Challenge for Week #2

Ladies the challenge for this week is to get more variety in your diet. For each day that you eat a fruit or vegetable that you have not eaten during the last month you earn the 5 daily bonus points.

Enjoy a Variety of Foods Do you find yourself eating the same thing day in and day out? Same breakfast, same lunch, same few dinner recipes. Furthermore do you find yourself always eating WHEAT bread, always eating white rice, always eating the same cereal or snack foods. Why Variety is Important? it increases your chances of getting all of the nutrients needed for good health, in the right amounts. it stacks your diet with protective factors that may disarm would-be cancer causing substances. Protective factors include both nutrients (vitamins and minerals) and non-nutritive substances present in food. it helps to keep your intake of substances like fat, salt and other negative ingredients at more moderate and healthy levels. I'd like to add another point to the above list. My middle son has had a lot of problems with food allergies. The doctor that I took him to when he was a young boy explained that food allergies can be caused by three big factors. 1. We eat too many refined and processed foods that don't contain enough roughage and thereby because of the lack of fiber the food can sit in our intestinal tract longer than it should until it putrefies and rots. 2. Our bodies can actually mistake this foreign matter that is not eliminated in a timely manner as a foreign substance which it needs to guard against. This can initiate allergic reactions. 3. Repeatedly eating the same foods over an over can exacerbate the above problem. How do you get more variety? Getting variety in your diet is really quite simple. The most basic way to ensure that you eat a variety of foods is to plan your day's meals around the major food groupings: Grain products; Vegetables and Fruit; Milk products; Meat and Alternatives. Take advantage of the marvelous range of foods available. Enjoy ethnic foods and cooking; try the different fruits, great variety of vegetables and many types of whole grains that you find in the ethnic markets and grocery stores.