Kale – The Superfood

Lately I have been hearing so much about the superfood, kale!  Everyone is raving about it!  The amazing benefits, the different ways to use it in your meals, and how we can get more of it in our diet.  To be honest, I just started eating kale, as I was a bit weary about it before.  But then my wonderful friend, Whitney, suggested I throw it in a smoothie and I was hooked.

Part of the cabbage family, kale is a dark green, leafy vegetable with similar disease-fighting characteristics as broccoli and Brussels sprouts.  And fights disease, it does! Kale has the highest antioxidant rating based on the ORAC Scale (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) with a value of 1770.  This nutritional powerhouse comes in way ahead of spinach, which has an ORAC value of 1260.

Dietary Supplements & Vitamins

Expensive Pee.  That’s what my professors call dietary supplements.  And expensive they are.  No wonder the supplement/vitamin business makes about 7 billion, yes, BILLION, dollars a year!  And it’s only growing.  But do dietary supplements really do what they claim on the bottle?  How do we know that we are taking what is specified on the label when the formulas are not regulated by the FDA?  This is a very controversial topic and one in which people feel very strongly about.  You are either a supporter of dietary supplements and will spend the outrageous amounts of money to fuel the habit (or even possible placebo effect) or you don’t take them and disregard the hype.  I would like to share what I know - some knowledge that I have learned in school and my personal beliefs on those little pills.

To Drink Skinny, Is To Be Skinny

Now here’s the million dollar question and one I get asked very often…..How can I enjoy my nights out and still manage to look great? I want to go out with my friends on Saturday night but don’t want to feel bloated and horrible the next morning….what do I do and what should I drink?

So here are some tips and tools I use when I go out.  I feel that I have managed to find a happy medium between enjoying what I am drinking (I mean honestly…who wants to dilute their wine with a spritzer??????), while cutting down on the unnecessary calories, and still being able to go to yoga the next day.  But let me add a disclaimer saying that sometimes the rules get broken and I succumb to the yummy margaritas at my favorite Mexican restaurant. If this happens, just pick yourself up the next day and promise yourself it will only be vodka sodas the next time you go out!!!

Drink That Water

Water…. it’s a precious commodity.  And our bodies could not live without it.  I am sure you have always read or heard that you should drink 8-8 ounce glasses of water per day.  So that’s 64 ounces of water which is a little less than 2 liters.  At the same time, that can seem like a very daunting amount of fluid to consume throughout the day.  I get it…you don’t always want to be running to the bathroom!  This recommendation also includes other drinks and foods that you consume and don’t even realize you are adding to your “water bank”.  Oranges, cucumbers, and watermelon have a very high water content so eating an orange can satisfy a small portion of those 2 liters.

Vitamin C

I have a big presentation next week on Vitamin C in my Advanced MicroNutrient class.  I figured since I was doing so much research regarding this essential nutrient, I thought I would share some of my information!

Vitamin C is abundant in many fruits and vegetables such as oranges, strawberries, kiwi, guava, red & yellow peppers, broccoli, kale, cantaloupe, brussels sprouts, and grapefruit.  There are plenty more fruits and vegetables that contain good amounts of Vitamin C but these are excellent sources.  The average adult needs about 75-90 mg/day.  And let me tell you…that is a VERY easy amount to consume in a day.  A 1/2 cup of red peppers provides you with 142 mg of Vitamin C – that’s more than the Recommended Daily Allowance.  But not to worry.  If you are consuming whole food products with high levels of Vitamin C, you won’t reach toxic levels in your body due to the water-soluble characteristics of the vitamin.  That means you are more or less going to pee out the Vitamin C that you don’t absorb.  Your body is an incredible regulator of such nutrients and will get rid of what it doesn’t need or what it has too much of.  So if you eat 5 oranges in a day, your body is going to use and absorb the necessary amount of Vitamin C and then excrete the rest.