Diet tips

At the start of a diet, people most certainly look at food store and big brand food items labelled 'low in fat'. To do this is far too often a miscalculation, in that an item could be significantly reduced in fats, but nevertheless elavated in calories and carbs.

Some lower carbohydrate diet guidlines:
* Use soy flour or soy baking mix. When you need to use flour for baking, substitute soya flour or a bake mix like Atkins baking mix. In most cases, you may change your favorite recipes that use conventional wheat flour to use these low carbohydrate alternatives.

* Make low carbohydrate breadcrumbs for breadcrumb coated foods. Whilst you can sometimes buy low carb breadcrumbs, you can make them at home by using reduced carbohydrate bread. All you have to do is simply toast the reduced carb bread in a pre-heated oven on a baking tray. Once it is well toasted, whizz it in your food processor or blender. Keep in an airtight jar.

Lycopene superfoods
(includes grapefruit, red bell peppers and tomato sauce)

The nutrient lypcopene is a non-synthetic compound used to color foods and one of the carotenid family. It is the reason for the deep red colour of a good number of fruits and vegetables.

Fortunately, unlike numerous nutritional compounds, this useful phytochemical not only survives being cooked, but is noticeably increased in efficacy by cooking.

. Its most valuable theraputic value is that it serves as an antioxidant and appears to be an asset in the fight to lower the probabilty of developing cancer.

It is the most efficacious carotenoid quencher of singlet oxygen, which is linked with aging of the skin. It is also thought by many researchers to curtail the progression of atherosclerosis.