You Are What You Eat - Food Matters
Fall is a great time to take advantage of the variety of fruits and vegetables available at your local farmers market or CSA. There’s more to October than pumpkins and gourds. Check out chilies, squash, kale, beets, colorful potatoes and more. The farmers markets are stuffed with interesting harvests from your local area. This is a bountiful time of year, but you can enjoy healthy, fresh fruits and vegetables year-round. You body will thank you for it!
· Eat a variety of color: If all of the food you eat resembles a shade of brown, you could really benefit from this tip. Different colors have a variety of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. For example, blue, purple, and deep red fruits and vegetables, such as blueberries and beets are important for heart health and healthy brain function. Lycopene that makes watermelons and tomatoes red may help guard against prostate and breast cancers. Beta carotene, in such orange foods as carrots and sweet potatoes, can improve bone strength, improve eye health, and boost your immune system. There are many more health benefits to these and other colors as well.
· Surprise your taste buds: Just as it is important to do a variety of activity or exercise to keep your muscles and bones strong, it is equally important to give you body a variety of nutrients. Also, by adding in some new foods, it makes food more interesting. We all have to eat every day. Why not make it an interesting part of our day, rather than a chore?
· Shop at your local Farmer’s market or join a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture): This is the most sustainable and responsible way to eat. Obtaining your food from a CSA forces you to eat outside of you normal boundaries. There may be a food in your share you’ve never seen before – it’s fun to experiment and give it a try! You will be sure you are eating fresh fruits and vegetables from the area you live in as well. It is a wonderful feeling to know that you are helping to support the members of your own community. AND as an added bonus, you can be sure that you are putting more wholesome, nutritious food into your body.
· Eat simply: The fewer ingredients that are listed on the back of a product, the better. Typically, the less processed a food is, the more nutritious it is. You don’t have to do a lot to fresh fruit and vegetables to make it taste good. My favorite ways to eat almost any vegetable are to either steam them or roast them in the oven with a little olive oil and kosher salt. Roasting vegetables can bring out the full flavor without sacrificing nutrition.
You only have one body to live with, you might as well treat it right so you can feel GOOD for as long as possible! As a side note, all of these fruits and vegetables are from my own kitchen, obtained from our local CSA and Farmer's market.
