HEALTH TIPS

Vegetable Juice

Drinking at least one glass of low-sodium vegetable juice daily may help overweight dieters lose more weight.

In a study, adults who drank at least 8 ounces of vegetable juice as part of a diet lost 4 pounds over 12 weeks, while those who followed the same diet but did not drink the juice lost only 1 pound. The vegetable juice drinkers also significantly increased their intake of vitamin C and potassium, while decreasing their overall carbohydrate intake.

It's possible that vegetable juice helps reduce appetite. In addition, vegetable juice drinkers are more likely to get the recommended 3 to 5 servings of vegetables daily.

 

Fruit Salads

              Fruits, admirable as they are, do not prepare the palate and stomach for food to come. A fruit "cocktail" or any other sweet and flowery food, has none of the appetizer property of alcoholic or shellfish cocktails that derive their virtue, in fact, from being removed as far as possible from that end of the gastronomic spectrum. Grapefruit is perhaps the best fruit to serve as a "salad" at the start of a meal, but it does not really prepare the way for meat and vegetables. In any case, no cherry on top, please, lest someone make the mistake of eating it. Even a trace of imitation maraschino flavour plays havoc with a sensitive palate, and pineapple is almost as bad. Such flavours are useful to write "finis" to a meal.

              California invented the fruit salad, which was intended in fact to be a salad. It is really much better in its British translation eaten as a sweet. From California also came the salad meal. We suspect that a main appeal of the salad meal is the ill-founded belief that it is singularly healthful and won't make you fat. A meal of salad can have those properties, but when it contains half a pound of Blue cheese and a teacupful of mayonnaise it is low neither in calories nor in fat.

              An excellent low-calorie meal can be provided by a cup of soup and a fruit "salad" such as pear with cottage cheese. You can even add dates or raisins and chopped nuts if that is your fancy (not ours!) and a small bit of sharp cheese is permissible, but don't ruin the idea by pouring great quantities of salad dressing over the whole.

IMPORTANCE OF VEGETABLES

Nutrition

             Vegetables are rich and comparatively cheaper source of vitamins. Consumption of these items provides taste, palatability, increases appetite and provides fiber for digestion and to prevent constipation. Their consumption in plenty fair amount of protein. They also play key role in neutralizing the acids produced during digestion of pretentious and fatty foods and also provide valuable roughages which help in movement of food in intestine.

Some of the vegetables are good sources of carbohydrates (leguminous vegetables, sweet potato, potato, onion, garlic and methi) proteins (peas, beams, leafy vegetables and garlic) vitamin A (carrot, tomato, drumstick, leafy vegetables), Vitamin B (peas, garlic and tomato), Vitamin C (green chillies, drumstick leaves, Cole crops, leafy vegetables and leaves of radish) minerals (leafy vegetables, drumstick pods). As per dietician, daily requirement of vegetables is 75 - 125 g of green leafy vegetables, 85 g of other vegetables and 85 g of roots and tubers with other food.

As Food:

              Food production is increasing. If is essential to sustain increased production besides nutritional standard of people. It can be increased by increasing production of vegetables which will help to solve food problem as yield of vegetable crops is 4 to 10 times more than cereals. Thus, vegetables play a vital role on food front as they are cheapest-sources of natural foods and can admirably supplement the main cereals of the country.

HONEY BEE

Royal jelly

Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae and adult queens. It is secreted from the glands in thehypopharynx of worker bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony

When worker bees decide to make a new queen, either because the old one is weakening, or was killed, they choose several small larvae and feed them with copious amounts of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.

GOOSEBERRY

Medicinal use

Raw Gooseberries

            In traditional Indian medicine, dried and fresh fruits of the plant are used. All parts of the plant are used in various Ayurvedic/Unani medicine (Jawarish amla) herbal preparations, including the fruit, seed, leaves, root, bark and flowers. According to Ayurveda, aamla fruit is sour (amla) and astringent (kashaya) in taste (rasa), with sweet (madhura), bitter (tikta) and pungent (katu) secondary tastes (anurasas) Its qualities (gunas) are light (laghu) and dry (ruksha), the postdigestive effect (vipaka) is sweet (madhura), and its energy (virya) is cooling (shita)

Indian Gooseberry( amla)

            According to Ayurveda, aamla balances all three doshas. While aamla is unusual in that it contains five out of the six tastes recognized by Ayurved, it is most important to recognize the effects of the "virya", or potency, and "vipaka", or post-digestive effect. Considered in this light, aamla is particularly helpful in reducing pitta due to its cooling energy and balances both Pitta and vata by virtue of its sweet taste. The kapha is balanced primarily due to its drying action. It may be used as a rasayana (rejuvenative) to promote longevity, and traditionally to enhance digestion (dipanapachana), treat constipation (anuloma), reduce fever (jvaraghna), purify the blood (raktaprasadana), reduce cough (kasahara), alleviate asthma (svasahara), strengthen the heart (hrdaya), benefit the eyes (chakshushya), stimulate hair growth (romasanjana), enliven the body (jivaniya), and enhance intellect (medhya)

           In Ayurvedic polyherbal formulations, Indian gooseberry is a common constituent, and most notably is the primary ingredient in an ancient herbal rasayana called Chyawanprash. This formula, which contains 43 herbal ingredients as well as clarified butter, sesame oil, sugar cane juice, and honey, was first mentioned in the Charaka Samhita as a premier rejuvenative compound

THE FRUITS

              
The Real Medicine
             

          In as much as how antioxidants are richly present in almost all plant foods, fruit has always been preventive medicine throughout history and today. More than 900 phytochemicals have been discovered in fruits, vegetables and plant derivatives, such as teas. Increasingly, scientists are seeing both correlative and causative relationships between fruit consumption and positive health outcomes. A good example are the native Amazonians, whose diets are largely plant-based. They experience almost no cardiovascular diseases, diabetes or cancer--a correlation that researchers are studying. Amazon people traditionally used acai fruit as medicine for gastrointestinal problems, but some believe its medicinal value goes far beyond that.

             Scientists at the Western Human Nutrition Research Center, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture in Davis, California, are studying the health effects of common fruits, including grapes and strawberries. They have thus far established that phytochemicals from each of these can kill acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells in a laboratory setting. The same research team has found that mice with Type 1 diabetes halted the progression of their disease by eating a small amount of a freeze-dried powder derived from table grapes.

               The widely cited and respected Andrew Weil, M.D., is a strong proponent of eating fruits and vegetables as a means to reduce the degenerative effects and diseases of aging. The Harvard-trained Weil advocates the consumption of fruits and vegetables from a broad color spectrum, such as berries, tomatoes and orange and yellow fruits, as well as plain dark chocolate (derived from the cacao fruit) for their antioxidants and fiber. He also believes fruit can be preventive medicine by reducing environmental toxicity. For example, the pectin in apples and pears remove metals that may be ingested through other foods, such as mercury in certain fish.

NUTRITIONAL FOOD

                             About Diet

        The diet of an organism is what it eats, which is largely determined by the perceived palatability of foods. Dietitians are health professionals who specialize in human nutrition, meal planning, economics, and preparation. They are trained to provide safe, evidence-based dietary advice and management to individuals (in health and disease), as well as to institutions. Clinical nutritionists are health professionals who focus more specifically on the role of nutrition in chronic disease, including possible prevention or remediation by addressing nutritional deficiencies before resorting to drugs. While government regulation of the use of this professional title is less universal than for "dietician", the field is supported by many high-level academic programs, up to and including the Doctoral level, and has its own voluntary certification board,^[1] professional associations, and peer-reviewed journals, e.g. the American Society for Nutrition and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

NUTRITIONAL FOOD

Children's Nutritional Needs 

A recent study conducted a survey of 1,800 school-aged children to find out what they consumed in a typical day.

• 15% of the students did not eat any vegetables
• 40% ate only potatoes or tomato sauce (aka French Fries and ketchup)
• 20% of the students did not consume any fruit

Currently, children ages 6-12 eat an average of 2.5 fruits and vegetables a day, only half of the recommended servings. These poor eating habits have made today's children susceptible to heart disease and obesity and a prime target for improved nutrition and increased education. It is important to monitor your child's fruit and vegetable intake and find creative healthy ways to help increase fruits and veggies in children's diets.