Soup up your diet
When beginning a New Year’s diet, start meals with a nutritious bowl of soup, which can be a great source of vegetables and whole grains. Having soup as a first course can help you lose weight by reducing the calorie intake of the meal, says San Francisco nutrition consultant Nancy Bennett.
If time is at a premium, you can eat processed soups, but be sure they’re healthy. Look for those with 500 milligrams of sodium or less per serving, recommends weight specialist Heather Bainbridge in the Center for Women’s Healthcare’s Food & Fitness Advisor. Be wary of instant soup mixes, which often are highly processed and contain few real food sources and so have little nutritional value. Instead, select soups that have fiber-rich whole grains, legumes and vegetables, such as bean or split pea.
Better yet, put together your own soup by combining low-sodium broth or canned tomatoes with fresh or frozen vegetables. Then add herbs and spices and even leftover brown rice.
Wedded to health
A good marriage can do wonders for your health, according to a feature in the December/January issue of Best Life. Here are seven reasons:
– Married men are less likely to die of heart disease.
– The blood pressure of married men decreases when they’re with their wives, shows a study from SUNY Oswego.
– Men in satisfying marriages are less stressed after returning home from a bad day at work, says the Journal of Family Psychology.
– Married couples get a better night’s sleep.
– Married people tend to smoke and drink less and are more active, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
– Married men with prostate cancer have a higher survival rate than do unmarried men, says the journal Cancer.
– Married men live almost seven years longer than single guys.
Food as treatment
What you eat can help trim, tone and protect various body parts, says Adrian Parr, a research scientist at the Institute of Food Research, Norwich, England.
A story in Self magazine points to which foods benefit your body most.
– To keep tooth decay at bay, snack on raisins, says University of Illinois at Chicago researchers.
– Eat potatoes for reduced blood pressure.
– Nosh on oysters for more energy. They contain zinc, which helps the lungs expel carbon dioxide, upping cardiovascular fitness, say experts at the USDA’s Human Nutrition Research Center in North Dakota.
– Eat a salad of kale and spinach to add lutein to your diet. This protects the eyes against sun damage and cataracts, says an Ohio State University study.
– Bake some butternut squash to add a glow to your skin. This veggie has lots of beta carotene, which prevents collagen from breaking down and protects the skin from harmful UV rays, says Swiss biology researcher Regina Goralczyk.
– Start your day with eggs, toast and jelly. Those who did this in a study at Wayne State University in Detroit ate 29 percent fewer calories at lunch compared with the group who ate a bagel, cream cheese and yogurt.
Allergy, asthma plans
Good health care is important for the 50 million Americans who suffer from allergies and asthma. To find health plans that offer the benefits you need for the best allergy and asthma care, go to the Web site www.pcipr.com/ACAAI/index.htm.
The Allergy and Asthma Care site is a program of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, a professional medical organization that promotes high-quality patient care. It discusses why it’s important to be seen by a specialist and tells what to look for in a health plan. There’s also a list of questions to ask when choosing a managed-care health insurance program.
