Sandwiches are one of the first ever fast food recipes. You can make them in advance and take them with you, they can be consumed hot or cold but they do not require re-heating. Sandwiches can include meat or not and in fact are a robust meal for a vegetarian. Sandwiches are the vegetarian’s answer to a hamburger. So, I have put three very healthy sandwich recipes below that do not involve meat.
Recipe 1
French Onion Sandwiches Serves 4
2 tablespoons butter or margarine 4 ounces seasonal mushrooms, chopped pretty small 1 medium onion, sliced and separated into rings 1 cup vegetable stock 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1 clove garlic, chopped finely or 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder Dash of pepper 4 (1-inch) slices French bread, toasted 2 (1-ounce) slices Swiss cheese, halved (optional)
In a large skillet melt butter. Add mushrooms and cook over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes until done. Remove from skillet, retaining juice.
Cook onion in juice until tender.
Combine stock, cornflour, Worcestershire sauce, garlic (or garlic powder) and pepper. Add to skillet. Cook and stir until bubbly. Boil and stir 2 minutes more.
Place mushrooms on bread. Top with cheese and onion mixture.
Recipe 2
Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches Serves 4
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced 1 large egg white 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cornmeal 1/2 teaspoon roughly ground black pepper 1 pound green tomatoes (3 medium), cut in 1/2-inch slices 1/4 cup low-fat mayonnaise dressing 1/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives 4 green-leaf lettuce leaves 8 slices firm whole-grain or white bread, toasted
Cook mushrooms. Drain on paper towels.
Meanwhile, in pie pan, beat egg white and salt. In another pie pan, combine cornflour and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Dip tomato slices in egg-whites to cover both sides, then dip in cornstarch to coat both sides well. Lay on waxed paper.
In mushroom juice in skillet, cook tomato, a few at a time, over medium-high heat until golden brown and heated through, around 3 minutes. Drain.
In small bowl, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, chives with 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Spread on toast. Arrange lettuce, tomatoes, and mushrooms between toast slices.
Recipe 3
Greek Salad Heroes Serves 2
3/4 cup thinly sliced fresh mushrooms 1/2 cup thinly sliced cucumber 2 tablespoons ripe olives 2 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar 1/8 teaspoon dried oregano 2 Roma or small tomatoes, thinly sliced 1 clove garlic, minced 2 (2 1/2 ounce) submarine rolls 2 lettuce leaves
Combine first 8 items in a small bowl; mix lightly. Let stand for 30 minutes, mixing occasionally.
Cut a thin slice off the top of each roll and set aside.
Cut a 2-inch wide, V-shape wedge down the length of every roll (as they do at Subway). Keep bread wedges for another use.
Drain vegetable mixture. Line each roll with a lettuce leaf then spoon vegetable mixture evenly on top, cover with roll tops.
These healthy sandwich recipes without meat make a great snack or light luncheon and can be kept fresh in a luncheon box all day.
If you would like to read more about Welsh food, food in general or cooking eggs in particular, please visit Traditional Welsh Recipes
Filed under Uncategorized by on Dec 23rd, 2011. Comment. 
French dip sandwich recipes are very popular. The French dip sandwich was discovered by accident by a Frenchman, but he was not living in France. He had emigrated to the United States and was resident in Los Angeles. Philippe Mathieu had opened his sandwich bar and delicatessen called ‘Philippe The Original’ on North Alameda Street in 1908, but the Eureka moment came ten years later when a policeman came in to order a beef sandwich.
Philippe accidentally dropped it in the pan in which the beef had been cooked, yet served it up anyway. The policeman came back with a few friends the next day to try the ‘dipped’ sandwich so the French dip sandwich was born. The sandwich bar is still there and still serving French dip sandwich recipes nearly 90 years later.
Being French, Philippe would have called his sandwiches ‘au jus’, which is the same as ‘with juice’, but many Americans do not know this and ask for their French dip sandwiches ‘with au jus’. These days, the sauce is frequently specially made or concocted separately so that it is far more elaborate than only the meat juices from the tray, but you can make it as complicated or as easy as you want. There is also no reason why you can not make up vegetarian or fish French dip sandwich recipes
Recipe 1
French Dip Sandwich Serves 4
1 can Franco-American Au Jus Gravy 4 servings thinly sliced roast beef 4 servings French bread or long hard rolls, cut in half along the length
In a 10 inch skillet, combine gravy with beef. Over a gentle heat, warm through, stirring occasionally.
To prepare the sandwiches, place the beef on the bread. Serve each sandwich with small bowl of gravy for dipping.
Recipe 2
French Dip Sandwich Au Jus Serves 8
3 pounds beef, chuck, trimmed 2 cups water 1/2 cup soy sauce 1 teaspoon dried rosemary 1 teaspoon dried thyme 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 bay leaf 3 peppercorns (3 to 4) 8 French rolls, cut lengthways
Put beef in a slow cooker. Add water, soy sauce, and seasonings. Cover then cook on HIGH for 5-6 hours or until beef is soft.
Remove meat from juices; pull apart with forks and keep warm. Strain juices; skim off fat. Pour juices into small cups for dipping. Serve beef on toasted rolls.
Recipe 3
French Dip Sandwiches Serves 4
1 long loaf French bread 1/2 pound cooked roast beef (from deli or leftovers) 1 package roast beef au jus gravy 4 tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon garlic powder
Cut French bread in half lengthwise. Spread with butter and sprinkle with garlic. Wrap in foil and heat in oven until warm. Mix gravy as directed on package and reheat beef in juice. Drain beef from gravy then put on bottom half of warm bread. Put top on sandwich then cut up. Put gravy into small bowls (one for every person). Dip sandwich in gravy to eat.
Serve with French fries and a salad.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with low cholesterol diet recipes. If you want to know more, please visit our site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
Filed under Uncategorized by on Dec 23rd, 2011. Comment.
It is very handy to know something about the most common constituents of foodstuffs, so that you can use this knowledge to your advantage whilst choosing and cooking food. The more you know about the constituents of food the better prepared you will be to select the best method of preparing that food. In this piece we will talk about some constituents of food.
Carbohydrates are a concentrated kind of energy as is fat. However, the two substances differ in a number of ways, not least in that fat supplies energy in a very concentrated kind whereas carbohydrates deliver energy in a more economical fashion. Over indulging in either fats or carbohydrates will result in becoming overweight fairly quickly.
Therefore, this is the region that dieters must concentrate on, although ‘experts’ do not agree which is the most damaging. Traditional diets recommend cutting back on fats, whereas some more contemporary diets recommend practically eliminating carbohydrates from one’s diet.
The fact is that the body and most of the food that we put into it is made up of chemical elements, the most important of which are nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Protein is the only thing that we eat that contains nitrogen, which goes a long way to account for why protein is indispensable to us.
Protein is also the most difficult substance to find in the vegetarian diet. It is not impossible by any means, but the options are severely restricted because most individuals get their protein from meat, fish, dairy and eggs.
The other three elements: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are constituents of carbohydrates. In fact, the very word ‘carbohydrate’ suggests the names of those three elements. ‘Carbo’ – carbon and ‘hydrate’ – hydrogen and oxygen, as in water. Carbohydrates are most extant in starches and sugars.
Starch is one of the most omnipresent kinds of carbohydrate. It is found exclusively in vegetables and pulses et cetera. While starch is boiled, it expands and bursts its cell walls causing water to thicken but when it is cooked with dry heat, it melts and turns into dextrine, which is a stage before it becomes sugar.
Sugar is another important constituent of carbohydrates and is also found usually in vegetables and fruit, although there is also some in milk in the form or lactose. Corn produces glucose. Young vegetables contain sugar, but as they get older it becomes starch.
Sugar melts with the application of heat, but if it is already in liquid form, it will give off water and begin to caramelize. The distinctive colour or caramel is brown, yet if it is over cooked, it becomes dark brown and bitter. Sugar in fruit and vegetables will leak out into boiling water and so will be lost, unless that water is retrieved and used elsewhere.
Cellulose is a kind of carbohydrate closely related to starch. It is to be found in the structure of plants and vegetables but although it is largely indigestible, it cannot be left out of the human diet. Cellulose surrounds the goodness we are searching for in vegetables, so by cooking this food we are attempting to break down the cellulose to release the goodness.
Young vegetables have thinner cellulose than older ones, which is why some vegetables have to be cooked quickly and fiercely whilst others have to be cooked slowly but gently.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with how to cook for diabetics. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Dec 21st, 2011. Comment.
Western people really like bread, although not everyone eats it because it is fattening. Eating a lot of bread is fattening, but decent bread is very sustaining, so there is no requirement to over indulge, which means that it does not have to become a burden on your waist band.
Likewise, decent bread does not require butter or margarine, so that is another saving on calories and fat.
Bread can also be a good source of dietary fibre and once you have consumed real bread, you will never go back to white, sliced, supermarket bread. In fact, it is the white, sliced bread that gives bread such a bad reputation.
These recipes are meant to be mixed and baked in a bread making machine, but they can be prepared by hand as well. I have used a bread making machine for years, but I used to mix it by hand before that, and I can honestly say that I can not differentiate between them.
Furthermore, the machine saves a lot of time and because it bakes on a timer, you can wake up to the smell of fresh bread every morning, if you want.
Recipe 1
Celery Bread
1 sachet yeast 1/4 teaspoon ginger 1/4 teaspoon sugar 3 cups Better for Bread flour 1/2 cup quick-cooking oats 2 tablespoons gluten 2 teaspoons celery seeds 1 1/2 teaspoons celery, garlic or onion salt 3/4 cup celery — fresh / slice thin 1 tablespoon celery leaves, fresh / chopped 1 egg 10 3/4 ounces cream of celery soup 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 3 tablespoons warm low-fat milk
Combine all ingredients and bake
Recipe 2
Citrus Bread
2/3 cup water 2 cups white bread flour 1 teaspoon dry milk 2 teaspoons sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon butter 2 tablespoons orange marmalade 2 teaspoons lime juice 1 pinch lemon peel 2 teaspoons yeast (active, dry)
Blend all items and bake.
Recipe 3
Chart House Squaw Bread
1 1/4 cups warm water 2 tablespoons molasses 1/2 teaspoon caramel coloring * — optional. 1 1/2 teaspoons malted barley flour ** 2 cups bread flour 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup unprocessed bran or wheat bran 1/4 cup dark brown sugar (3 TB) 1 1/2 tablespoons oat bran 1 1/2 tablespoons rolled oats 2 teaspoons granola 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (1 envelope)
Oil and / or butter are not required.
* Caramel colouring is merely used to give the bread an almost pumpernickel colour. You can get it in a cake decorating store . ** The malted barley flour is also called diastatic malt powder.
In a basin mix the bread flour, whole wheat flour, unprocessed bran, dark brown sugar, oat bran, rolled oats, granola, malted barley flour and salt.
In a bread pan add water, molasses, and caramel colouing. Add flour mixture; top off with yeast and choose dark bread setting.
NOTE: Raisins may be added if required. If you do, eliminate the caramel colouring and liquefy in water, 1/4 cup raisins, molasses and brown sugar before adding to the machine.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on a number of topics, but is at present concerned with Recipes to Lower Your High Blood Pressure. If you want to know more, go to our web site at Gourmet Recipes and Good Health.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Nov 27th, 2011. Comment.
If we review the Acai berries in detail, we uncover them being an awesome present of nature since they might be small, but do pack a good deal of diet in them. In terms of excess weight loss, Acai berries have already been confirmed to extend the stage of good fats and reduce the level of lousy fats within the body.
It has also been found the antioxidants in Acai berries improve the metabolic pace of the individual and make his excess fat burn up faster in order to get rid of it quickly. That is why most people are switching to Acai Berries Body weight Damage plans instead using on unsafe artificial goods that pose aspect consequences.
The Acai berry nutritional supplements are abundant in anti-oxidants, which by themselves neutralize fats, possibly deriving electricity from them or converting them into practical substances to the facilitation of the progress of healthy hair, bones, nails and skin.
It is just a regarded reality that in the event you any fruit as aspect of the day-to-day diet, you’re sure to get sure wellbeing added benefits. By way of example, the stating goes “an apple each day keeps the physician away”. Similarly, you will discover added benefits to become recognized with the usage of just about every fruit. Just take the case in point of Acai Berry. The Acai Berry is a small purplish red colored berry, which grows from the rainforests of Amazon region in Brazil.
It is a smaller sized berry, while using pulp consisting of about ten to twenty percent from the complete berry measurement, although the remainder of the berry is its seed. In spite of the pulp in these smaller dimensions, it can be loaded which has a good deal of carbohydrates for that provision of power, proteins for the growth of muscle mass, very good fats in order to keep the skin and hair nutritious, vitamins to help together with the bodily processes and anti-oxidants to help the human body turn out to be proof against disorders and fight the indicators of ageing.
In case you are around the research for all-natural anti-oxidants, then you definitely should use the Acai berry, for that Acai Berry Antioxidant stage is incredibly large as compared to other fruits. When in comparison to other fruits, the stage of antioxidants is twenty days larger than red wine and is ten days larger compared to Noni berry. When blueberries are compared to Acai, they may be 50 % as strong as Acai berry, even though they may be taken to be one of the most strong and nutritious berries from the globe.
The antioxidants packed up through the Acai berry are many of the ideal and richest antioxidants when it comes to the upkeep and servicing of the well being. Do you think you might want to pay attention to states which can be expressing accounts in relation to home perserving of acai berries correct aspects of most of these claims? They assist immensely in retaining the organs and bodily functions in order, motivate healthful snooze, give the system with power, sooth the skin and hair and enhance the sex generate and enhance the body and spirit to generate the particular person really feel young.
Do you reckon you need to focus on assertions mentioning testimonies close to colour of best acai berry plus the balanced conveniences of most of these says?
Filed under Uncategorized by on Nov 18th, 2011. Comment.
Omega 3 essential fatty acids, frequently merely referred to as omega 3 fish oils are called essential, because they are very important to our well-being, but our bodies cannot create them in the quantity that we require them. Therefore, we have to consume them. These omega 3 fish oils are chiefly found in oily fish like salmon, herring and mackerel.
Omega 3 contains two fatty acids that are very beneficial for human beings. These fatty acids are called DHA and EPA. So, the answer is to consume more fish, right? Well, yes and no. For decades, dietitians and doctors recommended eating at least two portions of oily fish a week. However, these days fish is polluted with heavy metals particularly mercury.
Mercury is highly toxic to human beings, so that is the dilemma. We should eat more fish, but many individuals believe that fish is now too toxic for us to eat. Scientists have stepped up to the breach and extracted fish oils from fish and then extracted the heavy metals from those oils.
This puts us back on an even keel. Now you can get your essential fatty acids DHA and EPA without poisoning yourself in the process . These omega 3 fish oils are normally put into capsules and sold as supplements.
Omega 3 fatty acids have been linked with the prevention and retardation of a number of very dangerous human diseases like cancer, diabetes, macular degeneration, high blood pressure, high levels of cholesterol and atherosclerosis. DHA in particular is very useful to the brain where it acts to reduce the rate of memory loss and reduce the likelihood of Alzheimer’s
A low amount of DHA has also been associated with depression and schizophrenia. It is fairly clear to doctors and dietitians that these omega 3 fish oils really are essential to our well-being.
Despite being able to derive omega 3 from fish oil, fish do not make it themselves either. Rather these fatty acids are present in the foodstuff that they eat such as algae and krill. Krill oil is a relatively recently uncovered source of omega 3. It contains less of the oils, about 63% of that in fish, but the advantageous effects are comparable.
Green-lipped mussels from New Zealand are another rich source of these fish oils. In fact they contain a slightly different blend of omega 3 which looks as if it will greatly help counteract inflammation. Inflammation is a key contributing factor in arthritis.
Other, land-based sources of omega 3, do not contain DHA or EPA, but they are helpful anyway. Some of these sources are walnuts, pecan nuts, butternuts and some seeds particularly flax and hemp.
Grass-fed meat and free-range chickens and their eggs also contain omega 3, but again, not the vital DHA and EPA acids.
How much omega 3 should you eat? Well, there is no ‘recommended daily amount’ (RDA) as with vitamins, but the American Heart Association (AHA) suggests 1.6 grammes/day for men and 1.1 grammes/day for women, but the absolute calorific value should be between 0.6 and 1.2% of your daily amount.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several subjects, and is now concerned with pure omega 3. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Omega 6 9
Filed under Uncategorized by on Nov 17th, 2011. Comment.
We are all more conscious of our health these days, probably because fewer of us work strenuously physically any more, our diet of junk food has turned us into blobs and the health care industry is constantly warning us how unhealthy we are in order to sell us more treatments. Whatever the reasons, most people are trying more to take care of themselves.
There are different ways to attacking this problem of being unhealthy and some of the reason for this depends on why you are unhealthy and some of it on your personal approach to things. For instance, some people will know that they have got into an unhealthy rut and will make lifestyle changes like exercising more and eating more healthily, whereas others will buy a load of pills and hope that they work.
Then there is the middle road. We are busy and we do not all have an hour a day to spend at the gym and some of us could not work out even if we wished to. So, the middle way, might be to exercise as frequently as you can by walking or practicing yoga at home; eating more healthy food, that is foodstuff that you can eat raw or that you cook yourself and by taking a couple of supplements.
Which supplements might you decide on? Well, that actually depends on your diet. There is not much point in taking calcium tablets if you eat cheese sandwiches for lunch, a T-bone steak for dinner and drink milk every day, but there might be a decent reason for taking calcium supplements if you are a vegan.
I have a friend who will not eat vegetables and especially greens, but, knowing that his diet lacks roughage amongst other things, he eats porridge for breakfast and snacks on fruit. Another friend hates fish, he cannot even look at it, but he is aware of the value of omega 3 essential fatty acids and so he takes it in the form of capsules. He almost certainly gets more omega 3 than I do and I love fish.
So, the first thing to do is note down everything that you eat for a week or two and then analyze what is lacking in your diet. The analysis might be beyond you, although it probably is not, but you could take your diary or food to your medical doctor or dietitian. It might surprise you a great deal to find out precisely what you eat over a week.
As a point of interest, the majority of rural Thais do not eat beef or produce cheese or drink milk, so over the centuries they have added small bones to their diet. In the West if we get a tiny bone in our mouth, we tend to remove it, but a Thai will crunch it to tiny pieces and swallow it – fish bones, small bird bones, frogs bones. Not only does it replace the missing calcium but it keeps their teeth strong in a country that is only now creating dentistry for the masses.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several topics, and is now concerned with pure omega 3. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at Omega 6 9
Filed under Uncategorized by on Aug 5th, 2011. Comment.
In spite of the alternative of the Atkins diet, most individuals who diet take the advice of reducing their fat intake in order to reduce their bulk, which is fat. However, there is not a lot of evidence to support the theory that decreasing the consumption of fat will reduce how much fat you amass on your body.
The only strategy that can work in the long term, if you would like to lose weight, is to use up more calories than you take in. However, there is a lot of proof to say that we require some oil and in particular some oils in our diet. This makes sense even on the most simple level, you need some oil (read ‘fat’) in order to oil your joints.
It therefore makes sense that athletes and individuals who have a strenuous job also require oil in some amount. However, it does not follow that eating just any oil or fat will be decent enough. There are beneficial fats and ‘bad’ fats, although we even need some of the bad fats. The concerns arise when we eat too much bat fat and not enough useful fat.
In other words, if our diet gets out of balance. For example, animal fats (such as saturated fats) have a blanket ‘bad’ reputation, but they supply our bodies with such vital vitamins as A,D, E and K. Likewise fish oil supplies our bodies with Omega 3 essential fatty acids that it is impossible to get from land-based foodstuffs.
These vitamins and oils in their most available forms come from dead animals. In the case of the long-chain omega 3 essential fatty acids like EPA and DHA, you can just get them from sea creatures, although you can derive the short-chain omega 3′s from some land-based sources.
These vitamins and essential oils are crucial to all human life but even more so to finely-tuned sports individuals who need to be able to utilize all their physical and mental powers in order to get to the top of their professions.
Omega 3 essential fatty acids come in two broad types, long-chain and short-chain varieties but they are not interchangeable. You require both sorts. Short chain you can acquire from flaxseed oil and it also has omega 6 in it too, although it is considered by many that most people eat far too much omega 6 as it is present in all vegetable cooking oils.
Oily fish delivers the long-chain omega 3′s, so cod liver oil is a good source of these. These omega 3′s are literally ‘brain food’ and it is the reason why parents have been saying for hundreds of years that fish is brain food, although they certainly would not have known the exact reason why.
Cod liver oil also provides a variety of other vitamins and nutrients including vitamin D, which you could synthesize from the sunshine, if the ozone layer was not so depleted as to make going out perilous and we didn’t nearly all work indoors.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, and is now concerned with pure omega 3. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Omega 6 9
Filed under Uncategorized by on Jul 29th, 2011. Comment.
There is nothing per se wrong with following a vegetarian regime if you are expecting a baby. Whether you were a vegetarian before you became pregnant or you have chosen to be a vegetarian now that you are pregnant, the issue is the same as that for all mothers-to-be: namely, to make sure that you and the baby have all the vitamins and nutrients that you both need.
This is a somewhat harder quest if you are only beginning down the vegetarian road because of your lack of information, yet it is not that hard. There is so much knowledge on the Net and in books now, and the doctors will be monitoring you, so you should not miss out on anything you both require.
Your baby will have to grow a few pounds of bones, so calcium is one of your main priorities but it is also one of the nutrients that a non-vegetarian can leave meat to provide. If you are at the stage of being a vegetarian where you eat meals of meat and three veg but without the meat, you must have a serious rethink, and you could take supplements and eat tofu, broccoli and other dark green leafy vegetables like spinach and cabbage.
Vitamin D is simple, yet you do require a regular quantity of it. Our skin synthesizes Vitamin D from sunlight, so you need to go out in the sun for half an hour a day or more. However, it is no good going out in the midday sun with suntan lotion on.
It is better to go outside in the early morning or late afternoon when the sun is less expected to burn you. It does not even have to be bright sunlight for your body to make Vitamin D.
Vitamin B12 is abundant in red meat, yet hardly present at all in plants. However, there are a few vegetable sources of vitamin B12: soya (tofu) is one of them and vitamin-enhanced vegetarian products (normally cereals) are another.
Even so, you will almost certainly have to take supplements to acquire enough vitamin B12 for an expectant mother. Fortunately, your doctor will be keeping an eye on your Vitamin B12 intake and he or she will be able to counsel you.
You will also need lots of iron, which is also plentiful in meat, and also in many vegetables. You have to have iron to keep your blood in decent shape and a lack of iron shows up as aenemia.
Again, dark green, leafy vegetables are the recipe of the day here as are beans, seeds and nuts. However, due to the amount of iron that you will need, you might need supplements for this one as well.
You require protein. A normal diet gets protein from dairy products like milk and cheese; from eggs and from meat and fish. You may or you may not be eating some of those products, but if you are not then you will need to derive your protein from somewhere else. Tofu is a decent source of vegetable protein, but vegetable protein is a pretty difficult one to find if you do not like tofu.
You will require zinc which again is abundant in meat. If you are looking for a vegetable source there are lots in all manner of grains – all the different sorts of grains including those used for bread,
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on numerous topics, and is now concerned with low fat low cholesterol diets. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at http://vegetariancasserolerecipes.com
Filed under Uncategorized by on Jul 18th, 2011. Comment.
Some individuals have always stated that some fruits, nuts or vegetables are super foods. This is a contentious issue, but it has to be a fact that some foodstuffs are better for you than others, but whether it is justifiable to hype up a foodstuff for a quick sale is another topic. Blueberries are a case in point. Are blueberries a super fruit or not?
Advocates of blueberries say that they are rich in antioxidants and that they are able to improve vision and reduce eye strain; enhance brain and memory functions and combat urinary tract infections (UTI’s). Blueberries are said to be rich in antioxidants and anthocyanins, but what are they?
Well, antioxidants are said to counteract the effects of oxidation and free radicals, which are often associated with the development of cancer and anthocyanins are a kind of flavonoids, which are also an anti-carcinogen.
Blueberries are also in the bottom category of the Glycemic Index. The Glycemic Index uses white bread as the marker against which every foodstuff is measured. Above 70 is thought to be high; between 56 and 59 is medium and below 55 is low. Blueberries, at 53, is at the high end of low. This is not important knowledge for many individuals, but it is important for dieters and diabetics.
Blueberries are said to improve eyesight because of the anthocyanins, which strengthen the capillaries, which would help the flow of blood to the eyes, which may help conserve vision. This would relieve eye strain or eye tiredness
If this assists preserve vision, it would also delay hair loss, because hair loss is normally associated with a lack of blood/nutrition to the hair follicles which then simply die of starvation, as in male pattern baldness.
Blueberries are a fruit high in flavonoids which are antioxidants as stated above. Some individuals claim that flavonoids can improve the connections between neurons in the brain, which would probably raise mental capacity.
It may also slow down the degeneration of brain cells and so also the traditionally-perceived degeneration in mental capacity that is associated with old age. If this is a fact, then the consumption of blueberries would also help slow down the progression of lack of motor control: that is, it could help the elderly move more smoothly, less inelegantly.
However, the same people will admit that to make a 5-6% improvement in motor skills would probably take a daily consumption of around 100 grammes per day, which is naturally not an insignificant amount, even if you like them and grow them yourself.
It has also been stated that the daily consumption of blueberries reduces the level of LDL in the blood, which is popularly called ‘bad cholesterol’.
If you would like to test the effects of eating blueberries on yourself, here are a few suggestions on how you can incorporate them into your diet.
Fresh blueberries: eat while in season and freeze as much as you can get hold of.
Frozen blueberries: cook in pancakes, muffins and put in home-made ice-cream.
Dried blueberries: eat like raisins as a snack or coat in chocolate.
In this way, you will be able to answer the question for yourself : blueberries are they a super fruit?
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with detox diet menus. If you want to know more, just visit our site at http://vegetariancasserolerecipes.com
Filed under Uncategorized by on Jul 12th, 2011. Comment.