Purely Nourished

Your par­ents inten­tion wasn’t to be mean by forc­ing you to eat your veg­eta­bles; They had your best inter­est in mind. They knew that those plates full of nutri­ent rich plants would help you grow big and strong.

Veg­eta­bles weren’t only impor­tant for the growth phase; They’re even more impor­tant for health main­te­nance as an adult. We all know veg­eta­bles are filled with vital nutri­ents and vitamins.

What exactly do those nutri­ents do and how do they ben­e­fit us? 

They PROTECT us.

They lower our blood pres­sure, 

reduce the risk of heart dis­ease, stroke, chronic dis­ease and can­cers by improv­ing enzyme and antiox­i­dant activ­ity in the body,

they lower the risk of eye and diges­tive prob­lems and keep our appetites in check by mel­low­ing our blood sugar.

Some veg­eta­bles even have antibi­otic, antivi­ral, and anti-fungal prop­er­ties to ward of colds and flus.

How can I sneak them into my diet? 

Sim­ple ways to GET your vegetables:

ALWAYS have veg­eta­bles on hand. Spinach, tomatos, pep­pers, avo­cado, & cucum­bers are a great start.

Start every meal with a veg­etable. Take a bell pep­per and stuff it with more veg­gies. Or make a stir fry of veg­eta­bles. Add a lit­tle pro­tein for fla­vor. This tip will get you con­sum­ing more veg­eta­bles immediately.

Turn any meal into a salad. Over­flow a plate with salad greens and veg­gies. Add a pro­tein and cheese to sat­isfy. You’ll feel com­fort­ably full.

Add veg­eta­bles to your baked goods. Sub­sti­tute pureed squash or pump­kin for the oil or but­ter in your baked goods. For cook­ies use 1/2 the amount of oil or but­ter and sub­sti­tute squash for the other 1/2. You won’t even notice a difference.

Open faced toast. Spread hum­mus or avo­cado on the bot­tom and top with your favorite veg­gies. Scrump­tious.

Veg­etable wrap. Fill a bowl with your favorite veg­gies — tomato, shred­ded car­rots, spinach, hum­mus, sprouts, cucum­bers and arti­chokes.  Mix and wrap in a whole wheat tor­tilla. You’ll be sur­prised how sat­is­fy­ing it is.

Smooth­ies. Add spinach or cucum­bers to your favorite smoothie. Vit­a­mins and min­er­als with­out the work.

Always keep crunchy veg­gies on hand as a last minute snack. Dip car­rots or cel­ery in peanut but­ter to pack in the protein.

You are a refec­tion of the foods you feed your body. Whether you like it or not, your diet affects your appear­ance just as much as  your mood and energy.  A healthy diet filled with vit­a­mins, min­er­als, antiox­i­dants and essen­tial fatty acids is cru­cial for your skin’s health and nec­es­sary for main­tain­ing its radi­ance. Read on to deter­mine the best sources.

To begin, Essen­tial Fatty Acids are the build­ing blocks for impor­tant cel­lu­lar func­tions. They help reduce the inflam­ma­tion and are com­monly referred to as omega-6 and omega-3.  These fatty acids are found in fish, oils, nuts, and seeds.

Antiox­i­dants pro­tect us from infec­tion and play a key role in destroy­ing free rad­i­cals which are noto­ri­ous for dam­ag­ing col­la­gen. Col­la­gen keeps our skin look­ing young and vibrant. Eat a hand­ful of berries or pretty much any fruit or veg­etable to get a healthy dose and com­bat those free radicals.

Vit­a­min E is an antiox­i­dant that pro­tects against free rad­i­cals.  It also assists in retain­ing your skins mois­ture. Whole grains, nuts, seeds, avo­ca­dos, and sweet pota­toes are options that boast the super vitamin.

Vit­a­min C, an antiox­i­dant as well, is essen­tial for the pro­duc­tion of col­la­gen. Stress and sun expo­sure quickly deplete it from your body. Replen­ish this pow­er­ful antiox­i­dant with cit­rus fruits, broc­coli, cau­li­flower, straw­ber­ries, and potatoes.

Iron assists in the pro­duc­tion of hemo­glo­bin and ener­gizes the  body and mind. With­out oxy­genated blood (hemo­glo­bin), the bod­ies cells do not get the energy they need and the skins com­plex­ion becomes pale and some­times yel­low­ish. Dark cir­cles under the eyes can also be a symp­tom of non-oxygnated blood. Good sources of iron include red meats, eggs, spinach, and seafood.

Zinc man­u­fac­tures col­la­gen, main­tains proper immune func­tion, and speeds up heal­ing in the body. Add mush­rooms or cheese to any meal and reap the ben­e­fits. Red meats, seafood, and eggs are also great pro­tein sources of the mineral.

Sele­nium pro­tects against free rad­i­cals and dry skin. Foods that con­tain the immune sup­port­ing min­eral are red meats, eggs, cheese, whole grains, and mushrooms.

Beta-carotene, the plant form of Vit­a­min A, pro­tects against aging expe­dited by sun expo­sure. Dark green veg­gies and orange fruits and veg­eta­bles will pro­tect you from the sun’s harm­ful rays.

Vit­a­min A assists with the gen­er­a­tion of new cells and retains your skin’s elas­tic­ity. It is vital for our eyes and hair. Dark green and orange veg­eta­bles as well as eggs and fish will help main­tain your skin’s youth­ful glow.

Vit­a­min B plays a key roll in skin metab­o­lism and main­tains your skin’s over­all health. Eat a healthy amount of fish, poul­try, red meat, nuts, and whole grains to keep your skin supple.

Incor­po­rate these com­po­nents into your diet and your skin will thank you.  The best food sources are dark green and orange veg­eta­bles, berries, nuts, fish, and red meats; make them a part of your daily diet.

The Nutri­tion Facts Label, printed on the sides of most pack­aged foods can be daunt­ing. Most peo­ple have dif­fi­culty decid­ing where start or what ingre­di­ents are most impor­tant to pay atten­tion to. In this post Purely Nour­ished will break down labels in  a sim­ple, easy to under­stand manner.

Start at the serv­ing size. With­out this impor­tant infor­ma­tion, the rest of the info is worth­less. Check to see how many serv­ings are included in the pack­age. The serv­ing size influ­ences the num­ber of calo­ries and nutri­ent amounts listed on the label. Make a con­scious deci­sion about the num­ber of serv­ings you will be con­sum­ing and go from there.

Calo­ries and calo­ries from fat are the mea­sures of how much energy you will be receiv­ing from a serv­ing of this food, twice as much if you are con­sum­ing two serv­ing sizes.  To deter­mine the amount of calo­ries you will be con­sum­ing, mul­ti­ply the num­ber of calo­ries by the amount of serv­ing sizes you are plan­ning to have. Calo­ries from fat deter­mines the num­ber of calo­ries you will be tak­ing in from fat. This sec­tion is nec­es­sary if you are try­ing to decrease your fat intake. There is a rec­om­mended per­cent­age of calo­ries from fat, pro­tein, and car­bo­hy­drate that you should con­sume daily. The calo­ries from fat are the most impor­tant to pay atten­tion to.

As calo­ries are con­cerned, a food with 40 or less is low, 100 is mod­er­ate, and 400 and above is con­sid­ered to be high.

Nutri­ents found in the pack­age are listed below the calo­ries. They include fat, cho­les­terol, sodium, car­bo­hy­drates, and pro­tein.  Sub­cat­e­gories of the total fat are sat­u­rated, unsat­u­rated, polyun­sat­u­rated and trans fats, while sugar and fiber are the sub­cat­e­gories of car­bo­hy­drates. Fat, cho­les­terol, and sodium are usu­ally already con­sumed in ade­quate amounts in the diet. Try to limit these nutri­ents, pay­ing extra atten­tion to leav­ing out the sat­u­rated and trans fats. All three of these nutri­ents may increase the risk of chronic dis­ease if con­sumed in high amounts on a reg­u­lar basis. As for car­bo­hy­drates, most peo­ple don’t get enough dietary fiber, but more than enough sugar. Eat­ing a diet high in fiber pro­motes healthy bowel and diges­tive func­tion. A diet rich in fruits, veg­eta­bles and whole grains con­tributes to ade­quate amounts of fiber and a reduc­tion in the risk of heart dis­ease. While increas­ing your intake of fiber, try to keep you intake of sugar low. Pro­tein lev­els should be around 35% of daily your daily caloric intake.  Veg­e­tar­i­ans and veg­ans usu­ally need to be more con­scious of the pro­tein lev­els, as they are more likely to be deficient.

Vit­a­mins and Min­er­als are located in a small rec­tan­gu­lar box below the nutri­ent list. These include Vit­a­min A, Cal­cium, Vit­a­min C, and Iron. Unfor­tu­nately, by eat­ing processed and pack­aged foods we are not obtain­ing ade­quate amounts of these vit­a­mins. Pay atten­tion to the foods that are high in these vit­a­mins and min­er­als and try to incor­po­rate those foods in your diet on a daily basis.

Below vit­a­mins and min­er­als there is a foot­note that tells you the per­cent daily val­ues based on a 2000 and 2500 calo­rie diet. It gives you the total gram amounts for each nutri­ent depend­ing on the spe­cific calo­rie diet. In my opin­ion, this sec­tion is not very use­ful because no two peo­ple are expected to thrive off the same diet. In the past it was deter­mined that most peo­ple fare best on a 2000 calo­rie diet. In this day and age, caloric intake is deter­mined by body size and activ­ity level, there­fore no two peo­ple are the same. Stay tuned for a later post where I break down spe­cific caloric needs and how to deter­mine your % daily val­ues based on your spe­cific caloric needs.

The per­cent daily value (%DV) is based on the rec­om­men­da­tions for a 2000 calo­rie diet. Per­cent daily val­ues are great to under­stand but not nec­es­sary to look at when decid­ing on a meal. The %DV  helps you deter­mine if a food is high or low in a spe­cific nutri­ent. It puts grams of nutri­ents on a 100% scale where you can see how close you are to obtain­ing ade­quate amounts of that nutrient.

Last but not least, read the ingre­di­ent label. This list tells you what exactly is in the pack­age. The ingre­di­ents that are in the great­est con­cen­tra­tions will be listed first, while the ingre­di­ents in lesser amounts will be listed towards the end. Strive for five or less ingre­di­ents and make sure they are all iden­ti­fi­able. Stay away from high fruc­tose corn syrup!

To sum­ma­rize:

• Know your serv­ing size,
• Limit your total fat, espe­cially trans and sat­u­rated versions
• Main­tain low intakes of cho­les­terol and sodium
• Up your fiber consumption
• Decrease your sugar
• Read the ingre­di­ent label and stay away from long lists and unpro­nounce­able names

With all said, the eas­i­est way to get low calo­rie, nutri­ent dense foods is by eat­ing un-packaged whole foods such as fruits, veg­gies, and whole grains. Limit your intake of pack­aged foods when­ever you can.