FertilehealthyAiming for success, not perfection…

In our discussion about the perfect foods for health and fertility, we’ve looked at fruit and green vegetables.  As nice as those are, Nature has plenty more to offer!

Colored Vegetables

The following are great and should feature regularly in your daily meals:

• carrots – even kids love nibbling on carrot sticks
• red and yellow bell peppers – they are high in flavenoids and anti-oxidants
• tomatoes
• beetroot – raw, steamed, juiced, roasted
• cauliflower
• leeks and scallions
• eggplant
• radishes

Beans or legumes

Legumes are wonderful!  They stabilize blood sugar, blunt our desire for sweets and prevent cravings.  Even a small portion will make you feel full, but you can eat up to a cup a day and lose weight. 

Always follow the cooking instructions carefully to avoid, um, gas.  Some legumes need to be soaked overnight and others don’t.  If you buy canned legumes, choose brands that don’t contain any additives, especially sugar and salt.

Among your choices are:

• white beans
• cannellini beans
• red kidney beans
• lentils
• pinto beans
• lima beans
• green peas
• black beans
• black-eyed peas
• chick peas

And don’t forget the best way to eat legumes:

Sprouts

Make your own sprouts and add them to everything!   Forget Coke – sprouts add life!  Sprouts are living foods.  They’re baby plants in their prime.  They have a greater concentration of vitamins and minerals, proteins, enzymes, phyto-chemicals, anti-oxidants, nitrosamines, trace minerals, bio-flavenoids, and chemo-protectants such as sulphoraphane and isoflavone which work agaist toxins, resist cell mutation and invigorates the immune system than at any other point in the plant’s life.  So, get sprouting!

Starchy Vegetables and Whole Grains

These foods should be limited to one serving per day if you’re trying to lose weight.  Choose from:

• potatoes – I like them cut into fries and  dry-baked, add oil afterwards
• sweet potatoes – I bake mine whole
• various kinds of squashes – my favorite is butternut
• pumpkin
• parsnips
• turnips
• barley
• buckwheat
• millet
• oats
• quinoa
• brown rice – so much nicer than white rice
• wild rice

The grains should never be refined.   They can be ground, but nothing should have been removed.  A lot of what is called “wholewheat” out there is far from whole.  I don’t waste my one serving a day on bread or pasta – I much prefer oatmeal or brown rice, or occasionally some potato.

Good fats

These should be included in the diet every day, in limited amounts.  Good sources are:

• avocado pears
• extra-virgin olive oil
• flax seed oil
• hemp seed oil
• ground flax seeds
• pumpkin seeds
• tahini
• sunflower seeds
• almonds
• cashews
• walnuts
• pecans
• filberts
• macadamias
• pistachios
• sesame seeds
• ground hemp seeds
• olives
• avocado oil

All nuts and seeds should be eaten raw and unsalted, since the roasting process alters the fats. Commercially packaged nuts and seeds are often cooked in hydrogenated oils and should therefore be avoided.

Oils should always be cold-pressed. If it doesn’t say ”cold-pressed” on the bottle, heat was used during the extraction process, altering the chemical structure of the oil.  But of course it won’t help a thing if you take your cold-pressed oil and heat it yourself while cooking. If you want to stir-fry, use the dry stirfry method. Simply fry without moisture until food starts sticking to the pan. Add a little bit of water or stock and continue in this vein until food is cooked. You can use water or stock for sauteeing too.

These fats are essential to our health (especially the proper functioning of our hormonal system and therefore our weight and fertility) and we can’t cut them out of our diets. But they should be limited to one or two servings per day.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is so much we can eat to improve our health.  The foods mentioned in this Nature’s Perfect Food series of posts should make up 90% of our daily calories. 

Not only will you be providing your body with most, if not all, of its nutrient requirements, but you will get large amounts of various types of fiber.  The fibers slow down glucose absorption and control the rate of digestion.  Because fiber hasn’t been lost through processing, natural plant foods will fill you up and do not cause food cravings.  The more you eat this way, the less you will want to eat differently.

The people who eat like this are healthier in every measurable way than people who don’t, regardless of genetics, environmental concerns and smoking habits.  Athletes who eat like this recover faster and have higher endurance.

Are you ready to try this?  I want to do a triathlon towards the end of the year and get pregnant early in 2010, so I’m going for it!

If your favorite food didn’t make it to the list, stay tuned to Fertile Friday in the next few weeks to see why not.  Remember, we  still need to discuss the (optional) 10%!