Expanding nutritional awareness has brought with it a brand new vocabulary words like ‘neutraceuticals and phytochemicals’.These are compounds present in foods, which have specific health protective and health enhancing effects on the body.

Here we are considering them as super foods. These super foods contains substances or compounds that our body does not produce itself but become available to us when we eat plants especially in a fresh, raw state.That’s why most of the doctors and dietitians recommended eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

Several health enhancing factors are found in common foods, berries, citrus fruits, and grapes to broccoli, cabbage, spinach, carrots, soya bean, onions, garlic and tomatoes. They occur in spices and herbs from red pepper to basil, oregano, parsley and mint. Many phytochemicals are found hidden in the red, yellow, orange, green and blue colors of the vegetable. Examples of some Super Foods are:

Sprouts:

Sprouted food items are a reserve of nutrients. Hence we can say it that they are super food. Each biogenic seed is an unopened treasure chest of nutritional energy, fats and carbohydrate, plus vitamins and minerals. But when it is soaked in water remarkable changes begin to take place.

Dormant enzymes become more active which results positive nutritional changes. Some important beneficial effects of sprouting is that it break down the starches into simple sugars, decrease saturated fats by turning them into free fatty acids. Proteins are more easily available and vitamin C content is high in sprouted foods.

Most importantly sprouting is a simple and effective process and can easily be done on the kitchen window.

Tomatoes:

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Tomatoes are very rich in lycopene, one of the powerful plant based antioxidant. It improves mental as well as physical functioning while reducing the risk of degenerative disease. Lycopene is one of the few phytochemicals that is more readily absorbed by the body when tomatoes are eaten cooked instead of raw.

Tomatoes also contain good quantities of glutathione, another potent anti oxidant which helps enhance immune functioning and slows down premature ageing which also helps to prevent macular degeneration.

Capsicum:

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All peppers whether red, green, yellow, orange are rich in vitamin C and E, and also contain carotenoids protecting against degeneration and the damaging effects of toxic chemicals in the environment. Eat peppers with raw with peanut dip, bake them or add them to rice, stews, soups etc.

Asparagus:

Asparagus has long been used in Ayurvedic medicine as a remedy against indigestion. It is one of the best natural remedies for Pre-menstrual syndrome related bloating, a top source of folic acid, vitamin C and antioxidant glutathione. All three of these are associated with a reduced risk of cancer, age related degenerative disease and heart disease.

Pumpkin And Sunflower Seeds:

Pumpkin seeds are extremely rich in zinc, which is essential for immunity, growth and wound healing. They are also a good source of iron, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium and a huge amount of fiber, (10gms in each 25gm s of seed) as well as some vitamin A.

Sunflower seeds are rich natural source of vitamin E. They have anti cancer and anti ageing potential due to their beta carotene content. Eating only 30 gm of sunflower seeds will double most individual’s vitamin E content.

Green Chillies:

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Most people think of chillies in terms of herbs and spices while overlooking its health aspects. One small green chilli can boost the antioxidant, beta carotene and vitamin C. Both these nutrients strengthen immunity and help fight free radicals and therefore help protect against heart disease, cancer and early ageing.

Garlic:

Garlic has many nutritional benefits. It has lot of properties like it lowers LDL, stimulating immune function reduces the tendency of blood to clot, lowers blood pressure. Apart from this, garlic protects the cells against free radical damage and therefore the body against premature ageing and degeneration. Garlic has much more antibiotic properties when we eat it raw rather than we cook it.