Tag Archives: fruit

Getting Nuts by Anne Ehmer

Posted by on February 5, 2012 No comments

Nuts are much more than a snack; besides their obvious use adding flavor and texture to any dish, nuts are a valuable source of nutrients in their own right. In Western cuisine, nuts are usually treated as a luxury and relegated to confectionery and desserts. Vegetarians know better and give nuts the consideration due to real food. The latest research suggest this is the right approach; a daily serving of nuts is a great way to stay healthy ad live longer.

Contrary to what their high calorie count hints, nuts can even help to control weight as the balanced blend of nutrients they supply prevents cravings. So anyone avoiding nuts for this reason has been missing out on an easy source of health. Providing sugared and salted nuts are avoided, all the calories in nuts are good ones, and their fat is of the kind that prevents heart disease and feeds the mind.

Basic Facts About Nuts

Nuts are protein rich – almonds and peanuts have a higher ratio protein to weight than beef or chicken meat.

Nuts are packed with vitamin and minerals – including calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, and vitamins A, B, C and E. Black walnut are one of the best sources of the oligo-element manganese, as Brazil nuts are of selenium.

Their fatty acid profile has actually shown to decrease the risk of heart disease by lowering the levels of “bad” cholesterol.

Nuts have generally a very low glycemic index and dietitians recommend including nuts in the diets of people with insulin resistance problems.

Six Easy Ways To Enjoy Nuts

For a healthy, nutritious and quick dessert – get cheese and nuts.

Nutritious, healthy and quick snack – grab a handful of plain roasted nuts, alone or mixed with dried fruits, a quick burst of energy without the side effects of a sugar low.

Nutritious, quick lunch – add a handful of toasted nuts to a salad and use a fat free dressing. A nut butter sandwich is perfectly healthy. Try a simple sandwich with almond butter and thinly sliced apple and celery. Extra benefit, the almond, apple, celery combination makes a complete meal.

Nutritious quick meal – add some nuts to any vegetable stir fry.

Healthy, nutritious drink – prepare your favorite smoothie or fruit milk shake adding some ground nuts or nut butter. Try this, add 1 level Tbs nut throw 1 Tbs almond butter, 1 apple, peeled, cored, and diced, and some celery, washed and chopped, into the blender with some milk and honey or sugar to taste. Use almond milk and skip the almond butter to make it lighter.

Western cuisine traditional – use nuts in stuffing for meat or poultry, and with cookies, pastries, cakes, ice creams, and fruit salads.

Getting Nuts In Your Diet

Try to incorporate nuts to your diet slowly. Ingesting three pounds of nuts a day is not going to make for years of nut neglect, and we have already mentioned nuts are high in calories, so portion control is in order. A serving of nuts is a handful, about 25 almonds or 10 Brazil nuts, or 1-2 level tablespoon of nut butter.

Nuts are Nature’s gift to man, flavorful, healthy, and able to give a recipe the contrast in textures that only professional chefs provide, so don’t limit their use to sprinkling a few chopped nuts on ice cream; it is worth to add them to sweet and savory dishes. Enjoy getting nuts!

Utterly Nutty Cooking Tips

The most popular nuts and seeds you would find in any pantry today are almonds, Brazil nuts, cashew nuts, chestnuts, coconuts, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, and walnuts. Filberts are a kind of hazelnut.

* Mix toasted hazelnuts with double cream cheese, minced garlic and paprika. Spread over crackers.

* For a fragrant oriental dessert add toasted pine kernels to a fruit salad.

* Festive chestnut stuffing – Mix 1 cup chestnut puree, ½ cup bread, no crust, crumbled, 1 egg, 1 minced onion, and the juice and rind of 1 orange. Season and use it to stuff a turkey, duck or a chicken.

* Fried chicken with a nutty twist dip chicken pieces in seasoned egg, beaten, and cover with a mixture of 1 Tbs flour and 1 cup ground pecans. Cook until golden.

* Garnish grilled fish with chopped peanuts fried in butter until golden and lemon wedges.

* Use green pistachio nuts to garnish lemon curd, lemon cheesecake or lemon soufflé.

* Get crunchier burgers by rolling them on lightly salted chopped peanuts; and get also added protein. Recommended proportion ¼ lb peanuts per ½ lb ground meat.

* For a crunchier fruit pie, sprinkle ground nuts on top of the pastry before adding the fruit. The nuts will absorb any liquid from the fruit adding flavor on top.

Potential Problems

Nuts are an important source of protein in a vegetarian diet, but they are deficient in the amino acid lysine, so in a vegetarian diet, nuts should be combined with other lysine rich sources of protein, like beans and pulses.

Nut allergy can be very dangerous. Be extremely careful and avoid completely using nuts around people suffering this type of allergy.

Very young children could easily choke on whole nuts and because of the risk of nut allergies, follow the pediatrician’s advice on how and when to incorporate nuts to their diet. It follows you should not offer nuts to a child without the parent’s permission.

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    Fooding Group Limited is a global provider of food ingredient specializing in serving the demand for raw materials needed for finished food products. Our clients trust us to provide quality ingredients every single time.

Summer Fruit by Hillary Marshak

Posted by on February 5, 2012 No comments

Ever wonder what comes in that bowl of fresh fruit restaurants offer as a potential dessert choice or side dish? Well, summer would be the time to find out! With warm weather on its way, so too are the delicious likes of succulent watermelon, bright red strawberries, juicy nectarines and all different kinds of cherries (try to get your hands on some white ones, they’re like heaven in cherry form). And don’t forget your plums, blueberries, pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, raspberries, and blackberries. Yes, the list goes on and here’s where you can get the dish on these summer crops. Even grapes are in season!

Why indulge?

Summer seems to be the best bearer of fruits which means it can be the best time to pack in those essential vitamins and nutrients that come from a healthy dose of fruit consumption. Besides being delicious, most summer fruits are also jam-packed with vitamin C, as you might already know. But what you might not know is that peaches and cherries are great sources of fiber and watermelon offers the perfect supply of vitamin A. For some more info on nutrition facts, click here .

How do these fruits fit into my menu?

While typically incorporated into desserts, these fruits don’t have to be served that way! Berries are delicious as salad toppers. You can mix some strawberries with some greens and throw a few candied nuts and you’ve got a great start to any meal. You can even make your favorite vinaigrette (mine is raspberry vinaigrette) out of summer berries to top it off. Mangoes make a great salsa (Mango Salsa ), as do pineapples (Pineapple Salsa ), and melons make a refreshing and tantalizing soup (Cold Melon Soup ). And just about any variety of summer fruits can be blended with ice to make a refreshing smoothie. Try this Kiwi Mango Smoothie on for size. Fruit smoothies can be great snacks, or even a delicious and nutritious breakfast.

Some interesting facts about:

Watermelon– Did you know that watermelon is both a fruit and a vegetable? If you’re in a crunch trying to pack in your recommended daily servings of both, just eat a whole bunch of juicy pink watermelon! Originating in Southern Africa, explorers have found an abundance of watermelon in the Kalahari Desert. Oddly enough, the watermelons also serve as a symbol for the Mexican Day of the Dead and are depicted in a great deal of Mexican art.

Recipes to sink your teeth into:

Spicy Cucumber Watermelon Relish

Quick and Easy Watermelon Pie

Watermelon Banana Split

Watermelon Slush

Watermelon Salad with Mint Leaves

Frozen Watermelon Virgin Margaritas

Watermelon-Honeydew Kabobs with Dressing

Mangoes – This bright yellow fleshed tropical fruit is native to Southern Asia. Centuries ago, these tree fruits popped up all over India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. A very sweet fruit, the mango is made up of 15% sugar and hosts significant amounts of vitamins A, B, and C.

Some mango recipes to tango with:

Mango Chicken

Savory Cold Mango Soup

Mango Ice Cream

Tuna Mango Spread

Mango Fool

Mango Cheesecake

Strawberries – From rumors of being poisonous as well as nourishing the skin, strawberries are not just chockfull of vitamin C but also history! That’s right, the Lady of Thermidor was said to take baths in strawberries to bring out the full radiance of her skin, while the nineteenth century Argentineans would not go near the red prong-shaped berries fearing their poisonous potential. Regardless of which you believe, the fruit is surely sweet and now incorporated into many a daily menu.

Try a few of these strawberry recipes out (and even the bath!):

Strawberry Pretzel Dessert

Sweet and Tart Strawberry Salad

Strawberry Fruit Dip

Do-Ahead Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Fresh Strawberry Bath

Strawberry Drawing Mask

Chilled Strawberry Mint Soup

Pineapple – These odd-shaped fruits get their name from their resemblance to pine cones. Their bright and juicy yellow flesh is probably much tastier than the inside of a pine cone though, plus it is great for the digestion. This fruit comes from Southern and Central America.

Pineapple recipes with a twist!:

Pineapple Sweet Potato Boats

Pineapple Stuffing

Pineapple Chiffon Pie

Pineapple Crisp

Pork and Pineapple Casserole

Pineapple Zucchini Loaf

Blackberries– Not to be confused with the popular brand of PDA, blackberries are actually a variety of the raspberry. This fruit is not actually a berry but an aggregate fruit from the bramble raspberry plant. Lately Mexico has been producing bounties of blackberries. And as myth (in the UK) would have it, blackberries should not be picked after September 15th because the devil has supposedly claimed them. Good thing they are considered a summer fruit!

Not-so-average ‘berry recipes:

Blackberry Barbeque Sauce

Blackberry Wine Cake

Blackberry Bread Pudding

Old Fashioned Blackberry Spice Cake

Blackberry Cobbler

The bagel peach: a unique fruit case study

Ever seen a peach that looks like a bagel? Well they probably haven’t been mixed up in the bakery yet as they’re new in the last couple of years, but these white-fleshed fruits are a whopping 3 inches in diameter and take on a round, but flat shape. Also called the galaxy peach, you might confuse this rare delicacy for a miniature UFO. Introduced by the USDA in 2004, this peach typically ripens in the third or fourth week of June.

Sources:

United States Department of Agriculture, Wikipedia’s entries on blackberries, watermelon, mangoes, strawberries, and pineapple, www.fruitsinfo.com , Yale-New Haven Hospital

Related topics:

    Fooding Group Limited is a global provider of food ingredient specializing in serving the demand for raw materials needed for finished food products. Our clients trust us to provide quality ingredients every single time.

How To Grow Apples In The Uk

Posted by on January 30, 2012 No comments

Because of the climate, there are only some types of fruit that can be grown in the UK. Typical produce to be grown in the UK includes Apples, Pears, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Plums, Cabbage, Marrow, Strawberry’s, blackberry, blackcurrants, and redcurrants. This article describes how to grow apples from seed in the UK.

The best way to start growing apples in the UK is to firstly look at the area you have allocated to grow your apples. Preparing your soil is crucial to ensuring your apples have the nutrients and water they need to grow. If you are growing in a confined space, you will be best creating a raised bed. This is where you dig down and plant soil within a small area to grow your apple tree. Raised beds give good access from all sides, and require less maintenance because they are smaller patches. Make sure that the soil is quite deep so that excess water can drain through, ensuring the apple tree gets the sufficient supply it requires.

Once your bed is ready, you need to get the seeds. Growing from seeds takes a long time, so if you plan on doing this be ready to be patient. Using an example of an apple tree, you will firstly need to get your apple seeds and place them within a bag of peat, in the fridge for a minimum of 8 weeks. Then, take them out and place them in some fresh soil in a small plastic cup, on the window ledge where they are in the natural sunlight. Over the next few weeks, they should start sprouting. Once they have outgrown the cup, you can then place them outside in your raised bed.

Ensure that they have a stick to keep the growth stem supported and upright, and water well in the dry or hot season. Because of the hot season being short in the UK, you will not have to water them all year around, mainly in the summer months of June, July, and September.

If you want to try a completely professional approach to growing apples, you need to look into growing apples from 2 or more variations of apples, as this is what gives modern apples their taste.

By: newsstar

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Fruit 4 London provide fruit for the office and a fruit delivery service for home across London.

Black Raspberry Jam Recipe by Liana Badita

Posted by on January 30, 2012 No comments

For the real hard core foodies out there, here is an old fashioned fruit preserve recipe that successfully graced my grandparents’ pantry year after year when I was a child. The recipe calls for black raspberries, but it will work with any kind of raspberries or blackberries, or even wild mountain strawberries if you have them.

If you never made fruit preserves before, the heavenly fragrance that envelops your home while the fruit and sugar meld their flavors alone is worth the effort. So, put away the fragrant candles and start the pot boiling. You will have a wonderful aroma in your home, a great sweet treat to enjoy, brag about and offer as a gift, and have the satisfaction of creating a product from your garden produce, if you are one of the lucky few whose garden is producing more berries than you can eat.

Local craft stores have an infinite supply of raffia, bows, colorful printed wax paper, old fashioned little jars and labels, so you can package this little product beautifully to decorate the open shelves of your kitchen or offer as a gift. If you want to go old school, don’t put lids on the jars: cut a little cardboard circle to fit the top of the jar perfectly and cover with wax paper or colorful plastic wrapping; tie with raffia or brown string. Make sure to tie it very tightly around the jar neck. If any air gets in after the jars are sterilized, the preserves might get moldy.

And now, without further ado:

BLACK RASPBERRY JAM

INGREDIENTS: (1) bowl of black raspberries, (2) pounds of sugar, (3) cups of water, juice from one lemon.

Wash the raspberries, drain them well and dry them on a paper towel until all remaining water is completely absorbed.

Boil the water and sugar together in a nonstick pot on low heat until the sugar dissolves completely. Turn the heat up and let it boil quickly until it turns to syrup. To check for the right consistency, spill a droplet of syrup on a cold plate. It should look like a little bead and keep its shape. Don’t let the syrup boil for too long, though. When it cools down it will turn too tough to use. Skim the surface foam as it appears until the surface is clean.

When the syrup reached the desired consistency, drop the raspberries in it. Do not stir with a spoon; just shake the pot gently to move the fruit around without crushing it.

Bring the mixture to a boil and set it aside for 15 minutes, so that the raspberries can release their juice. Skim any additional foam off the surface. Add the liquid from one lemon and stir very gently. Boil the preserves again and try the consistency with the method above until droplets keep their shape.

Allow the jam to cool down. Cover the pot with a damp cheese cloth and let the preserves rest till the next day.

Fill glass jars to the brim, seal them with parchment paper and/or lids and boil the jars in at least 2 inches of water for 15 minutes. This process will sterilize the contents and seal the jars. Pull the jars out and let them cool down slowly. Enjoy.

Types Of Dried Fruits

Posted by on January 29, 2012 No comments

Apples

Dried apples usually are available in the form of “apple chips,” which are apple slices with all the cores taken out. They are extremely sugary and have a delicate plus satisfying texture. They’re a fantastic source of dietary fiber and make a great addition to cakes as well as muffins, oatmeal, whatever else that may gain benefit from the inclusion of a little something sweet and tasty. When kept in a dark, airtight package, they are able to survive for a few weeks; when utilized as a decoration or a part of a pot pourri and exposed to the open air, they’ll dry out entirely and last apparently forever. Purchase these wholesale dried fruits and some bulk peanuts to get a healthy after school snack.

Apricots

Dried apricots really are a favorite with regards to dehydrated fruit. They’re fairly sweet and chewy, and also full of fiber, potassium, and even vitamin A. They taste great on it’s own as a snack, but could even be stewed to make an ice cream or other dessert topping. Dehydrated apricots are often included in trail mixes for hikers as well as mountain climbers due to their transportability along with large nutritious worth. They also are actually excellent snacks for work and school lunches because they require no refrigeration.

Cranberries

Dehydrated cranberries have grown to be very popular in recent years, with a handful of big name companies packaging and selling them. All these tiny berries offer a sweet snack with a surprising sour side to them, making them great alone or in a combination with other dried fruits and nuts. They’re slightly lower in sugar than other dried fruits, and whenever stored appropriately, they can last for many weeks. Dehydrated cranberries are also great baked into muffins or whipped into pancake batter. Because cranberries are a tart fruit, they are often sold having sugar added in since it cuts the tartness a little. Make sure that when you’re purchasing cranberries you know what you are getting.

Pineapple

Available in diced, sliced, or chunked, dried pineapple provides a sweet, indulgent treat on it’s own or with a dried fruit mix. The sugars happen to be compacted, and the outcome is an extremely strong pineapple taste with each and every bite. You can buy this dried fruit, which is a significant source of fiber, pre packaged from a number of food manufacturers and distributors, but usually, there’ll be added sugars. When purchasing wholesale dehydrated fruits in bulk, you may make sure all you are receiving is fruit. Purchase your dried pineapple with a few other fruits and some bulk peanuts and cashews for a delicious treat that adds a boost

By: joshadekane1

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To purchase quality wholesale gourmet foods online at the lowest prices, make sure you browse New Urban Farms website at the following link bulk grains

Weight Loss – Getting Ripped Fast – Tips To Follow

Posted by on January 29, 2012 No comments

When men and women believe about olive essential oil they generally associate it Spain or Italy – this primarily due to advertisements portraying elements from either countries. People like to use olive oil for various various reasons, most widely though for cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps and as fuel for oil lamps.

In North Cyprus olive trees may be seen everywhere, typically having a sunny hillside backdrop, and new trees are normally planted as the trees do might need dedication to appear just after along with a number of have wilted off. Growers are optimistic that they can make the north Cyprus area a significant Mediterranean producer. Olives are some of this typical vegetation you will see close to the villas in Cyprus, which adds flavour to them.

There are two sorts of olives: green and black olives, the colour depends on how ripe the fruit is. During the summer months is generally once they appear, the fruit comes out green and as it ripens it turns black. Olive essential oil is component belonging to the diet plan of millions of people around the globe specifically in the Mediterranean region. It really is estimated that 4 – 5 kilos of olives are needed to create a litre of oil.

Not lots of people today know how olive oil is created here will be the process: The olives are harvested, usually in the Mediterranean (but you can get various other nations that grow theirs), by hitting olive branches with extended sticks, which is better for the olives as it forces the ripe fruit to tumble naturally and caught in nets rather than being taken and damaged.

After the harvesting, olives are used for the mill exactly where they’ll go through processing as rapidly as possible, preferably within 24 hours. Throughout this course of action leaves and twigs are removed, the fruit is washed, then the olives (pits included) are grounded into paste by making use of massive millstones or by mechanical means.

Now you will discover two approaches of pressing conventional and centrifuge. Traditional methods are when the paste is spread onto circular mats, then entered into a press which squeezes out the juice and leaves pomace. The juice may be a mixture of oil and fruit water, which is left to stand for any hour by which time the essential oil and water normally separates. The oil gets siphoned to one more vat where remaining particles drift for the bottom, that allows pure olive oil being decanted into bottles with out the demand of filtering of any sort. Centrifuge technique is usually a modern-day way of pressing, first a horizontal centrifugal equipment to separates the juice belonging to the pomace, then it’s put on the vertical equipment which separates the essential oil on the juice water.

There numerous essential oil kinds which the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) defines the standards for olive essential oil as follows: Additional Virgin, Virgin, Olive, Olive pomace and Lapante or Strong oil.

October will be the time from the olive harvest in North Cyprus, this is usually when early green olive fruits are gathered. In Cyprus olives have been completely cultivated for four thousand years, he olives are slow grown but lengthy residing evergreen will take about ten years to develop to maturity and soon after that it yields olives for roughly hundreds of years. In order for highest production the tree will might need precise pruning every single decade. Not only does this reinvigorate the tree and crop but enhance the total capacity with three years.

By: Rui Vasconcelos

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Summer Fruit by Hillary Marshak

Posted by on January 28, 2012 No comments

Ever wonder what comes in that bowl of fresh fruit restaurants offer as a potential dessert choice or side dish? Well, summer would be the time to find out! With warm weather on its way, so too are the delicious likes of succulent watermelon, bright red strawberries, juicy nectarines and all different kinds of cherries (try to get your hands on some white ones, they’re like heaven in cherry form). And don’t forget your plums, blueberries, pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, raspberries, and blackberries. Yes, the list goes on and here’s where you can get the dish on these summer crops. Even grapes are in season!

Why indulge?

Summer seems to be the best bearer of fruits which means it can be the best time to pack in those essential vitamins and nutrients that come from a healthy dose of fruit consumption. Besides being delicious, most summer fruits are also jam-packed with vitamin C, as you might already know. But what you might not know is that peaches and cherries are great sources of fiber and watermelon offers the perfect supply of vitamin A. For some more info on nutrition facts, click here .

How do these fruits fit into my menu?

While typically incorporated into desserts, these fruits don’t have to be served that way! Berries are delicious as salad toppers. You can mix some strawberries with some greens and throw a few candied nuts and you’ve got a great start to any meal. You can even make your favorite vinaigrette (mine is raspberry vinaigrette) out of summer berries to top it off. Mangoes make a great salsa (Mango Salsa ), as do pineapples (Pineapple Salsa ), and melons make a refreshing and tantalizing soup (Cold Melon Soup ). And just about any variety of summer fruits can be blended with ice to make a refreshing smoothie. Try this Kiwi Mango Smoothie on for size. Fruit smoothies can be great snacks, or even a delicious and nutritious breakfast.

Some interesting facts about:

Watermelon– Did you know that watermelon is both a fruit and a vegetable? If you’re in a crunch trying to pack in your recommended daily servings of both, just eat a whole bunch of juicy pink watermelon! Originating in Southern Africa, explorers have found an abundance of watermelon in the Kalahari Desert. Oddly enough, the watermelons also serve as a symbol for the Mexican Day of the Dead and are depicted in a great deal of Mexican art.

Recipes to sink your teeth into:

Spicy Cucumber Watermelon Relish

Quick and Easy Watermelon Pie

Watermelon Banana Split

Watermelon Slush

Watermelon Salad with Mint Leaves

Frozen Watermelon Virgin Margaritas

Watermelon-Honeydew Kabobs with Dressing

Mangoes – This bright yellow fleshed tropical fruit is native to Southern Asia. Centuries ago, these tree fruits popped up all over India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. A very sweet fruit, the mango is made up of 15% sugar and hosts significant amounts of vitamins A, B, and C.

Some mango recipes to tango with:

Mango Chicken

Savory Cold Mango Soup

Mango Ice Cream

Tuna Mango Spread

Mango Fool

Mango Cheesecake

Strawberries – From rumors of being poisonous as well as nourishing the skin, strawberries are not just chockfull of vitamin C but also history! That’s right, the Lady of Thermidor was said to take baths in strawberries to bring out the full radiance of her skin, while the nineteenth century Argentineans would not go near the red prong-shaped berries fearing their poisonous potential. Regardless of which you believe, the fruit is surely sweet and now incorporated into many a daily menu.

Try a few of these strawberry recipes out (and even the bath!):

Strawberry Pretzel Dessert

Sweet and Tart Strawberry Salad

Strawberry Fruit Dip

Do-Ahead Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Fresh Strawberry Bath

Strawberry Drawing Mask

Chilled Strawberry Mint Soup

Pineapple – These odd-shaped fruits get their name from their resemblance to pine cones. Their bright and juicy yellow flesh is probably much tastier than the inside of a pine cone though, plus it is great for the digestion. This fruit comes from Southern and Central America.

Pineapple recipes with a twist!:

Pineapple Sweet Potato Boats

Pineapple Stuffing

Pineapple Chiffon Pie

Pineapple Crisp

Pork and Pineapple Casserole

Pineapple Zucchini Loaf

Blackberries– Not to be confused with the popular brand of PDA, blackberries are actually a variety of the raspberry. This fruit is not actually a berry but an aggregate fruit from the bramble raspberry plant. Lately Mexico has been producing bounties of blackberries. And as myth (in the UK) would have it, blackberries should not be picked after September 15th because the devil has supposedly claimed them. Good thing they are considered a summer fruit!

Not-so-average ‘berry recipes:

Blackberry Barbeque Sauce

Blackberry Wine Cake

Blackberry Bread Pudding

Old Fashioned Blackberry Spice Cake

Blackberry Cobbler

The bagel peach: a unique fruit case study

Ever seen a peach that looks like a bagel? Well they probably haven’t been mixed up in the bakery yet as they’re new in the last couple of years, but these white-fleshed fruits are a whopping 3 inches in diameter and take on a round, but flat shape. Also called the galaxy peach, you might confuse this rare delicacy for a miniature UFO. Introduced by the USDA in 2004, this peach typically ripens in the third or fourth week of June.

Sources:

United States Department of Agriculture, Wikipedia’s entries on blackberries, watermelon, mangoes, strawberries, and pineapple, www.fruitsinfo.com , Yale-New Haven Hospital

Related topics:

    Fooding Group Limited is a global provider of food ingredient specializing in serving the demand for raw materials needed for finished food products. Our clients trust us to provide quality ingredients every single time.

The Secret of Safe Weight Loss by Brett Walker

Posted by on January 28, 2012 No comments

The secret to safe weight loss is a healthy lifestyle consisting of a good diet and exercise. That is more effective than trying to lose fat fast with a fad diet. People who lose weight that way usually put the weight back on when they come off the diet. Here are some tips for healthy eating and safe weight loss.

It’s a good idea to eat lightly at meal times and combine that with well-chosen snacks in-between This is better than eating one or two big meals a day because it spreads the intake of nutrients throughout the day.

The snacks should to be low in calories and rich in nutrients. The most effective ones include vegetables (preferably raw such as carrot and celery sticks), skim milk, fruit and dried fruit, wholemeal bread with fillings like cheese, peanut butter and lean meat.

Beware the type of fat that you eat because polyunsaturated fat lowers the amount of cholesterol in the blood whilst saturated fat raises it.

Avoid cordials because they normally contain a lot of additives and fewer nutrients than a juice. It’s OK to drink fruit juices that have been frozen and concentrated because this does not effect the nutritional value of the juice very much.

There’s an ancient story told of a king who had lots of slaves. The ones who worked at the Palace were allowed to eat the same rich food that the king ate. Five of them didn’t want to eat the rich food and asked instead for “a vegetable diet and water to drink”. The result was that they looked better and healthier than the slaves who ate the King’s rich food.

So eating fresh fruit, vegetables and whole foods is definitely good for us and it’s a good idea to incorporate them into our diet but how

can we know which ones are the best for us?

Well there is an easy way to tell the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables – by their color.

The following list shows which colors have different nutritional benefits. The different colors of foods make them look more appealing but can also tell us which foods have disease prevention qualities.

GREEN:

Green vegetable like cabbage, broccoli and brussel sprouts contain indoles which are good at detoxifying and encouraging hormone balance. It is believed that they help prevent breast cancer.

YELLOW:

Yellow fruits and vegetables contain beta cryptothanxin which helps prevent heart disease. It is contained in oranges, pineapples and peaches, apricots, nectarines, yellow grapefruit, yellow passion fruit and yellow peppers.

ORANGE:

Orange fruits and Vegetables contain beta carotene which combats several major diseases and slows aging. It is found in yams, carrots, papayas, mangoes and also in green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale.

RED:

Red fruits and vegetables contain lycopene which is a potent antioxidant and helps prevent heart disease and cancer. It is contained in watermelon, pink grapefruit and tomatoes.

PURPLE:

These contain anthocyanins which help prevent heart disease, cancer and even eye diseases. Fruit and vegetables conaining anthocyanins include eggplant and grapes.

However, if you currently don’t eat much fresh fruit and then you start to include it in your diet you will notice at first that you need to go to the toilet more often. This is a good sign and shows that the fruit is causing your body to eliminate waste and toxins. Things will soon settle down again.

So why not try the above fruits and vegetables in your snacks. The result should be that like the servants in the ancient story you will look better and healthier and experience safe weight loss instead of risking the bad effects of trying to lose fat fast with a fad diet.
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    Fooding Group Limited is a global provider of food ingredient specializing in serving the demand for raw materials needed for finished food products. Our clients trust us to provide quality ingredients every single time.

Mangosteen Is The Queen Of Fruits

Posted by on January 27, 2012 No comments

In tropical areas where both are plentiful, the durian is known as the king of fruits and the mangosteen as the queen. And no doubt, generally speaking most people who have the good fortune of indulging in fresh, ripe mangosteen will testify that it was one of the most if not the most delicious fruit they have ever eaten. Although the story cannot be verified, it is said that when Queen Victoria heard of the ultra delicious taste of the mangosteen, she offered 100 pounds to anyone who could bring her a fresh one. I’ve also read that the mangosteen tree only fruits every 12 years, but I cannot verify this either. Like many tropical trees though (and mangosteens are as tropical as you can get), I do know that the trees grow very slowly.

Mangosteens have nothing at all to do with the mango, which is also sometimes called the queen of fruits. Mangosteen is a corruption of the original Malay word mangussta for the highly prized fruit.

One can say very little against the mangosteen. The meat is encased in a thick, soft purple husk that will stain clothing and skin if care is not taken to prevent it, and the segments inside look rather like a bulb of garlic. The seeds in general are quite palatable and hard seeds are not common (they are edible as well). To get to the meat is easy enough once you get the hang of it, and they are so delicious that people generally don’t stop eating them until the whole bunch is gone.

The taste of mangosteen is absolute exquisite. Soft and juicy (but not watery), they have a balance of sweet, acid, and a perfume like no other fruit I have ever tasted. Sometimes compared with a peach (a habit common among people trying to describe a delicious tropical fruit to people from temperate climes), I can only say that there is nothing like a mangosteen and the worst mangosteen I’ve ever had far excelled the best peach! (My apologies to the noble peach.) Frozen and canned mangosteens are lousy. Sorry to say, but if you really want to try the queen of fruits, you will have to go to tropical Asia, though I do hear there cultivation is spreading to other parts of the globe.

By: Dinah Jackson

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This article was written by Dinah Jackson who enjoys writing about food, travel and Pokemon. We have the best selection of Pokemon Japanese cards around. We also sell Pokemon plush toy, pokedolls, deck boxes, binders, charms, figures and much more. Direct from Japan. No Ebay hassles.
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All About Georgia Peaches by Victoria Gates

Posted by on January 19, 2012 No comments

Many people do not realize that the peach is actually a member of the rose family. The peach was first cultivated in China and has been long-revered. In Chinese folklore peaches are associated with magical Taoism, with luck and immortality. Peaches are still given as a traditional birthday gift in China. Travelers along the ancient caravan routes would carry the peach seeds to Persia, long before the peach was cultivated in European countries.

Early in the 1600′s, the Spanish explorers brought it into the “New World” and by the 1700′s missionaries had established peach crops in the state now known as California. Peaches are available nearly the entire year in the United States, but the best are thought to come from Georgia during the summer months. On the off seasons peaches are imported into the U.S. from Chile and Mexico.

Freestone peaches are traditionally sold as fresh fruit while a type called clingstone is usually used for canning. Although the skin may vary from golden to red, the fruit inside either of these types of peaches is yellow or white. The white flesh is a “sub-acid” peach with its flavor more sugary sweet.

The more traditional color fruit is yellow and the flavor is more acidic. Roughly half of the United States peach crop comes from the South. While Georgia is called the “Peach State”, it actually ranks third in United States peach production behind California and South Carolina. Producers enjoy harvest and production advantages in Georgia due to the ideal southern geographic ability to harvest early and produce high-quality fruit.

Georgia peaches are touted as the sweetest and tastiest grown anywhere. The United States produces around 25% of the total world peach crop market. When choosing your fresh peaches look for ones that are soft to the touch, blemish free, and have a fragrant peachy smell.

Peaches that are mildly fragrant ripen into sweet and delicious flavors. Choose peach fruit that has a background color of yellow or orangey. Peaches may have some reddish “blush” depending on the variety, but keep in mind this isn’t a sign of how the fruit will taste after it’s ripe.

You can ripen peaches at home by placing them on a flat surface or in a brown paper bag for roughly two to three days at room temperature. Peaches will over-ripen quickly, so don’t buy more than you plan to use within a few days. When selecting can peaches, choose fresh over canned when possible for the best health benefits and flavor.

Make sure to wash your peaches carefully in cool soapy water, then rinse well before eating or using. This will rid the fruit of any chemicals or micro organisms on the skin. If you plan to use them for cooking the skin will peel much more easily if blanched in boiling water for about a minute then plunged into ice water to cool. In fruit salads simply sprinkle diced peaches with fresh lemon juice to help them keep their rich peachy color. No matter how you use them, it’s sure to be a delicious summer!
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