Week Six - Snack on Superfoods

Canadians spend about $15 billion a year filling more than 300 million prescriptions, and Americans spent an astounding 220 billion on 3.35 billion prescriptions. Our current healthcare system is not healthcare at all. It is disease care. Healthcare is showing people how to improve their health, even if they have a disease.

What is ultimately the most important to good health is a dietary pattern that includes supperfoods, along with a wide variety of other nutritious foods and regular physical activity. Healthy eating provides nutrients to fuel the body for a long and healthy life. The body has the ability to prevent or even reverse illness when given the appropriate nutrients and when engaged in an active lifestyle.

Whole foods are foods you eat in their most natural way-from the ground, without preservatives, packaging or refined. There is a special group of whole foods that we all need for keeping a healthy body. These are SUPERFOODS. These foods get called Superfoods because of their high nutrient content. They are powerful enough to help you lower your cholesterol, reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer, and, for an added bonus, these superfoods are available in your local supermarket.

Superfoods benefit your body in so many ways. They power your brain, and correctly and efficiently fuel your body. Super foods fight infection, enhance your immune system, and protect against diseases such as osteoporosis, heart disease, certain cancers, diabetes, and respiratory infections. In the "Nutrition" chapter of your Mastermoves Jump Start to Success manual, we discussed the importance of adding Superfoods to your diet and we provided a list of ten key Superfoods. Here are some important facts to remember:

• Superfoods are nutrient dense foods with healing potential. They are also known for their muscle building and energy augmenting attributes.
  
• Superfoods are low calorie and superior sources of anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals which the body needs but may not be able to receive from regular food.
  
• Most foods are produced in depleted soils. Even if you eat nutritiously and your diet contains lots of fruits and vegetables, the soil in which your foods grow may not have sufficient mineral content. Superfoods are excellent natural supplements.
  
• Most foods are exposed to long transit time for delivery. Some fruits and vegetables are picked weeks or months before they are placed on grocery shelves. The lag time between picking and eating reduces nutritional value so Superfoods become a healthy supplement.
  
• Many people over-cook food, resulting in significant loss of nutritional value, meaning far fewer vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes. A Superfood snack helps provide the missing nutrients.
  
• Superfoods have been used by ancient cultures for thousands of years to heal and promote health.