Top health boosting tips

Warm it up
Your digestive system works best when food is at room temperature, so get in the habit of removing chilled food from the fridge a little while before you eat in order to let it warm up slightly. Food also tastes better if it’s less chilled, so there’s o excuse!

Eat less more often
Eating consistently throughout the day provides your brain and body with a constant source of fuel. This 3-4 hour eating strategy can dramatically prevent dips in your blood-sugar levels, something which is especially important in preventing premenstrual stress.

Water it down
Drink water with your meals as well as throughout the day. As well as helping your body to absorb the nutrients from food, it also causes the fibre within food to swell, activating stretch receptors in the stomach lining to signal when you’ve eaten enough.

Chew gum
Chewing stimulates signals in the learning centre of the brain, which could help to preserve memory. Chewing gum also may, in a small way, help to keep you slim as it boosts the metabolic rate by about 20%. Choose sugar-free versions to prevent tooth decay and damage.

Feast on flowers
Flowers are a great way to add color to food as well as boosting health. For example, the delicate blue flowers of borage to summer drinks help to boost brain function and immunity.

Don’t be acidic
Some scientist believe that for optimal health the body should be slightly more alkaline than acidic. For this, 70 to 80% of the food you eat should be alkaline-forming foods such as leafy greens, most fruits, soy products and seeds, and only 20 to 30% should be derived from acid-forming foods like grains, red meat and dairy products.

Go live
For the best bacterial health kick, make sure the yogurt you buy contains live, active cultures and lists the Latin names of these beneficial bacteria. Many of the health-promoting properties of yogurt come from these bacteria.

Make a natural choice
Nutrition science research is finding increasingly that it is not one particular substance or another that give foods their disease-fighting power, but the interaction of all the food’s vitamins, antioxidants and other chemicals. To get the most benefit, try to eat food items in their natural form whenever possible.

Fish for variety
When we’re told to eat oily fish, salmon and mackerel immediately spring to mind, but don’t forget there are plenty of other fish containing health-giving omega-3 oils in varying amounts. If you’re bored with the usual suspects, try trout, sardine, tuna, pilchard, eels and herring.

Reduce the process
In general, the healthier choice is to eat foods as near to their natural state as possible. Choose organic and eat food raw, or lightly cooked. The fewer processes your food has been through, the better and generally tastier it is.

All right petal
A great way to add colour to salads is to sprinkle over some fresh nasturtium petals, which are high in vitamin C, or the seeds, which are high in iron and phosphorous. Both leaves and seeds – which are used in place of capers – are thought to help chest complaints and aid digestion.

Choose carbs for endurance
The body extracts energy more easily from carbohydrates, which it converts in to sugar, than from protein or fat, so if you have a really physical job or have an active day planned, it’s best to eat a diet high in carbohydrates. Get them from vegetables, grains and legumes (peas and beans).