\n But human nature being what it is, we are often not that prudent and find it hard to deny ourselves our favourite treats.\n<\/p>\n
\n My suggestion this week is that we find another approach to the problem, which is to add healthier options to our existing diets.\n<\/p>\n
\n This feels less punishing and rather more fun.\n<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s also a strategy of the Zoe Project who know everything there is to know about eating well for our bodies and minds.\n<\/p>\n
\n So, let\u2019s look at what it\u2019s good to add and why.\n<\/p>\n
\n Most of us know we should eat more plant foods to help our gut and heart to become healthier.\n<\/p>\n
\n But if you mention the words salad, or broccoli, to many individuals \u2013 particularly those who are male \u2013 you may be met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, there are plenty of plant foods that don\u2019t involve green leaves of any kind \u2013 including plant milks, nuts, seeds, grains, fruits, different coloured vegetables, plus herbs and spices.\n<\/p>\n
\n You can also include dark chocolate so long as it contains no less than 70 per cent cocoa.\n<\/p>\n
\n Start with breakfast.\n<\/p>\n
\n Try eating fresh fruit, such as pineapple or an orange, after your toast and marmalade, or add a variety of nuts and seeds to your cereal.\n<\/p>\n
\n Later in the day, add tomatoes to sandwiches or pizza.\n<\/p>\n
\n Transform your chilli con carne by adding spinach and black beans on the side.\n<\/p>\n
\n Add summer fruits, which are plentiful right now, to a dish of ice cream.\n<\/p>\n
\n And enjoy a couple of pieces of dark chocolate rather than a biscuit with your after-dinner coffee.\n<\/p>\n
\n Talking of coffee, you will doubtless have heard of polyphenols.\n<\/p>\n
\n Most of us get a generous dose of them when we drink coffee and that applies to both decaffeinated and caffeinated versions.\n<\/p>\n
\n Polyphenols are also present in many other plant foods and are known to improve heart health, reduce the risk of diabetes and inflammation in the body, boost gut health and memory, and enhance our cognitive ability.\n<\/p>\n
\n A type of polyphenol, called flavonoids, is also useful in helping to reduce blood pressure.\n<\/p>\n
\n Flavonoids are found in many foods including blueberries and strawberries.\n<\/p>\n
\n Other foods that help to lower blood pressure naturally include olive oil, beetroot, cocoa, grapes, garlic and tomatoes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Eating them won\u2019t mean you can immediately discard your hypertensive drugs if you\u2019re on them, but these food items should help you manage your condition better and might in time mean you can go onto a lower dose of your medicine.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fatigue is often a big enemy as we age and can make living more positively and actively quite difficult.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to experts at Harvard University, one reason for tiredness is that we produce less ATP (adenosine triphosphate) than we used to, which is the molecule that delivers energy to our body cells.\n<\/p>\n
\n They advise us to boost energy by eating fewer processed foods and replacing them with whole foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, fish, chicken, nuts and seeds.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last week, I gave a talk in Bury St Edmunds to the Oddfellows Friendly Society.\n<\/p>\n
\n They were a fascinating and lively group who were very keen to learn more about positive ageing.\n<\/p>\n
\n We had a Q and A session after the talk and one gentleman wanted my opinion on palm oil.\n<\/p>\n
\n As he pointed out, and many of you are also doubtless aware, palm oil is often produced in an unsustainable way.\n<\/p>\n
\n In fact, I read this week that the expansion of palm oil plantations adversely affects over half of the world’s threatened mammals and nearly two-thirds of its threatened birds.\n<\/p>\n
\n So, there are already good reasons for avoiding it, but there\u2019s another, which is that palm oil is not regarded as a healthy oil, because of its large saturated fat content.\n<\/p>\n
\n Unfortunately, it\u2019s not easy to find out what foodstuffs contain it, because manufacturers often hide it in the list of ingredients under different names such as vegetable oil or vegetable fat.\n<\/p>\n
\n Finally, there is one more addition you might want to include in your diet.\n<\/p>\n
\n I read recently in New Scientist and elsewhere that there are good reasons why those of us over 60 should take a multivitamin tablet daily.\n<\/p>\n
\n For a start, these pills contain safe levels of a wide range of the vitamins that we require for good health.\n<\/p>\n
\n Secondly, some scientists now also believe that taking a daily multivitamin may slow cognitive decline.\n<\/p>\n
\n So, let\u2019s have a think about adding healthy options to our current diet.\n<\/p>\n
\n One of the benefits of doing so is that these new items should help us feel full and satisfied and less in need of large amounts of those foods we love but know we should really avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But human nature being what it is, we are often not that prudent and find it hard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,85,46,543],"class_list":["post-580356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}