Doesn’t life seem phenomenally busy? For some, balancing family life with work life is a constant challenge. For others, just getting through the daily grind tests our stamina and reserve.
And then there’s the expectation that after a huge day at work, you’ll still have the energy to join in some recreation time with the family.
Good nutrition is vital in helping us manage these daily pressures.
And good nutrition can also help us avoid many diseases. Ironically, good nutrition can’t always cure diseases, though. An example: we know that eating plenty of fruit and veggies can help reduce the risk of chronic disease. But, should you ever get a chronic disease, suddenly changing to healthy eating won’t cure it.
How easy is it to arm ourselves against disease.
Eating well is something we all know we should do. But with the easy-option temptations of biscuits and packaged snacks we can end up succumbing to a less healthy way of life.
To arm ourselves against ill health, eating well is essential. Health agencies advise us to eat two serves of fruit and five serves of veggies a day. That’s not as much as you might think. It’s just two pieces of average size fruit and three cups of veggies or salad a day. With that, we get our essential vitamins and minerals.
So during our day, instead of giving in to rubbish snacks, we should reach for a natural, healthy and convenient snack like a banana. Right there in your hand is a snack packed with vitamin C, folate, riboflavin and the best fruit source of vitamin B6 you can get. (A medium banana has over a quarter of your daily B6 needs.) Plus, bananas are famous for their potassium content, a mineral that helps keep blood pressure under control.
And the goodness doesn’t stop there because bananas contain fibre to keep your intestines healthy, too. The average banana contains 3g of fibre or 10 to 15% of fibre recommended for daily bowel health. And let’s dispel the myth that bananas constipate. On the contrary, bananas help with regularity.
Bananas also contain antioxidants and lectins, which have been strongly linked to a reduction in the risk of cancer. Lectins are known to resist digestion and enter the blood stream intact. They can affect the growth and proliferation of cancer cells, including causing the ultimate elimination of cancer cells.
Lectins in bananas may also be responsible for reducing the risk of kidney cancer. Research on 61,000 Swedish women aged 40 to 76 years found that, of all the fruits, bananas gave the greatest protection against renal cancer. Women eating five bananas a week halved their risk of renal cancer. It’s still too early to be certain what it is in a banana that protects us from disease.
Every day the pressure is on to control our weight. We are bombarded with messages about obesity in our modern society; how huge percentages of our population are overweight and unhealthy.
The trouble is we are constantly hijacked by the easy availability of convenient, unhealthy eating options, from meals to snacks and even drinks. It makes it hard when life is so busy, not to simply grab the most convenient gut-luggage we can lay our hands on.
When you think that a banana is totally fat free and that it’s a real tummy filler, it’s a wonder we don’t eat more of them. Bananas have a high satiety index, simply put, they are very filling for the amount of kilojoules they provide.
So if you want to stay a healthy weight, eat plenty of fruit and veggies and go easy on the fatty stuff. And most of all, relax about bananas – they’ll help you keep lean.
Bananas are picked green. This allows them to slowly ripen as they are transported to your greengrocer. As they ripen, the carbohydrates in the green banana convert to natural sugars and so become sweeter and softer as they change yellower.
So as the pressures of life are applied, don’t succumb to rubbish salty, fatty foods. Get a healthy banana in your grip. They won’t clog your arteries or send your blood pressure soaring. On the contrary, they’ll do the opposite helping to protect your heart and keep your blood pressure normal.
