Dieting tips

If you wish to become slim and boost your all round health, then, as any dietician will tell you, you really should eat a thoughtfully calculated sensible daily routine. At best, this should include five measures of grains and vegetables each day and also incorporate the right mix of important nutrients.

Some lower carb diet tips:
* Make reduced carb breadcrumbs for deep fried or oven baked foods. Although you may be able to buy low carb breadcrumbs, you may make them yourself by using low carb bread. All you have to do is simply toast the low carb bread in a pre-heated oven on a sheet of cookie paper. Once it is quite hard and crispy, process it in your food mill. To store, keep in an airtight container.

* Understand the food labels Don't trust sales blurb that claims to be 'low carb' - check the nutritional information on the back of the can or package. Many are only marginally lower and in some cases still more than a competitors usual brand. In addition, beware of 'low sugar' and 'low fat' labels - 'low sugar' doesn't always mean 'low carb' - often the carbs are identically the same.

Foods containing lycopene
(includes apricots, red peppers & baby jackfruit)

Lycopene is a natural compound and one of the same family of phytochemicals as carotene. Lycopene is behind the red color of quite a few fruits and vegetables.

Usefully, unlike numerous nutritional compounds, it does not become less effective if cooked but is observably increased in efficacy by the cooking process.

. Lycoprene's main advantage is that it works as an antioxidant and is believed to be of use in the fight to lower the chances of developing cancer.

Lycopene is the strongest quencher of singlet oxygen, which is correlated with skin aging. It is also thought to impede the progression of diseases affecting arterial blood vessels.