If you want an easy healthy food, you can’t go wrong with healthy bananas! They come prepackaged by Mother Nature, full of goodness like potassium. All you have to do is peel and eat.

There are actually two main types of bananas, the sweet banana, which is what we usually see in the stores and eat fresh. The other kind is the plantain banana, which is usually cooked. It is becoming more readily available in supermarkets.

Although we usually see sweet bananas with yellow skins, they do come in different colors. When ripe, they can be red, pink, black or purple.

What’s So Great About Banana Foods?

Bananas not only have a lot of potassium, they also have manganese. Besides having those minerals, they are a good source of vitamins B6 and C, plus they have a lot of fiber. This makes bananas a very healthy food indeed!

This easy healthy food is also full of antioxidants. What’s interesting is the fact that as bananas ripen, the level of antioxidants increases, so the riper the banana, the more antioxidants it has.

Choosing And Storing Bananas

What’s you best choice of bananas? Well, it depends on what you want to do with them. If you want to eat them fairly quickly, choose bananas that are completely yellow. However, if you want them to last longer, choose green bananas.

You can delay the ripening of green bananas by putting them in the refrigerator.  The peels will turn black but the flesh remains good.

On the other hand, if you want to speed up the ripening process, put the bananas in a bowl sitting in sunshine. You can also place them in a brown paper bag with a piece of apple or tomato to make them ripen faster.

Tips For Banana Foods

Besides eating bananas fresh, they can also be used for cooking and baking and combined with all kinds of other foods. They’re a great addition to smoothies, adding a fuller body and texture to the drink. And who hasn’t heard of banana bread and banana muffins? They’re great in fruit salads, slicked up over a bowl of cereal, and make a great sandwich when paired with peanut butter.

When preparing bananas for recipes, once they are peeled, it’s best to dip them in lemon, lime or orange juice to prevent them from browning if you won’t be serving them right away.

To enhance the taste and smell of bananas, try using them in a recipe that calls for them to be heated.

Healthy Bananas Can Help Sick People

If you have kids, chances are you’ve heard of the BRAT diet. If you’re unfamiliar with it, this is a diet of:

• Bananas
• Rice
• Applesauce
• Toast

These foods are considered to help when someone is suffering from diarrhea. In the past, pediatricians prescribed this diet as the only foods to give children, but nowadays they are more often just incorporated into their regular diet.

Bananas also contain the compounds called protease inhibitors, which help destroy harmful bacteria like H. pylori, which is believed to be the cause of stomach ulcers.

Cheers For Healthy Bananas!

Bananas are versatile and tasty and good for you. They may be the ultimate easy healthy food!

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Healthy Bananas

What Makes Them Healthy Hazelnuts?

Hazelnuts are a high-quality source of protein and fiber for starters. They also have a bunch of antioxidants such as vitamin E and many phytonutrients that help the immune system.

Not only that, but of all the tree nuts, hazelnuts have the highest concentration of folate. Why is that so great?

Well, folate is a water soluble B vitamin that is especially important during periods of rapid cell division and growth. For instance, it reduces the risk of neural tube birth defects.

In addition, both children and adults require folic acid to produce healthy red blood cells and prevent anemia. Folate is also thought to help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.  That makes them healthy hazelnuts indeed!

A Hazelnut By Any Other Name

Hazelnuts are also known as filberts, which is actually the correct name for the tree and nut. It’s of French origin and the tree was likely first introduced into the US by early French settlers.

However, hazelnut is the name coined by the English and it was applied to the native species by early settlers.  Nowadays, hazelnut is more commonly used term for these nuts.

The How And Where Of Hazelnut Growth

Hazelnuts are shaped a lot like acorns and grow on bushy trees.  The main producers of hazelnuts are France, Spain, Turkey and Italy.  In the United States, most hazelnuts are grown in Oregon and Washington.

They’ve been a food source for a long time, and are thought to have originated in Asia. There are Chinese manuscripts from 5,000 years ago that refer to the healthy hazelnut as a sacred food from heaven.

They have a rich flavor and work well in baked goods. Hazelnuts are also one of the main ingredients in Nutella spread, besides making hazelnut butter, meal, flour, paste and oil.

Heavenly Hazelnuts Are Healthy Hazelnuts

Besides being a great tasting food, hazelnuts have great health benefits.

• Hazelnut oil was used in ancient times to help quiet chronic coughs.
• Used externally, hazelnut oil is also thought to help rid the skin of cellulite.
• Hazelnuts are a rich source of the amino acid arginine that relaxes blood vessels.
• Eating hazelnuts have been found to help lower cholesterol levels, as they contain nearly 75 percent mono-unsaturated fat and less than 4 percent saturated fat.
• Hazelnuts have the highest proanthocyanidin content of any tree nut. These compounds may help reduce the risk of blood clotting and urinary tract infections.

The Many Ways To Enjoy Hazelnuts

There are many ways to incorporate hazelnuts into your diet. You can snack on the whole or cracked nuts.  Along with diced nuts, they can be used in baked goods, entrees, salads, soups, cereals, bars, toppings, and even dairy products.

Hazelnut meal is finely ground and free flowing. It can be used to replace flour in baked goods, fillings and sauces, and even in ice cream. It’s especially good to use to make low carb foods, and is of course, excellent for use in health foods!

Even More Ways To Enjoy Healthy Hazelnut Benefits!

Hazelnut butter is similar to natural peanut butter, being made of finely ground hazelnuts and unsweetened. Not only does it add a special flavor, it adds protein to replace some carbohydrates, making it also good for low carb and health foods. An interesting side effect of using hazelnut butter with recipes containing chocolate is that it lowers the melting point of chocolate and makes the texture creamier.

Hazelnut paste is much the same as hazelnut butter, only besides the finely ground hazelnuts, it also has sugar added. It’s spreadable, but grainy. It is often used in bakery icings and fillings, confectionery, and dairy products.

Healthy Hazelnuts Add Pizazz To Your Diet!

A great tasting nut with a lot of uses, hazelnuts are also full of nutrients that are great for your body. You can’t go wrong with hazelnuts!

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Go Nuts For Healthy Hazelnuts!

They contain vitamin E, several B-vitamins, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Oats also have some of the trace minerals selenium, copper, zinc, iron and manganese. They’re full of good-for-you phytochemicals and have both soluble and insoluble fiber. Oats have been found to benefit heart health, lower blood pressure, and can even help prevent diabetes as part as a high whole-grain diet.

Oats were one of the earliest cultivated cereals. The ancient Greeks were the first people known to make porridge (cereal) from oats. In England, oats were considered inferior, but in Ireland and Scotland they were used in many kinds of porridges and baked goods.

Oats came to America with British immigrants in the 1600s, and in fact, the British Quaker influence inspired the name for “Quaker Oats.” Today oats are produced in many countries, but Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota and central Canada lead in oat production in North America.

So I Repeat, Oats, Groats, What’s The Difference?
Oats come in more than one form. In fact, there are six basic types found at the grocery or health food store. Each kind has a different texture when prepared, different cooking times, and even some nutritional differences.

Whole Oat Groats
Oat Groats (say that fast a few times!) are the starting point. This is the harvested “as-is” product. Whole oat groats are widely used as animal feed, but not so easily found for human consumption. Some health food stores carry them. Whole oat groats can be cooked or steamed, but because they’re a bigger grain than rice or even whole wheat kernels, take much longer to cook. It can take up to an hour, although a pressure cooker will shorten the cooking time. Because they are “as-is”, they have the highest nutritional value of all forms of oats. They are digested very slowly, which reduces the glycemic load and makes them quite filling.

Steel Cut Oatmeal or Oats
Just to make things even more confusing, steel cut oats are also commonly called Irish Oatmeal. They’re exactly what the name says, being whole oat groats that have been steel cut into smaller pieces. This shortens the cooking time, but keeps all the nutritional value of the whole oat groats. These are much easier to find at the grocery stores than whole oat groats. Look for either steel cut oats or Irish Oatmeal.

Scottish Oats
Scottish oats are not to be confused with Irish Oatmeal. They are steamed, steel cut oats than are then ground into a meal. This improves the grain’s ability to absorb water and allows a shorter cooking time. Some manufacturers toast the oats to create a richer-flavored oatmeal, or combin it with some oat bran to make the oat meal creamier.

Rolled Oats or Oat Flakes
When people think of oatmeal, this is the kind they usually mean. Rolled oats can be made with the whole oat groat or using steel cut oats. Either way, the oat is steamed to soften the grain, so it can then be pressed between steel rollers to flatten it. There are four main types of rolled oats:

1. Thick Rolled Oats: These are made from steamed whole oat groats rolled into flakes. Because they’re the thickest variety, it takes them longest to cook.
2. “Old Fashioned Oats”, or Regular Rolled Oats: Think Quaker Oatmeal. These are the steamed whole oat groats rolled into a thinner flake which shortens the cooking time. The texture is a bit mushier than thick rolled oats, but still pretty filling and full of whole grain goodness.
3. Quick Oats: Instead of using whole oat groats, these are made from steel cut oats so are smaller pieces, and faster cooking. They digest a little quicker than regular rolled oats, but are still nutritious.
4. Instant Oats: These are quick oats that have one more processing step… they are pre-cooked. Because of this, all you have to do is add hot water and they’re ready to eat. Non-flavored varieties may have a bit of salt added, but are still nutritionally decent. However, the flavored varieties can have a lot of sugar and artificial flavoring, so aren’t quite as good for you as regular types of oatmeal.

There are two more types of oat products available, oat bran and oat flour.

Oat Bran
Made from oat groats ground into a fine oat mea, oat bran is then combined with some of the outer bran or husk of the oat to increase the overall fiber content of the oatmeal. Because of this, it is slightly higher in insoluble fiber than rolled or cut products. It is also quick cooking with a creamy consistency somewhat like cream of wheat. Oat bran is a great addition to breads or granola for a little extra fiber.

Oat Flour
Steel cut oats are steamed, then ground into a fine powder to make oat flour. It has a lot of fiber, but contains very little gluten. It can be used in place of wheat flour in recipes, though it is usually mixed with other whole grain flours since it needs a little help to make it rise due to the lack of gluten. Adding gluten powder to breads will help it rise better, or using baking soda or baking powder in your baked goods.

No matter what variety of oats you choose, they’re a nutritional powerhouse that should be in everyone’s diet!

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Oats, Groats, What’s The Difference?