Wellness Mama Queen

  If your diet is perfect, you can stop reading right now. This story is for people who occasionally hang out with foods best described as bad nutritional influences. That’s because even dietary troublemakers have redeeming qualities and you can find surprising sources of nutrients everywhere. That doesn’t mean your whole diet should—or even can—be filled with foods that lean so heavily into the unhealthy. You need to limit the foods mentioned below. And for good health and   weight maintenance , fill up on nutritious whole foods and plenty of plants. But for the sake of your happiness or sanity, sometimes you need to stray—even momentarily. So, the following list of surprising sources of   nutrients   isn’t meant to absolve your dietary indiscretions. Instead, use it to help you pick a pleasure with at least a sliver of a nutritional silver lining. Dark Chocolate Could be Your Choice for Unexpected Nutrition This is probably the most well-known example of important ...

  You want to eat right and don’t know where to start. So, you find yourself surfing the web for examples of “good” and “bad” foods. A list of healthy options is essential for paving the road to a healthy diet. But lists do little to educate you on why good foods are, in fact, good for you. You can pick better ingredients for healthier meals if you understand how the food you eat creates usable   energy in your body . The glycemic index can be just the tool you need to build a better understanding of how food works in your body. You already know that the food you eat becomes energy. But learning how to use the glycemic index can illuminate just how much energy you can derive from certain foods. It can also teach you about the quality and dependability of that energy. Glucose—Derived from Food to Fuel the Body The energy currency for your body is glucose. This simple sugar is an abundant   carbohydrate   in your diet. Not all of the carbohydrates you consume are in th...

  Numerous observation and epidemiological studies have shown solid relationships between certain healthy eating patterns and longevity. A study published in the   New England Journal of Medicine   shows that improving overall diet quality by consuming less sugar-laden beverages, red and processed meats, and consuming more vegetables, fruits, fish, nuts and whole grains may significantly reduce the risk of premature death. It is the first study to show that improving diet quality over at least 12 years is associated with lower total and cardiovascular mortality, and further highlights the importance of maintaining healthy eating patterns long-term. The study analyzed the association between changes in diet quality of nearly 74,000 adults over a 12-year period and the risk of dying over the subsequent 12 years using data from two long-term studies- the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study. Diet quality was assessed using three different scorin...