Eating For Health

Who doesn’t like bananas?   One of my favorite fruits.   Such a fave, that I eat a banana every morning.   What are some health benefits and convenience of eating bananas? Easy and convenient Bananas are now available in grocery stores all year.   One doesn’t have to wait for them to be in season. Bananas are easy to store, don’t need refrigeration and easy to pack in a lunch. Kids find bananas easy to eat.   If you ever went to a school lunch room when apples are served, you would be shocked to see how many apples have a tiny bite in them and then the rest of the apple hits the garbage can.   But when bananas are served, the kids usually eat all of the banana.    What are the health benefits of bananas? Potassium:   Loaded with the mineral, potassium .   “A medium banana gives you 422 milligrams, which is 9% of what you need every day.”   Potassium helps you lower your blood pressure.   How?   Potassium helps your body get rid of sodium so it really helps manage blood pressu

Everyone has heard of “processed foods”.   But now they talk about “ultra-processed” foods.   When teaching nutrition we did talk about why processed foods can be unhealthy but only recently has the term “ultra-processed” foods come into vogue.   In a previous blog post, Should You Avoid Ultraprocessed Food? , I noted that some of my students say that to eat healthy one should avoid “processed food”.   What they did not seem to understand is that most of the food we eat is processed to some extent.   Whole wheat bread is a healthy choice but bread is a “processed food”.   They harvest the grain, mill the grain, make the flour and then make the bread.   Cereal, canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, 100% juice – all are processed to some extent.   But now there is “ultraprocessed food”.   These foods are not only highly processed but often contain a lot of added sugar, salt and fat as well as preservatives and many have artificial coloring added.   These foods are usually low in fib