Health Foods

These are usually found in supermarkets categorize as organic foods, natural foods, whole foods, or vegetarian foods. Health foods offer much more nutritional value compared to processed or prepackaged foods.

If you’re looking to change to a healthier lifestyle and change your diet, you can opt for vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and quality protein. 






1. Vegetables - Vegetables contains a lot of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber. It can also help you to lose weight since even if you eat large portion of vegetables it won't contain a lot of calories. Some vegetables may contain a mix of carbohydrates along with smaller amounts of healthy fats and protein. Broccoli contains twice as much vitamin C as is recommended for daily intake. Sweet potato has a lot of vitamin A. Asparagus is loaded with vitamin K. Bell peppers is a good source of antioxidants and vitamin C. Carrots contains fiber and vitamin K.

A study published by the Journal of Diabetes Investigation shows that high intake of green leafy vegetables, yellow vegetables, cruciferous vegetables and fruits may lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Another study said that eating green leafy vegetables including cruciferous vegetables may reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease.

2. Fruits - they are packed with vitamins and essential nutrients, they are very easy include in your diet since you can eat them straight out with very little or no preparation at all. A research published by Nutrients concluded that it is beneficial in reducing weight and promoting a healthy life style if you include more fruits in your everyday diet paired with exercise and reducing intake of sugar and fat.

Examples of good fruit to include in your diet are:

Apple - high in vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants. Great for snacking replacing potato chips and sweet foods.
Avocados - great for guacamole dips and for salads. It contain 20 vitamins and minerals per serving which includes B vitamins, folate, lutein and potassium. Avocados are high in monounsaturated fat, which is good for the body.
Bananas - great source for potassium and it also high in protein and dietary fiber.
Orange - good source for vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants.
kiwifruit - also called as Chinese gooseberry, contains good amount of vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin E, folate, and potassium.

3. Whole grains - Whole grains are the healthier source of complex carbohydrates and some vitamins, dietary fiber and minerals. There are a lot of healthy benefits in eating whole grains, like lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and other health problems. Example of whole grains are brown rice, popcorn, buckwheat, whole-wheat (bread, pasta, and crackers), barley, bulgur, and oatmeal. Adding whole grains in your diet can help prevent diabetes, stroke, colon cancer, heart disease, asthma and Alzheimer’s. According to this study low intake of whole grains is among the leading dietary risk factor for death and disease. Eating whole-grain regularly can lower LDL and triglyceride levels, which contributes to an overall reduction in coronary heart disease-risk factors.

4. High-quality protein - these protein contains all of the essential amino acids needed by our body since it cannot make the essential amino acids on its own, we need to get it from food. Most animal meats are considered complete and high-quality. This includes red meat, poultry, and dairy products. Eggs is also a good source of protein since it's low-fat and contains about  6 or 7 grams of protein.  If you like chicken, the good part is the chicken breast since it is low in fat and calories but high in protein. Lamb meat is also good since it contains good amount of omega-3 fatty acids.

5. Seafood - seafood are low in bad cholesterol and rich in iodine, zinc, potassium, and vitamin B. It is also a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids, a type of polyunsaturated fat that's good for our body. According to this study fatty acids from fish can reduce the chances of having cardiovascular disease.

To wrap things up if you want to be healthy you need to eat from wide variety of healthy food from different food groups. Consuming from a wide choices of healthy foods gives you good health and helps to protect against chronic disease.