Foods that Promote Longevity and Long Life

Along with creating a list of foods that promote longevity, there needs to be self discipline. If the most healthful foods are eaten in excess, they can be almost as damaging to a person's health as moderate helpings of the most unhealthful foods. Therefore, eating sensible amounts of healthful foods, along with a regimen of daily exercise, are the best ways to promote those happy, healthy and prolonged adult and sunset years. Here are some suggestions:

1. Cut way back on those juicy fatburgers, deep-fried chicken nuggets and loaded ham and cheese subs. Make fish an integral part of your diet, and eat at least three servings of the protein rich food a week. Salmon is one of the best, because it's healthful whether eaten fresh or from the can. Fresh is better because it contains natural sea salts, and if broiled with fresh-cut tomatoes and onions, no seasoning is required. Tuna, sardines and mackerel offer similar benefits, with fresh more healthful than canned.

Fish is loaded with protein and provides the good kind of unsaturated fat, omega-3. Even a small helping is very filling and helps to fight many of the ailments that often come with aging, including clogged arteries, arthritis, heart problems and stroke. Some experts claim it's a brain food, but even if not true, just by eating fish, you prove you know how to use your brain.

2. Raw fruit helps prolong lives, particularly if they're eaten instead of the commercial salt- and sugar-loaded goodies that advertisers urge us to consume. Meals don't have to end with a large slice of cake, a wedge of pie, topped with globs of ice cream and chocolate sauce. Between-meal snacks don't have to include salty fake-cheese crackers, salt-loaded pretzels and grossly salted and buttered popcorn?

Raw fruits make great desserts and between-meal snacks, and supply the body with natural sugars, along with a whole line-up of healthful vitamins and other benefits. For example, bananas provide potassium, vital to maintaining healthful bones and muscles. Fresh blueberries are very high in antioxidents.

Red grapes are loaded with natural sugars, as well as antioxidants that fight the ailments and other problems of aging. Wine, a familiar product of grapes, is a standard of many European meals, and if not taken in excess, can prolong life. Or at least make later life more pleasantly glowing.

3. Raw vegetables are much more healthful than manufactured snacks. For instance, raw tomatoes, which contain antioxident lycopene and other elements, are prescribed often by doctors who practice geriatric medicine. Statistics show that a raw tomato is beneficial in preventing several types of cancer and heart disease. For spaghetti and taco lovers, concentrated tomatoes in the form of canned or bottled sauces have more than double the vitamins and antioxidents than the fresh vegetable.

Other fresh, uncooked vegetables are equally beneficial for maintaining healthy, longer lives. Besides their natural vitamins and minerals, they also make great substitutes when the urge to snack hits around 10 am, 4 pm and midnight. A piece of celery, a floret of broccoli, a carrot stick or hunk of hikima are much more beneficial to the body and soul than a bunch of cookies or a candy bar.

4. Whole grains, including wheat, oats, rice, bran, barley and others are very beneficial. They make satisfying and tasty foods, whether in cold/hot cereals, side dishes, breads or crackers. In addition to their vitamin and other good nutrition qualities, grains help with digestion and regulate the body's need for eliminating unwanted waste. They promote longevity because their natural sugar and vitamins enhances health. As with raw fruits and vegetables, they make natural, healthy and filling meals and snacks.

5. Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and .... No, just forget the Cracker Jacks. They have a measly few peanuts in the mix, but most is tooth-rotting caramel-coated popcorn. Unsalted roasted peanuts contain natural sugars, niacin, antioxidants, proteins and healthy oils. Just three ounces a day of the little legume (not a true nut) can furnish amazing amounts of daily requirements of thiamine (45%), vitamin B3 (85%) and zinc (33%). Other nuts, including walnuts, almonds and cashews, also are reported to offer other life-extending benefits as lowering blood pressure and preventing heart attacks.

Foods that promote longer and healthier lives are those with nutritional, unprocessed ingredients that come directly to the table from trees, seas and farms in their natural state.