Natural Energy Boosters

Mothers are the most natural energy boosters in the world. And my mother was the biggest booster of them all. If a child needed to get more energy, fight a cold, heal a scraped knee or avoid deadly disease, she insisted chicken soup was always the remedy. So, therefore, whenever she saw that one of her kids was droopy, dragging, confused or just plain kvetching, she said her magic energy booster ... a hot bowl of chicken soup, preferably with matzoh balls ... was the perfect cure for just about everything.

You can be sure that every ethnic mother had her own magic formula to get energy immediately restored to her tired and uninspired loved ones. In my best friend Mario's family, it was spaghetti and meatballs. Around the corner, it was ham hocks, boiled potatoes and cabbage for Mickey's family. Down the street at the Chinese restaurant, the family patriarch always sat his draggy kids and droopy customers down to a steaming bowl of veggie and pork won ton soup. Mexican schoolmate Pablo's mom insisted that tortillas dripping with hot chile sauce was the answer, although to me it didn't boost my energy, except to run screaming to get cold water to wash out my burning gums.Unfortunately, those days of momma's home remedies for sagging energy are mostly gone, and more scientific methods are suggested for choosing foods that are natural energy boosters. Not that today's suggestions are any more effective than the tried and true momma remedies of a generation or three ago. In fact, recent studies have proven that chicken soup is actually a natural and healthy energy booster.

For me today, the quickest energy pick-me-up is always raw fruit. It is highly nutritious and easy to carry around. During a busy day, if I have a hunk of fruit with me, I don't go reaching for the over-salted, over-sugared, over-fried, over-fat, over-processed snack foods, such as french fries, fatty burgers, cake, pie, potato chips, cookies, candy bars and cheese crackers.A juicy, sweet peach or a banana has a lot of tasty sugar in it, but it is all natural and healthful. The beneficial ingredients of raw fruit interact with the body almost immediately, providing a burst of energy and a general feeling of well-being. A candy bar may give instant relief from hunger, but there's absolutely nothing healthy in its ingredients. The manufacturers aren't interested in your health, only in addicting you to chocolate and all the other stuff loaded with processed sugar and chemicals it can cram into it.

Hot whole-grain cereals made from cooked wheat, corn or rice are healthful, but you can't carry the gooey ingredients around with you all day. Sugar-free dry cereals made with the same healthy grains come in little bite-sized pieces. For a mid-morning or afternoon pick-me-up, carry around a bag or mini box of one of them for satisfying your between-meals hunger pangs.

Some boxes come with plastic or wax bags inside. If you prefer your snack with skim or soy milk, it can become a mini-breakfast repast that just takes a few minutes out of your busy day. A sliced peach or banana can add to the tasty menu. For variety, you can add or substitute some salt-free, low-cal crackers for your cereals. Another energy-boosting, healthful snack or lunch-substitute food is yogurt. Today there are hundreds of different kinds of real and fake yogurt under many confusing descriptions, so you must be aware of the good vs the bad stuff. You can choose so-called fat free, calorie free, milk free and every other kind of free, except the cost of the yogurt. Look at the labels carefully, and maybe do some homework on your internet to find the most healthful brands of yogurt.

Generally, I stay away from yogurts that are gussied up with processed sugary fruits, nuts, chocolate and other tasty, but unhealthy add-ons. Just stick to the plain nutritious yogurts for your morning, afternoon and, if you get hungry late, your before-bed snack.

The same goes for the ever-increasing variety of so-called health or energy bars. To me, no matter how they're advertised as legitimate diet foods, they're candy bars in disguise. I've drooled over candy bars since as a kid I spent my five-cent-a-week allowance on a big crunchy Clark bar. However, I may be too picky about staying away from the sweet little energy bar indulgences today. Therefore, if you like 'em, know what they contain and just make sure you're eating for your health's sake, and not to make a a rich candy maker richer.