0 Want to Look More Attractive to the Opposite Sex?!

 One of the Surprising Benefits of Vegetables, Plus More on Veggie Awesome-ness!



 A RAINBOW of beautiful, bright, and bold colors!
The more COLORFUL, the more BENEFICIAL!
PHYTOCHEMICALS are a wide variety substances found in plants.
They WORK TOGETHER to help our BODIES
Via antioxidants, cancer protection, anti-aging, and more!

COMING SOON: Specifics on phytochemicals and COLOR in a future post!

VEGGIES are SUPER for WEIGHT LOSS

There are many reasons for weight loss associated with fruit and veggie intake!
More FIBER and WATER: these fill you up -- so you won't eat as much!
And keep you FULL longer -- so you won't eat as often!

Here are a couple of cool visuals from the CDC:

Compare a serving of corn chips to fresh produce and you can have
strawberries, an apple, carrots and a low-fat dip for the same number of calories!!

If you read much ww.fresh-you.com,
you know I love dates, AND think they are super nutritious,
TRY LARABALLS and Peanut Butter COOKIES!!
...but they are also calorie-dense :)

Check out this comparison of dried fruit to fresh:
1/4 c raisins and 1 whole cup grapes have the same number of calories.

For a bit more on weight loss:

Wonder about Wheat and Weight Loss?

Something else you might find interesting:
5 Big Reasons to Make Your Meat Portions Small

Plus a pamphlet from the CDC called
"How to use fruits and vegetables to manage your weight."

LOOKING HEALTHIER and MORE ATTRACTIVE

THIS IS SO COOL!
Eating 3 more veggie servings for 6 weeks
resulted in this lovely GLOW shown in photo below on the right!
And according to one study
 that glow results in INCREASED perceived HEALTHINESS
and ATTRACTIVENESS to the opposite sex!
(in facial skin)  

 

Photo courtesy of the study carried out at University of St Andrews' School of Psychology. 

It has to do with CAROTENOIDS... the pigment that makes carrots orange,
among many other bright colored produce!
Look for MORE on PHYTOCHEMICALS (Carotenoids are one of hundreds!) in a future post!

HEALTHY BLOOD PRESSURE

More veggies = more potassium = LOWER blood pressure!  Read on...

High blood pressure is a "silent killer"since there are no symptoms...

up to HALF of Americans with the condition DON'T even know it!

Hypertension (high blood pressure) is disastrous to our bodies!  It causes all sorts of problems including: damage to our EYES, ARTERIES, HEART, BRAIN (dementia, cognitive impairment, and stroke), KIDNEYS, sexual dysfunction (in males AND FEMALES), and more!

For a nice summary with details of these changes from the Mayo Clinic click here.

What is ONE easy way to lower our blood pressure?

There are many things one can do, including changes in LIFESTYLE and OTHER DIET changes, but today, let's talk POTASSIUM -- the MORE you consume, the lower your blood pressure will be!  It blunts the hypertensive effect of sodium!

Besides bananas, the MAJORITY OF ALL fruits and vegetables are rich sources of POTASSIUM!

If you have kidney problems, please consult your doctor before making a change in your diet, as potassium levels need be monitored closely with such conditions.


Here is a link to a great summary of one study done at St Andrews Medical School in London.
Here is a link to an abstract of another study done at University of Navarra in Pamploma, Spain.

(They found a high fruit and veggie intake was associated with lower BP.)

Want Fresh, Local, and Organic Veggies all through the Growing Season?!  Check this out!!!

COMMENTS:  Why do you eat your veggies SPECIFICALLY?  Just curious!  Something your mom always said?  News report?

Detail: Want to Look More Attractive to the Opposite Sex?!

0 Nut-Free, Gluten-Free No-Bake Crusty Apple Pie

To describe it, APPLE PIE -slash- PIE CRUST!

This isn't super-sweet, but remember there isn't any sugar!!

Something else the taste sort of reminds me of is granola -- tell me what you think when you try it!

It has 2 INGREDIENTS!

This is the first Laraball with sunflower seeds -- so it's a safe snack for those of you with TREE NUT Allergies (or more likely moms with KIDS who have this allergy!), NOW you can try a Laraball!

Laraballs are always GLUTEN-FREE too!

If you like how it tastes, or even if not, you can still try the other flavors with sunflower seeds substituted for the nuts in any recipe.  Tell me what you think!

No-Bake Crusty Apple Pie

1/2 c sunflower seeds, raw, unsalted
1/2 c dried apples, unsweetened (or you can try it with some raisins and cherries)

Add 1 tsp water if mixture seems dry.
Optional: vanilla, cinnamon (I really didn't prefer the versions that included either, though there were a few raisins and cherries in all of my batches.


I used the fruit from a package from Costco -- see ingredients list below:
Ingredients list: apples, raisins, cherries.  (AWESOME!!)

The brand is Peeled Snacks and they also sell cherries-only packs that come out to I think $16/lb (with Subscribe & Save through amazon.com), pretty expensive, makes me really want to consider trying a dehydrator, at least for expensive fruits or veggies, like cherries, not going for it yet though!

PS - the plastic container shown in first photo on the post is a baby food container, roughly the size of one part of an ice cube tray - my sister-in-law got them for me, 6 years ago!  So this is the best version I found on amazon: Laraball containers (as I use them for, and our family now calls them!).

SHARE IF YOU DARE!  What do you splurge on, food-wise?  I think organic chicken is one thing for me, perhaps dried cherries that are unsweetened -- Whole Foods USED to offer them!

Detail: Nut-Free, Gluten-Free No-Bake Crusty Apple Pie