It’s officially summer and that means fresh summer fruit and fun summer cook-outs. In fact, July is National Blueberry Month and National Grilling Month – what a great combo for this month’s topic! But first, let’s see how you’re doing with last week’s topic.
Checking In: What did you learn about Safe Food Preparation & Storage?
Admittedly, guidelines for preparing and storing food safely are a little snooze-inducing. It’s important, though, so if you didn’t read the entire posting last week, give it another chance.
And if you’re new to Nutrition Solutions, why not take a look at the previous topics we covered, starting with Weight Management: Making the Commitment.
This Month’s Change (part one)
Celebrating the Blueberry: Why We Should
I’ll bet at least a couple of you are scratching your heads, thinking “Why does a little thing like a blueberry get its own month?” Well, for a little guy, it packs a healthy punch. Blueberries are antioxidant powerhouses. ‘Antioxidant’ is a term that you may have heard, but don’t completely understand.
Antioxidants help protect us in two ways from the destructive effects of aging and diseases such as cancer and heart disease:
- They block harmful chemical reactions caused by oxidation, which can be simplified to thinking about how metals corrode and rust when exposed to oxygen.
- They protect us from oxidative damage caused by unstable free radicals that cause damaging chain reactions.
According to Dr. Andrew Weil, cumulative damage of this sort probably accounts for many of the degenerative changes of aging and for a lot of age-related disease. Antioxidants block oxidation reactions and offer protection to the membranes and other parts of cells.
There has been an enormous amount of research on the benefits of antioxidants, and how they protect us from diseases such as cancer, heart disease and help against the aging condition. Take my word for it: eating blueberries is like adding to your army in the war against disease.
Ways to Celebrate the Blueberry
Enjoy blueberries all day long with this great ideas:
- Add blueberries to your morning smoothie
- Fold fresh berries into your pancake batter
- Top your cereal with a handful
- Microwave frozen berries to just thaw them and stir into nonfat yogurt
- Add fresh berries to salads
The Weeks Ahead
National Blueberry Month Continues
Celebrating National Grilling Month
Healthy Cook-Outs
Recipes!
Tags: antioxidants, blueberries
