Staying Healthy On The Inside
By Simone Austin- Accredited Practising Dietician
The biggest issue I see in my private practice and when working with athletes is that they do not include enough fruit and vegetables in their diet. Whether it be for weight loss, improving their immune system, improving digestive health and to maintain peak performance, the biggest change to their diets required is to increase those fruit and in particular vegetables! So I am going to give you a few facts with some tips that may encourage you to include a little volume and variety into your diet.
Let's start with a welcome back to the fruit you have missed regularly in your diet over the last year, drum roll please, yes the old favourite the banana. I am glad they are coming back to the quality and price we know so they can be part of the daily lunch box or snack routine. You can now go back to grabbing such a convenient, nutrient rich snack food, packed with slow release energy to get you through the afternoon or for recovery after your sport.
I used to avoid adding bananas to my fruit salad but the good news is you can without them going brown! The trick is to choose the Lady Finger variety, they don’t brown when cut. We often hear people say bananas are healthy because they are high in potassium, which like most fruits they are, but most people don’t know why. Potassium is important for controlling blood pressure and therefore for overall cardiac health and potassium is an electrolyte important in the hydration process.
The old wives tails about avoiding bananas if you have diabetes or want to lose weight have no substance to them. Bananas have a glycaemic index, GI of only around 52 when firm, which is considered low, they have no fat and are full of dietary fibre to fill you up, so get into them and enjoy!
How beautiful are roses? We all admire them. Well blackberries are from the rose family and they too have many admirable qualities that we often overlook. Their flavour, the richness in nutrients particularly vitamin C and E, other phytochemicals to fight against disease and boost our immune system. To add to their beauty they are very low in kilojoules so we can eat them in plentiful amounts, with no fat, and minimal sugar. What a sweet treat! What could be more appealing than a bowl full of blackberries, blueberries and raspberries ready to eat?
Did you know we often desire high fat, nutritionally poor foods for their smooth, velvety texture? The nutrient packed avocado has that same delicious velvety mouth feel provided by the healthy monounsaturated fats, with the bonus of loads of added nutrients. So swap that afternoon snack hidden in your desk draw for some avocado and new season Truss tomatoes, beautiful on their own or sprinkled with black pepper on some dry biscuits.
If you have been avoiding avocados because you take the medication Warfarin no need to. Avocados are a rich source of vitamin K important for blood clotting, red blood cell formation and bone health. You simply need to keep your intake of vitamin K around the same quantity each few days, so you can include avocado everyday if you wish.
Whilst adding some avocado to your salad throw in a few mushrooms and Truss tomatoes. The colours will be stunning and the taste sensational. Mushrooms can reduce the amount of salt (sodium) that you need to add to your food due to their natural flavours, beneficial then to your blood pressure. They are packed with dietary fibre and B group vitamins which are essential for your energy production reactions. Numerous studies link mushrooms to reducing the risk of cancers, one being lowering the incidence of breast cancer. More research is required however they can only help so give them a go.
Tomatoes as well as being wonderful in most dishes are a fantastic food to snack on as you would other fruits. The tomato is actually a fruit. Choose bite size tomatoes to have as a convenient pop in your mouth snack or cut up the larger ones ready in a container to take or in the fridge ready to reach for in place of the less healthy choices you may have gone for previously. The vitamin C and phytochemicals such as lycopenes can help reduce the risk of cancers. To make the most of the lycopene, natural chemical in tomatoes, studies seem to think this is most useful for your body when the tomato is cooked however as this reduces the vitamin C content I think you will have to eat tomatoes both cooked and raw!
Set yourself a target and increase the volume of fruit and vegetables in your diet to around one third to a half, some fresh and some cooked, your body will feel the difference!
Simone Austin APD, BSc. MND
Accredited Practising Dietician
Simone is an accredited practicing dietician with over 15 years experience. Enjoying her work in the sports field with AFL team Hawthorn, rugby league team Melbourne Storm and A League soccer team Melbourne Heart, together with some Olympic swimmers and previously with the Australian Cricket team for many years Simone has her hand in many sports. Having worked in the fields of community nutrition and health promotion, providing numerous presentations and currently working with Swisse Vitamins, Simone likes to spread the nutrition message to as many people as possible. She loves to cook and to spend time as mum to her two children.