A few tips on healthy eating

In planning a diet, the important thing is to also endeavour to restrict your ingestion of refined carbohydrates, salt and fats.

Some lower carbohydrate diet tips:
* Know what is in your food Be sceptical of advertizing that claims to be 'low carb' - check the nutritional information figures on the back of the tin or package. Quite a few are only slightly reduced and in some cases still higher than a competitors standard brand. In addition, beware of 'low sugar' and 'low fat' labels - 'low sugar' doesn't always mean 'low carb' - usually the carbs are exactly the same.

* It is possible to make really nice smoothies by using low carbohydrate yogurt. Yes, you can't really describe it as cooking, but if you love smoothies you can make perfectly acceptable alternatives by using reduced carbohydrate yogurt and fruit. Of course, you will need to ensure you only make use of fruit that is low in carbs and use the whole of the fruit as you need the fiber.

Lycopene rich foods
(includes grapefruit, red bell peppers and baby jackfruit)

Lycopene is a naturally occurring coloring agent and part of the same family of phytochemicals as carotene. Lycopene is the agent responsible for the deep red colour of a good number of natural foods.

Usefully, unlike numerous vitamins, lycopene is not damaged during the cooking process, but is observably made more effective by going through the cooking process.

. Its most valuable advantage is that it serves as an antioxidant and appears to be of use in the battle to reduce the probabilty of contracting cancer.

This useful phytochemical is the most efficacious eliminator of singlet oxygen, which is connected with aging of the skin. It's also thought by many researchers to prevent the development of diseases affecting arterial blood vessels.