Our World at Your Table

Hello again to you!

Friends are falling ill now to the flu that’s going around; the holiday season finally catches up and demands payment 🙂

Following up on my first post about the biggest muscle, our heart, here are some other nutrients that contribute to its maintenance. Have a look at these items and give a thought to if you are / are not getting them in your diet. It’s worth investigating if you, like me, have arrhythmia. The other night I cooked popcorn and sprinkled it with cayenne powder, so I got an easy double shot of love!

1. Cayenne powder

2. Hawthorn berry extract

3. Magnesium

4. Co-enzyme Q10

5. Selenium

6. Silica

7. Vitamin D3

8. Iodine

9. Garlic

10. Vitamin C

11. Motherwort (as a tea)

As a diet & nutrition adviser I am constantly keeping up-to-date on things nutritionally related.  It probably stems from my own personal experience of helping my father deal with Diabetes Type 2, brought on by steroid medication, through nutrition.  By following a healthy diet we actually were able to stop the insulin and manage his blood sugar.  I can tell you that was a very happy moment indeed when we received that news!  

That experience, along with my own interest in nutrition, had a profound effect on my pursuing a certification as a diet & nutrition adviser.  So, while I also like to indulge and have fun on this blog and through my cookbook recipes, there is a time to share information on foods that have specific benefits on organs, the human body’s kind, that we may /may not be getting enough of.  Today’s post then is all about that pumping muscle that works so hard that we should reward it for all it does for us.  Have a heart when it comes to your heart!  And if you’ve seen this information before, good!  Start this week with your shopping for these foods if you haven’t already acted.   How many of these do you eat 2-4 times a week?

1.   Yogurt with live, active cultures

2.   Raisins

3.   Whole grains

4.   Beans

5.   Salmon/Tuna/Walnuts/Flaxseeds

6.   Nuts (specifically walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachio, pine, and peanuts)

7.   Dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)

8.   Tomatoes (cooked, or sauce)

9.   Apples

10. Mixed berries (1 cup daily)

11. Pomegranate and/or its juice

12. Bananas (1 daily), sweet potatoes (1 daily), or 1 cup of spinach (daily)

13. Popcorn (that you cook on the stove or air-pop, not microwave)

14. Green tea (at least 12 ounces daily)

15. Wine/alcohol (1 drink equals 5 ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer, or 1.5 ounces liquor)  Obviously this is only for those without dependency issues and with the approval of your own doctor in case you take medications.  Barring these circumstances 1-2 drinks daily, 4-5 times per week, for both men and women is a safe guideline.