Myth 1: Fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach; if it is eaten with other foods it can cause fermentation and rot in the stomach, affecting digestion

Fact: Fruit can be eaten at any time and it can be eaten along with other foods. The body produces digestive enzymes for protein, fat, and carbohydrates which help it digest mixed meals. Besides, since the stomach has a high concentration of hydrochloric acid, bacteria is killed before it is able to reproduce so fermentation cannot take place in the stomach.

Myth 2: You will get diabetes if you indulge your sweet tooth

Fact: If you don’t have diabetes you don’t have to worry about treating yourself to your favourite chocolate cake and ice cream now and then. Sugar won’t directly cause diabetes but consuming excess “empty” calories from these goodies can lead to obesity, an important risk factor for diabetes.

Myth 3: All the fat in fish is good fat

Fact: Only about 30 per cent of the fat in fish is “good” omega-3 fat (exact percentage varies depending on the type of fish). The rest of the fat in fish is a mixture of “bad” fat which raises your cholesterol, and fat which has no special health benefit and just adds to your calorie consumption. Tuna, for instance, has 23 per cent “good” fat and 33 per cent “bad” fat while salmon has 27 per cent “good” fat and 16 per cent “bad” fat.

Myth 4: Sweet cravings are due to a deficiency in your body

Fact: You crave sweet foods, particularly when you are under stress, because these foods trigger the release of mood-enhancing compounds in the brain.

Myth 5: A glass of wine every day is good for health

Fact: Alcohol disrupts folic acid, a B-vitamin with anti-cancer properties, which puts women who drink every day at a higher risk for breast cancer, compared with women who avoid alcohol altogether. Daily alcohol intake can also be damaging to the liver. However wine — especially red wine — contains antioxidant polyphenols which have beneficial effects against atherosclerosis (cardiovascular disease) and cancer. For non-drinkers, polyphenols are also found in dark chocolate, tea, pomegranates and blueberries.

Vegetables and fruits make up the cornerstone of a healthy diet, but only one in nine Americans actually consume enough of them each day, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Vegetable soup provides one way to boost your veggie intake. Some vegetable soups contain large amounts of sodium, which can pose a health risk, but lower-sodium soups make a healthful addition to your diet.

Iron

Vegetable soup contains iron, an important mineral if you follow an active lifestyle. You need iron to produce energy. Iron helps your muscles store oxygen — which they can use during physical activity — and helps your red blood cells supply your tissues with fresh oxygen. A 1-cup serving of vegetable soup contains about 1.7 milligrams of iron — 21 percent of the recommended daily intake for men or 9 percent for women, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Stir cooked beans to your vegetable soup to boost its iron content — a half-cup of kidney beans adds 2 milligrams of iron.

Vitamin A

Vegetable soup serves as an excellent source of vitamin A. Each cup of soup contains up to 6,000 international units of vitamin A, or your entire recommended daily intake, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Getting enough vitamin A helps you maintain healthy tissues — it guides the development of new cells, so that they can mature into functional tissue. Vitamin A also regulates the activity of immune cells to boost your immunity, and plays a role in healthy vision, especially in low light.

Vitamin K

Vegetable soup also increases your vitamin K intake. Vitamin K helps activate a range of proteins, including those involved in depositing new bone tissue. It also activates compounds important for blood coagulation, and getting enough vitamin K in your diet protects you from excessive bleeding. Consuming a cup of vegetable soup provides you with 19.8 micrograms of vitamin K. This contributes 16 percent towards the recommended daily vitamin K intake for men or 22 percent for women, according to the Linus Pauling Institute.

Considerations and Serving Tips

Regular canned vegetable soup contains 404 milligrams per cup — and if you eat the whole can, you’re looking at a sodium intake of 889 milligrams, almost two-thirds of your recommended daily intake. “Low-sodium” soup doesn’t fare any better — it contains 491 milligrams of sodium per cup. Make true low-sodium soup by making your own vegetable soup at home, using no-sodium chicken or vegetable broth along with your favorite vegetables. Experiment with pureed vegetable soups — carrot, ginger and apple makes a bright-tasting and affordable soup, while roasted red pepper and tomato makes for a heartier option.

Are there really certain foods that can help you lose weight and keep it off? We’re not talking about any so-called miracle food that “melts the fat” (does the cabbage soup diet ring any bells?). These are foods that really can help you lose or maintain weight, either by helping you to eat less or to burn more calories — or, in some cases, maybe even helping to decrease your body fat.

Experts say there are two basic categories of foods that can be considered “keeping it off superfoods” because they fill your tummy without piling on the calories: fruits and vegetables. For example, two whole cups of steamed broccoli packs a measly 87 calories. Or how about two cups of strawberry slices? They’ll add only 99 calories. Even a denser vegetable, steamed carrots, has only 140 calories per two cups. And two cups of a denser fruit, apple slices? That’s only 130 calories.

If fruits and vegetables are the “keeping-it-off superfood groups,” fiber may well be the “keeping-it-off supernutrient.” (Incidentally, the two-cup servings of fruits and vegetables mentioned above all contribute from 5 to 9 grams of fiber.)

Protein is another supernutrient. It’s becoming more scientifically accepted that protein may help to curb appetite. But whether we need more than 0.4 grams per pound of body weight is still up for debate among many researchers.

“Eating enough protein-rich foods of low energy density [calories per portion] is a good strategy for increasing satiety, especially if you are trying to lose weight,” says Barbara Rolls, PhD, a researcher at Penn State University and author of the book The Volumetrics Eating Plan.

Protein can slightly boost metabolism, Rolls says. But, she explains, eating more calories than your body needs — even in the form of protein — will promote weight gain, not loss.

Before we get to the list of “keeping it off” superfoods, let’s make sure we keep things in perspective. At the end of the day, weight loss is still about burning more calories than you take in. The advantage to these foods is that they may help you do just that — if you eat them instead of some higher-calorie choices.

‘Keeping It Off’ Superfoods

1. Green Tea

Go out of your way to indulge in a tall glass of iced green tea or a mug of hot green tea when you get the chance. Here’s why: In a recent study, volunteers who drank a bottle of tea (fortified with green tea extract) every day for three months lost more body fat than another group who drank a bottle of regular oolong tea. Except for the different teas, their overall diets were similar. Researchers suspect that the catechins (helpful phytochemicals) in green tea may trigger weight loss by stimulating the body to burn calories and mildly decrease body fat.

2. Soup (broth- or tomato-based, that is)

Calorie-containing liquids generally are less filling than solid foods, but soups are the exception, says researcher Richard Mattes from Purdue University. In Mattes’ study, participants were fed 300-calorie servings of various soups before eating their lunches (they could eat as much lunch as they wanted). Mattes found that the study participants tended to take in fewer total daily calories on days when they had the soup, suggesting that eating low-calorie soups (the broth- and tomato-based ones) before meals may reduce hunger and increase feelings of fullness.

Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD, director of nutrition for WebMD and the WebMD Weight Loss Clinic, agrees that lower-calorie soups (that is, tomato- and broth-based varieties) are highly satisfying.

“If you have soup before a meal, it helps control hunger and you eat less,” she says.

3. Low-Calorie Green Salads

Having a low-calorie salad — not to be confused with salads brimming with cheese, croutons, high-fat dressings, and so on — as a first course can help you feel fuller and reduce the calories you eat during that meal, according to a study by Rolls. She found that eating a small low-calorie salad tended to cut calories eaten at the meal by 7%, and a larger salad by 12%. But the study found the opposite is true with high-calorie salads. These increased the calories eaten during the meal by 8% for a small salad, and 17% for a larger salad.

Just how low-calorie can a green salad be? Consider that two cups of fresh spinach leaves, 10 slices of cucumber, one medium tomato, and 1/4 cup of grated carrot has a grand total of 67 calories (along with a hefty 5.5 grams of fiber).

4. Yogurt

Yogurt is a dairy food, and several studies have found that including dairy products as part of an overall lower-calorie diet may give you a weight-loss advantage. Still, some scientists aren’t convinced, pointing to other studies that show no strong effect between dairy and weight loss.

Dark chocolate has recently been discovered to have a number of healthy benefits. While eating dark chocolate can lead to the health benefits described below, remember that chocolate is also high in fat. Use FitDay to keep track of your calories and nutrition as you work towards your weight loss goals.

1) Dark Chocolate is Good for Your Heart

Studies show that eating a small amount of dark chocolate two or three times each week can help lower your blood pressure. Dark chocolate improves blood flow and may help prevent the formation of blood clots. Eating dark chocolate may also prevent arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).

2) Dark Chocolate is Good for Your Brain

Dark chocolate increases blood flow to the brain as well as to the heart, so it can help improve cognitive function. Dark chocolate also helps reduce your risk of stroke.

Dark chocolate also contains several chemical compounds that have a positive effect on your mood and cognitive health. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), the same chemical your brain creates when you feel like you’re falling in love. PEA encourages your brain to release endorphins, so eating dark chocolate will make you feel happier.

Dark chocolate also contains caffeine, a mild stimulant. However, dark chocolate contains much less caffeine than coffee. A 1.5 ounce bar of dark chocolate contains 27 mg of caffeine, compared to the 200 mg found in an eight ounce cup of coffee.

3) Dark Chocolate Helps Control Blood Sugar

Dark chocolate helps keep your blood vessels healthy and your circulation unimpaired to protect against type 2 diabetes. The flavonoids in dark chocolate also help reduce insulin resistance by helping your cells to function normally and regain the ability to use your body’s insulin efficiently. Dark chocolate also has a low glycemic index, meaning it won’t cause huge spikes in blood sugar levels.

4) Dark Chocolate is Full of Antioxidants

Dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants. Antioxidants help free your body of free radicals, which cause oxidative damage to cells. Free radicals are implicated in the aging process and may be a cause of cancer, so eating antioxidant rich foods like dark chocolate can protect you from many types of cancer and slow the signs of aging.

5) Dark Chocolate Contains Theobromine

Dark chocolate contains theobromine, which has been shown to harden tooth enamel. That means that dark chocolate, unlike most other sweets, lowers your risk of getting cavities if you practice proper dental hygiene.

Theobromine is also a mild stimulant, though not as strong as caffeine. It can, however, help to suppress coughs.

6) Dark Chocolate is High in Vitamins and Minerals

Dark chocolate contains a number of vitamins and minerals that can support your health. Dark chocolate contains some of the following vitamins and minerals in high concentrations:

• Potassium
• Copper
• Magnesium
• Iron

The copper and potassium in dark chocolate help prevent against stroke and cardiovascular ailments. The iron in chocolate protects against iron deficiency anemia, and the magnesium in chocolate helps prevent type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Beginning of the 90s spirit of optimism was in the vitamin market. Many scientists believed that if you packed just the right vitamins and some other substances in sufficient dose in capsules, then could be a whole series of urgent health problems to solve. Antioxidants should combat the excess of free radicals and micronutrients normalize the vital forces that have been lost by modern life with its everyday stress, hectic and unhealthy eating in excess. It was hoped thus to the prevention of rheumatism, on a delayed aging and especially the suppression of diseases of all kinds, but the last 15 years have shown that taking additional vitamins and micronutrient mixtures is unlikely to be effective in the expected ways.

Hundreds of individual scientific studies have consistently confirmed that there is no tangible positive effect arises when one takes vitamin tablets. The long hoped- protective effects of vitamin E, beta- carotene, vitamin C, selenium and many other minerals from the various diseases, such as prostate cancer (vitamin E and selenium) or lung cancer ( carotene) have not been confirmed.

Quite obviously, the simple idea of being able to help the body encapsulated by individual substances, not applicable in this form. Many biological studies show that every body needs an adequate supply of all the vital substances that but a healthy lifestyle is not only existential matters, but health- critical for a healthy functioning of all organs.

Physical, mental and spiritual freedom and health is dependent on our social environment and how we handle it. Our health depends not only on frictionless functioning of our internal body processes, but rather of a smooth functioning of the interplay of external environment and internal attitude.

Diseases all have one thing in common: the materials can not flow in a living stream of change. The essential metabolism comes to a halt. Disease is thus a shift from exchange to the fabric and thus an expression of solidification processes, loss of life dynamics and loss of one’s sense of life. A relationship conflict in the partnership in the body causing an increased threefold consumption of vitamins.

If we follow the counselors of the dietary supplement industry and complement the corresponding substances that cause our physical disorders, the health would mean. That this is not so, we all have itself experienced already.

We need to rethink and let the unfounded hope in the saving power of small health pills behind us.