To celebrate Healthy Eating Week this June 1st - 5th, Real Health Wholefood's Nutritional Therapist Libby Limon offers her tips on the essential vitamins and minerals needed to keep your health and wellbeing at its best.
What do we need for our bodies to work at their best?
For an added energy boost, try lemons, guavas and holy basil, all of which offer multiple B vitamins for an active energy metabolism, to help combat fatigue and boost mental performance. You could also try Green tea which offers a natural, sustained caffeine boost and contains the amino acid L-Theanine, which has been shown to enhance mood, improve memory and promote better concentration.
To improve your hormonal balance and alleviate symptoms of PMS, try adding more vitamin B6 to your diet. This vitamin can be found in pistachio nuts, sunflower seeds, sweet potato and organic chicken, and has been shown to help regulate hormone levels.
For healthier skin hair and nails, try to introduce selenium into your diet, as it can help the body to neutralise free radical toxins, which can damage collagen and elastin in the skin. Whilst selenium can be found in lean meat, fish and eggs, it can also be added to your diet in nutritional yeast, which is also full of those vital B vitamins.
If you're looking to boost your chances of conceiving, folic acid has long been prescribed to women looking to improve the chances of a healthy pregnancy. Lentils, dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach and citrus fruits including lemons remain top of the healthy shopping list for increasing the amount of folic acid in your diet.
For a healthier immune system, make sure you are getting plenty of fruits and vegetables rich in antioxidants. Look out for foods with a high ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) value, including pomegranates, elderberries, blueberries and cranberries. Pomegranates are also high in vitamin C, a vital vitamin for boosting immunity. Try adding ginseng to your diet, as it also an increasingly popular ingredient for those seeking to boost their immune response.
Studies have shown that we need up to 5,000 ORAC 'units' a day for an effective boost to our bodies' antioxidant capacity. With only 31% of adults in the UK meeting their recommended daily allowance of fruit and vegetables*, this high ORAC value is not always easy to achieve! Why not try adding a wholefood supplement such as Real Health Wholefood's range of 100% natural multivitamins, derived purely from organic fruits, vegetables and herbs. This new range of vitamins offers an enhanced absorption rate, due to their entirely natural composition.
For more information on boosting healthy eating and the benefits of natural, wholefood vitamins for boosted health and wellbeing, visit www.realhealthwholefood.co.uk.
Tagged in Vitamins