FOOD FOR LIFE: BLUE-PLATE SUPERSTARS
Don’t eat the following foods to the exclusion of all others, says Edward Giovannucci, M.D., Sc.D., assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. But these are super-foods that you should include on your shopping list each week and find ways to work into your meals because they increase immunity, build healthy hearts and strong bones, and defend against cancers, arthritis, diabetes, and other debilitating and even deadly diseases.
Bring on the sauce. Tomato sauce, especially when cooked in even the tiniest bit of olive oil, seems to guard against both colon and prostate cancers. Some evidence suggests that it may protect against cancers of the stomach and the esophagus as well. Plus this special sauce may even contribute to agility as we age.
You should have no problem getting your fill of this mighty medicine; tomato sauce works its way into everything from chili to Spanish rice.
The hot nutrient here is lycopene, a substance found in plants that may prevent cancer from occurring by mopping up free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive compounds that could damage DNA and cause mutations, which could cause cancerous cells to grow.
Lycopene may be twice as potent a cancer-fighter as old-faithful beta-carotene, says Dr. Giovannucci. Tomatoes, both raw and cooked, also contain other antioxidants as well.
Why cook tomatoes in olive oil in these days when all we hear is fat-free, fat-free? In experiments, people eating tomato sauce cooked in olive oil got roughly 10 times more lycopene into their systems than did people drinking processed tomato juice, reported Dr. Giovannucci.
Dr. Giovannucci led a five-year study of 47,849 men that found that the guys who ate the most cooked tomato products were the ones with the lowest risk of prostate cancer. Need we say more?
Bag the broccoli. Yeah, we know, it hasn’t won any presidential medals. But broccoli is fabulously full of immune system-building vitamin Ñ and features a fistful of the phytochemicals thought to fight cancer. Plus there’s a variety of healthy ways to stomach it-steamed, stir-fried, blanched, baked, and raw-even chilled with yogurt dip.
The amount of broccoli you need to eat to prevent disease hasn’t been quantified, but broccoli should be among the variety of vegetables you eat, says Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Keep cans of kidneys in the cupboard. Kidney beans boast the highest, healthiest fiber mix of any member of the legume family-almost 6 grams per È-cup serving. They are especially high in heart-protecting folate, too. Of the fiber, 2.8 grams is cholesterol-lowering, blood glucose-controlling soluble fiber. Kidney beans are associated with a lower risk of heart disease and stroke and protection from colon cancer, says James W. Anderson, M.D., professor of medicine and clinical nutrition at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington.
Beans also contain potent antioxidants known as polyphenolics. In test-tube studies, polyphenolics worked better than vitamin Ñ in keeping fat in the blood from oxidizing-the first step in the formation of artery-clogging sludge. Human research is under way, Dr. Anderson says.
If that’s not enough, all beans-kidneys and otherwise-are such good medicine that doctors prescribe them to diabetics (along with other high-fiber, complex carbohydrates) because the foods are digested slowly, which helps maintain low blood sugar and normalize insulin responses.
How much do you need to eat to lower cholesterol and provide the other health benefits? Aim for 11/2 cups cooked beans daily, Dr. Anderson says.
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