Category Archives: Food Facts

Health Benefits of Saffron

Health benefits of Saffron make it amongst the most common, sought after, researched spices.  The red colored spice  (yellow when interacting with food) has shown to be a key ingredient in healing the body,  including  its help in the treatment of a number of medical ailments such as: depression, macular degeneration, weight loss, asthma, menstrual discomfort.

With a botanical name  of Crocus Sativus  and commonly called saffron, this wonder spice is sought after from Europe to the Middle East.  Iran is the world’s largest producer of saffron which has researched saffron’s potential medicinal use specifically on how it reduces depression. The research at the Roozbeh Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran University of Medical Sciences,  has found saffron to be a safe and effective antidepressant (due to carotenoid alpha-crocin).  Research preformed in Germany has confirmed the results.

While the University of Sydney Australia and  University of L”Aquila Italy have focused on improving the retina as related to macular degeneration through the consumption of Saffron Supplements.  After 3 months of ingesting the saffron the patients had considerable improvement in their vision.

Researchers in France had hypothesized that by improving ones mood through taking a saffron supplement, one could lose weight.  The results showed that in fact by improving ones mood and reducing depression that weight loss could be achieved.

Additional information has confirmed that saffron also totes the ability to ease stomach aches, kidney stones and alleviate bronchial constriction.

Saffron’s medicinal attributes come from minerals and vitamins: copper, potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, selenium, zinc and magnesium.  Cartoenoids: α-crocin, zeaxanthin, lycopene, α- and β-carotenes; all  important antioxidants helping to protect a body from oxidant induced stress, cancers and infections. Vitamin A, folic acid, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin-C.

Saffron supplements have been found to be effective in studies, however, caution is advised if encountering any of the following:  nausea, vomiting, appetite loss or drowsiness. Consult a doctor if more serious side effects occur such as persistent vomiting, blood in the urine or stool’s, nosebleed or dizziness. These may all be signs of a saffron overdose. Use of saffron must be avoided by those with liver or kidney disease, allergies and bipolar disorder. Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers should also check with a doctor before using saffron.

Kim Crocker

Research Studies

http://www.itmonline.org/articles/saffron/saffron.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15341662
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17704979 http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2805356.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=weightloss%20saffron
http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/saffron.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15341662

Tuscan Home Remedy for Colds

Passed on from Tuscan natives to tourists and expats alike, this home remedy is tried and proven and will quickly heal those who are ailing from cold ailments, if  utilized multiple times throughout the day.  The idea behind the vapor treatments (done with vinegar and baking soda) is to disturb the present environment of the where the mucus is growing and a virus is thriving. Results after the first 2 treatments are immediately noticeable. This treatment is accepted by Doctor’s when addressing cold’s, however, should still be under advisement.  Often time’s when healing sinusitis and bronchitis, inhalation of vapor combined with eucalyptus drops may also be recommended.
Ingredients
6 cups Boiling water
1-2 Tea Bags
1/3 cup White or Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Baking soda
Have a large towel ready to create a tent as you cover your head over pan to capture and concentrate as many hot vapors as possible while inhaling.
1.  Boil 6 cups of water in medium to large size pan. Turn off stove and Remove pan placing it on to a hot pad on the  table.
2.  Add 1-2 Tea bags (Te`) to hot water in pan
3.   1/3 cup white or apple cider vinegar (Aceto or Aceto di Mela  to hot water)
4.   Cover head with a towel as to keep vapors inside tent,
5.  THEN slowly ADD 2  Tablespoons  Baking Soda (Biocarbinato)
6.   With mouth open inhale vapors that rise up. The first 10 seconds of inhaling the vapors are most important so don’t remove yourself from the bubbling reaction.
7  Utilizing the same pan of hot water, Repeat treatment 2 more times every 3 minutes by adding 1/4 cup vinegar and an additional 2 Tablespoons of Baking Soda. Your total first treatment will be for about 10 minutes.
Repeat 4-6 times throughout the day, may need to repeat for 2-3 days as needed.

ADD TO YOUR DAILY ROUTINE:
1.  Squeeze as much of the juice of a lemon as possible into a glass.  Fill the rest of the glass with water.  Over 20 minutes time consume the lemon water. The vitamin C and antioxidants from the lemon will contribute to strengthening ones immune system.
2.Eat oranges and grapefruit to maximize vitamin C intake.
2.  To Suppress coughing consume 4-6 tablespoons of honey throughout the day.
3.  Drink hot Green, Black or White Tea throughout the day. 6-8 cups to keep body hydrated; additionally, the polyphenols from the tea will combat the virus that the body is fighting against.
4. Gargle with salt water. 1/2 glass of water, 1 Tablespoon salt, stir together . Gargle mouthful’s of water at a time towards back of throat. BE CAREFUL not to swallow water.

Kimberly Crocker

Vitamin C Reduces Body Fat, and More…..

Learning about nutritional properties within food will contribute to the overall success of burning the excessive stored body fat; reducing the challenge of resisting foods that we are surrounded by and better understanding how to make them work for us!

Important basic information.
1. Skipping meals will slow your metabolism. In fact, your body will store the food, because it preceives itself as having encountered famine. Therefore, the metabolism slows down and burns calories at a reduced rate.

2. Natural plant foods actually burn more fat than the calorie content of the food itself.

3. Reduce amounts of Salt and Sugar which can work against the body. Excess salt can be stored in the organs and create unwanted swelling. Counter salt with higher potassium intake (fruits and vegetables), which flushes out salt and provides homeostasis (balanced biochemistry in your body). Sugars from sweets, soda’s and wines do not benefit the body and are stored as fat. While wine is vasal-dialator and helps promote HDL cholesterol, it should be consumed in correct amounts; 1 glass per day for women and 2 glasses per day for men.

4. You can utilize your own body to determine a serving. Your closed fist is indicative of  a (approx.) half cup and would apply that is how much 1 serving of  fruit, or vegetable should be in your meal.  With an open hand, examine only your palm; the size of your palm is indicative of 1 serving of meat, fish or poultry that you should consume twice a day.

Food Properties and How we Benefit from them

  • Calcium Rich Dairy Products: Calcium in dairy products like milk, cheese and yogurt act as fat burner that can boost weight loss by increasing fat breakdown in fat cells. 1 ounce of cheese a day or 2 glasses of skim milk daily can double the rate of weight and fat loss. Eating 3-4 servings of dairy products a day is more effective at enhancing weight loss efforts than calcium supplementation alone. Researchers found that overweight people who consumed 3 servings a day of calcium-rich dairy lost more belly fat than those who followed a similar diet minus two or more of the dairy servings.

    • Daily servings of 3 Dairy per day.  1 Milk= 1 8 ounce glass.  Cheese=1 ounce. Yogurt=4 ounces

  • Fish and Fish oil: Fish such as: Anchovies, Sardines, Salmon, Tuna are high in Omega 3 and are a great way to shed pounds. A recent study found that fish oil is effective in helping your body burn fat more efficiently. When using supplements make sure that the oil comes from the higher quality afore mentioned  fish.

    • 1 3 ounce Daily Serving of Fish. (considered Protein)

  • Fruits rich in vitamin C – Vitamin C helps the body process fat faster and also stimulates the amino acid Carnitine, which speeds up the body’s fat-burning capacity!  Vitamin C dilutes the fat and makes it less effective and helps in releasing the fat from the body. Berries,  limes, lemons, oranges, guava, grapefruit, papaya, tangerines, tomatoes, watermelon

    • Daily Serving 4-5 fruits.  1 serving =1/2 cup Fruit

  • Honey: Honey mobilises the extra fat deposits in the body.

    • Daily Serving of 1 teaspoon

  • Nuts help feel full while also increasing the body’s ability to burn fat

    • Daily Serving Nuts= 1 ounce (or 28 grams)

  • Pectin in apple restricts the cells to absorb the fat; and also encourages water absorption from the food which helps in releasing the fat deposits from the body. The antioxidants in apples may help prevent metabolic syndrome, a condition marked by excess belly fat

    • An apple a day keeps the doctor away! (Delicious  raw, cooked or baked)

  • SPICES: Chillies: Foods containing chillies or cayanne pepper which contain capsaicin that helps in increase the metabolism. Capsaicin is a thermogenic food, causing the body to burn extra calories for 20 minutes after you eat the chilies.
  • Cardamom: Cardamom is a thermogenic herb like Capsaicin that increases metabolism and helps burn body fat.
  • Curry leaves(Curry Patta): Curry leaves flush out fat and toxins, reducing fat deposits in the body.
  • Garlic: An effective fat burning food.

    • Add Spices to your foods through out the day in order to help your food work more effectively.

  • Proteins: Protein rich foods and high fiber foods are the best as foods burning belly fat. Protein needs more energy to digest than fat: low calorie dairy products, beans, whole grains, oatmeal, eggs, etc.Lentils are high in protein and soluble fiber, two nutrients that stabilize blood sugar levels

    • Daily servinug of Meat: 2 3 ounce servings per day.

  • Tea:  Studies show that green or black tea revs up your metabolism

    • Daily consumption; 4-6 cups a day.

  • Vegetables:  Due to the amount of effort that it takes to completely breakdown a vegetable, don’t forget to include them at your meals, some vegetables are also diuretics. Try these: asparagus, beet root, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, chillies, beans, lentils, soybeans, sweet potatoes

    • Daily serving. 6-7.  1/2 cup=1 serving

    Calorie Burning Foods

    Diet is not a verb, it is a noun!  Diet is a Lifestyle! Eating in a way that allows you to promote longevity and keep illness at bay. Let’s look closer at how foods can work for our bodies, providing nutrition, energy and an opportunity to for our bodies to burn extra consumed calories. 

    All foods have a nutrient (carbohydrate, fat, protein), caloric (calories) and vitamin & mineral content. Vitamins stimulate living tissues to produce enzymes that breakdown the caloric nutrients of that food.

    The foods with negative calorie contain sufficient vitamins & minerals that produce enzymes in quantities which are then able to break down not only its own calories, but additional calories from previous digestion as well. This is called “negative calorie effect”.

    Calorie is a unit of energy. The energy can be measured by many methods. The calories in foods depend on their composition and the calorie value and the average energy of a large number of different samples of the food.

    1 calorie = 4.184 joule
    1 negative calorie = -4.184 joules
    Negative calorie foods use more calories to digest than the calories food actually contains! Calories from these foods are much harder for the body to use. In other words, the body has to work harder in order to extract calories from these foods. Even though a food may contain equal amount of calories, much less of these calories can possibly turn into fat in negative calorie foods, as fewer calories are actually available to the body. This gives these foods a tremendous natural fat-burning advantage.

    Consider the facts:

    1. A piece of dessert consisting of 400 Calories may only require 150 Calorie to digest by our body, resulting in a net gain of 250 calories which is added to our body fat !
    2. On the other hand, a 5 calorie raw piece of celery will require much more calories to chew and digest, so resulting in a net loss of calories from our body fat !! It implies that the more you eat, the more you lose weight!!!

    Therefore, these foods are said to be good for achieving weight loss naturally without starving.  Several vegetables and fruits  written below have negative calorie effect, these are  foods that can be eaten in generous quantities .

    1.  Foods that will flatten your tummy are: Lentils, Cantaloupe, Kiwi, Plum.
    2.  Tricks to increase your metabolism include: Drinking Black and Green Tea’s, Coffee, eating Chili peppers and Curry in soups, rice and pasta’s.  Walk, Jog, Swim, or participate in a Sport 30 minutes a day.

    See below for more “tasteful” opportunities to enhance your Lifestyle by including Calorie Burning Foods.

    Negative Calorie Vegetables
    Asparagus
    Beet Root
    Broccoli
    Cabbage
    Carrot
    Cauliflower
    Celery    		 Chicory
    Hot Chili
    Cucumber
    Garden cress
    Garlic
    Green Beans    		 Lettuce
    Onion
    Radish
    Spinach
    Turnip
    Zucchini
    Negative Calorie Fruits
    Apple
    Blueberries
    Cantaloupe
    Cranberry
    Grapefruit    		 Honeydew
    Lemon/Lime
    Mango
    Orange
    Papaya
    Peach    		 Pineapple
    Raspberry
    Strawberry
    Tomato
    Tangerine
    Turnip
    Watermelon

    Pomegranate Health Benefits

    Pomegranate Seeds NutritionThe pomegranate fruit is obtained from a tree  that is originally native to the Southwest Asia and is cultivated since centuries together. Pomegranate is widely cultivated throughout the Afghanistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, East Indies, Malaysia, tropical Africa and southeast Asia. Later on, it was also introduced to the US and Latin America. The fruit is typically available from November to February (in the northern hemisphere), while in southern hemisphere, it seasons from March to May. There are more than 750 species that are observed and cultivated all over the world for various purposes from eating to forming pomegranate juice.  The name pomegranate literally means “the apple with many seeds”. The number of seeds in a single fruit varies from 300-1000.

    Pomegranate tree can live up to many years, which is an advantage for the pomegranate growers. This way, it enhances the outdoor decoration of the house with additional fruits provided. The fruit of pomegranate is ruby colored with many seeds that are both juicy and citrus in flavor. Pomegranate seeds nutrition facts are just numerous and therefore, pomegranate seeds are used for many purposes from ancient times.

    Health Benefits of Pomegranate Seeds
    Often called as super fruit, the invaluable pomegranate seeds are loaded with numerous antioxidant properties that are said to be three times higher than the green tea. As we know, antioxidants are very important to control the free radicals from the body that can cause several troubles to the body. Antioxidants also maintain and repair the damaged body cells.  Pomegranate is high in vitamin C, vitamin A, folic acid, vitamin E , fiber, potassium, iron and calcium.

    This ‘magic fruit’ is a bliss for the heart health, as regular intake of pomegranate seeds or pomegranate juice promotes:
    Cardio health and reduces risk of strokes and heart attacks.
    Contributes to proper thinning of the blood, reduce blood pressure levels, increase blood flow towards heart.                 Maintains good cholesterol levels (so that HDL cholesterol is elevated) and reduces arterial plaques.
    Reduces symptoms of:
    Anemia (add 1 tsp of cinnamon & honey to 1 cup of 100 % Pomegranate Juice)
    Arthritis
    Osteoporosis
    Skin allergies
    Skin disorders
    Urinary tract infections
    Wheezing linked to asthma
    Sore throats
    Tapeworms
    Digestive disorders
    Blood impurities
    Anemia
    Diabetes
    Read on for health benefits of pomegranate juice.

    Researchers are carefully observing the effects of pomegranate juice and prostate cancer as well as skin cancer. There are numerous products that are used by the pomegranate seeds including: pomegranate seed oil , pomegranate dietary supplements, pomegranate extracts and pomegranate concentrated juice.

    Due to the polyphenols (anti oxidant) within this wonderful fruit it’s nutrition promotes anti inflammatory effects which strengthens the immune system, wound repair and reduces skin wrinkling making it’s derivites the most sought after when addressing skin remedies.

    Eat, Drink and Enjoy!

    RECIPE

    Pomegranate Apple Salad

    Red seeds from a Pomegranate
    1 Apple diced (remove core)
    1/4 c. Feta Cheese crumbled (optional)
    Lettuce Leaves: Endive, Rucula  (Arugula), Spinach, Green Leaf Lettuce. Tear into bite size.
    Dressing
    1/3 c Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
    1/2 tsp salt
    1/8 tsp pepper
    1 Tbsp Parmesan Cheese grated

    Wash Pomegranate, Apple and Lettuce leaves. Over a salad bowl cut Pomegranate into quarter pieces, invert each piece so that the skin is push inward and the seeds com outward. Seeds will easily come out. Make sure to remove white pith that the seeds are attached to, discard pith. Cut apple in half, remove and discard seeds. Cut apple into chunks place into bowl. Add feta cheese and lettuce into salad to salad bowl.
    Toss well so that all ingredients are incorporated.

    Place all Dressing ingredients into a bottle or bowl, cover tightly, shake ingredients so that they are well combined. Pour dressing onto salad 5-10 minutes before serving.