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Healthy Foods - Legumes Are Amazing Health Foods

What is a legume? Any food that develops a seed pod that will split on both of its sides when it is ripe is in the legume food group. Grasses, alfalfa and clover are legume foods that are fed to animals because of their high nutritional value. Legumes have two times more protein than grains; contain vitamin B and high iron content. These are easy foods for your digestive system and contain no cholesterol. We know them in our diet as lentils, peanuts, soybeans, beans and peas.

Prebiotics, which is a dietary supplement in the form of non-digestible carbohydrate that favors the growth of desirable microflora (plants that can be seen only under a microscope) in the large bowel, is found in legumes, as well as in bananas, asparagus, garlic, leeks, sunchokes, onions and the list goes on. Lentils which are legume have a naturally large quantity of dietary fiber and prebiotics. Instead of eating a lot of red meat in your diet which is very hard for your body to digest you can get high quantities of iron and protein by eating lentils especially when you cook them along with foods that are rich in vitamin C like tomatoes.

Yogurt without added sugar is also an excellent prebiotic. Like the legume, yogurt that has either active or live ingredients listed, especially if there is added fiber, is a culture that works wonders for your intestinal bacteria. This is good bacteria that promote health and immunity. Yogurt without added sugar promotes the growth of these good bacteria that aid digestion. Besides aiding the intestinal track these foods can also assist the body in absorbing important minerals like iron, zinc, magnesium and calcium.

The following is a detailed list of legumes:

Adzuki beans (Asian cooking)
Anasazi beans (Southwestern cooking)
Black-eyed peas
Butter beans
Chick peas or garbanzo beans
Green beans (snap or string)
Kidney beans
Lentils
Mung beans (sprouted beans that can be made into noodles)
Navy beans
Peas (dried or split)
Pinto beans
Soy beans
Licorice (Used to flavor or sweeten products, such as candies, beverages, and medicine)
Peanuts

Peanuts are legumes and actually are not technically nuts. They do come from a split pod and seed which is part of the leguminosae family of foods. The plant does bear flowers so there is a confusion of which family it should be classified as, the nut or the legume. The very name indicates there is a confusion, pea-nut. Bottom line, is the peanut has the nutritional values of the legume family of foods but is used in cooking like nuts, besides the flavor is nutty.

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Why Should You Care About Drinking Water Quality?

Why, indeed? Because probably, based on your perception of drinking water quality, you take actions or do nothing, without a thought to check your behavior.

In fact, even if you don't care about the quality, you know that the water at the tap is good and safe. But, as you cannot put up with that bad taste, mildly disgusting due to chemical treatments, you are ready to spend what it takes to get better tasting drinking water.

If you dislike tap water you cannot be blamed. Therefore you have probably joined the masses who, for wrong reasons, choose to drink only bottled water, and pay accordingly very large sums of money.

Judging by the amounts of bottled water sold everywhere in the world it would appear that the consumers' confidence in the drinking water quality or taste at the tap is not high to say the least, don't you agree?

Otherwise why should normal people, able to think on their own and capable of taking logical decisions on subjects much more significant than those involving water, be so frightened and uncertain?

Why should they go through the trouble of buying those bottles, of carrying them, of transporting, of storing them in their home or garage, of disposing of the voluminous empty plastic containers, known to be winding up in landfills and further polluting the environment?

In many families this exercise is done regularly, once a week or twice a month. Is the expense negligible? Not at all, it sums up to frightening totals that people don't care to keep track of. Being addicted to bottled water seems a social malaise you cannot eschew, lest you lose your status as a normal person.

The irony is that many authoritative reports found that the quality of bottled water is practically indistinguishable from that of tap water. Maybe that people do not agree, because they may judge by the taste, which is something personal, not subject to standards, not tested by water labs.

Buying bottled water seems to be almost something unconscious, bordering with superstition, because this global movement originates from successful advertising campaigns, not from scientific facts.

Actually if only the bad taste of tap water is the disturbing cause one would want to get rid of, a good water purifier at the faucet to obtain more agreeable water to drink is all that one needs to perform wonders in a most economic way.

It is asserted that quality home water filtration can offer substantially tastier water than tap or bottled water at a fraction of the cost. But of course suppliers' self praising statements should be taken with a grain of salt.

Proofs in the form of independent laboratory reports may permit comparisons. In case of water filters their effectiveness is demonstrated by confronting types and amounts of removed contaminants.

Sure, it may take some work to find out the papers and understand their meaning and then reaching conclusions. One may then call the suppliers and ask for clarifications or for additional proofs.

One of the best ways to gain confidence with any product is to go through testimonials, assuming that they are sincere and unbiased. Unsolicited customers' comments reporting on their experience with certain products or systems can give a measurable idea of their quality.

This exercise could be pushed one step further, if some of those customers could be contacted directly and asked precise questions about their continuing use and satisfaction.

The last stage of testing would involve purchasing the real thing, using it and finding out if it maintains the promises and if it represents a substantial improvement. The benefit is not only the better tasting drinking water obtained, but also the gain deriving from abandoning the bottled water myth.

You may be put down by the idea that you should pay money for something that, at your tap, is perceived as lacking any measurable cost, although the reality is different, you know.

As buying costly bottled water is far from cheap, why not starting with summing up for a month or two the total cost of the bottled water purchased? This will give you a sense of proportion, permitting to calculate how much time it would take to pay for your filter, only by sparing on bottled water.

If you now think you should care about drinking water quality and taste, you may check if the arguments above make some sense and if you would like to take the subject one step further. In this case you may well check the link in the author's bio.
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Health Benefits of Fennel

Fennel's small yellow umbel's seem to dance in the breeze off the coast of the Mediterranean. The plant is only native in that part of the world but now grows in most places as a naturalized herb. In early Greek history fennel was widely used as a weight control product. British herbalist Culpeper wrote fennel plant "are much used in drink or broth to make people lean that are too fat". Before you run out to the store to buy fennel seed it has not been studied to see if it actually has any appetite suppressant qualities to it.

All parts of the fennel plant are considered safe for human consumption and it is widely used in culinary dishes for a nutty flavoring. Fennel tea has a soothing effect on the stomach, making it widely used for a multitude of digestion issues. In fact, many herbalist will recommend that fennel be used along with flax seed as part of a daily regime to a healthy body. Due to the nutty flavoring it suits itself well to be sprinkled on salads and soups for an easy way to add fennel to your diet.

The only known side effect of fennel being ingested is with nursing mothers. It is believed it will help increase the flow of milk when nursing. It has been used in this way since the days of Hippocrates and Dioscorides. They recommended that nursing mothers chew on the seeds as you would celery to keep the flow of milk progressing as the baby required more milk. It was also believed during the medieval time that fennel would help break up kidney stones, cure the hiccups, prevent gout and nausea, clear the liver and lungs of mucus, and was an antidote to poisonous mushrooms.

Fennel tea water was used to help the digestive systems of infants, especially colicky ones. It was brewed and steeped for 20 minutes then strained and allowed to cool to a room temperature. Mothers of infants with colic may wish to try the fennel water in a bottle during periods of extreme gas and digestive problems.

The tea is also thought to expel worms. The tea is suggested to drink one cup every four hours to expel the parasite. It is also used as a gargle to freshen breath and as an eye wash to clear up many forms of eye irritants.

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