A few tips on healthy eating

If you enjoy eating, but want to get in shape and improve your overall vitality, then, as most people know, you need to start a thoughtfully prepared well-balanced meal plan. In a perfect world, this needs to contain 5 standard portions of grains, fruit and vegetables daily and embrace the right proportion of food types.

Some lower carb diet pointers:
* Fiber is important: Decreasing the carbs in your diet often results in reduction in fiber also. Look out for reduced carbohydrate recipes that are fiber-rich to restore the balance.

* Use low carb chocolate for cookies and muffins. Once you have converted your favorite chocolate chip cookie or muffins recipe using soya flour, you really shouldn't mix in those high carbohydrate 'real' chocolate. Chop up a low carb chocolate bar into tiny pieces and use that as an alternative.

Lycopene super foods
(includes watermelon, red bell peppers & sweet gourd)

The nutrient lypcopene is a non-synthetic compound and part of the same family of phytochemicals as carotene. It is the reason for the vivid red color of a good number of foods.

Intrestingly, unlike many other nutrients, lycopene is not damaged if it is cooked, but is observably increased in efficacy by being cooked.

. Its key theraputic value is that it acts as an antioxidant and seems to be of use in the battle to lower the probabilty of developing cancer.

This useful phytochemical is the most effective quencher of singlet oxygen, which is connected with skin aging. It is also believed to slow down the growth of diseases affecting arterial blood vessels.