasta

« Older