Diet hints and tips

In deciding on a diet, it is essential to attempt to lower your consumption of fat, salt and refined carbohydrates.

Some lower carbohydrate diet tips:
* Replace sugar with splenda. Many recipes that use sugar can be modified to make use of a sugar substitute like splenda. It doesn't weigh the same so you will need to expirement with it and it might not be perfect for everything, but it does bake up nice for the most part.

* Know what is in your food Don't believe food packaging that boasts 'low carb' - check the actual nutritional information on the back of the can or package. Quite a few are only marginally less and in some instances still greater than a competitors normal brand. Also, beware of 'low sugar' and 'low fat' labels - 'low sugar' does not always mean 'low carb' - usually the carbs are exactly the same.

Lycopene rich foods
(includes apricots, red bell peppers & tomato puree)

The phytochemical lycopene is a simple compound used to color foods and part of the carotenid family. This chemical is accountable for the dark red color of a good number of fruit, vegetables and pulses.

Fortunately, unlike numerous healthy agents, this useful phytochemical does not become less effective if heated during cooking, but is noticeably enhanced by being cooked.

. Its most interesting nutritional contribution is that it behaves as an antioxidant and appears to help lower the risk of cancer.

Lycopene is the most potent fighter of singlet oxygen, which is correlated with skin aging. It is also thought to prevent the progression of atherosclerosis.