Walnut Archives

I don’t want to think there is anyone here who doesn’t know how much the importance of the heart is to the whole body. When the heart stops, then every other organ in the body dies sooner than later. In the next paragraph, I will quickly highlight the important functions of the heart in the body as a refresher or reminder.

The heart is an organ that functions as a pump for the movement of blood through the body. Different parts of the body require oxygen for proper functioning, the blood as we know carries oxygen from the lungs with it. It is important that oxygen gets to all parts of the body — the brain, muscles, in fact, all cells in the body. The heart does the job of pumping blood to these parts of the body. So, why wouldn’t you strive to keep your heart healthy?

It is not enough to just eat heart-healthy foods to have a heart that is healthy and functioning properly, we must also strive to minimize foods that have adverse effects on the heart. These types of foods have been implicated in cardiovascular heart diseases. We should try to minimize how much we consume them.

Top Heart-healthy Foods: Keep The Heart Functioning Properly.

Foods That Keep The Heart Functioning Properly

Walnuts:

Walnut again? Isn’t this walnut a super nut after all? We have mentioned it under different topics because of its health benefits and here it is again helping the heart. Eating about 140 grammes of walnut per week, reduces your risk of heart disease by half.

We mentioned in one of our articles about foods that help the brains by providing essential nutrients to it, that walnut is able to provide this function because it is very rich in omega-3 fatty acids. These are very good fats that reduces the level of your “bad-for-the-heart” LDL cholesterol and raise your “good” HDL cholesterol.

Almonds:

Almonds, just like walnuts is rich in these fats that help your heart by lowering the bad cholesterol levels. These types of healthy monounsaturated fats even help you lose fats when you eat them. Ironic huh?

Unsaturated fats are not just good for your heart, they offer another benefit by boosting serotonin levels during the day, which in turn help you sleep better at night. Add almonds to foods you snack on and enjoy these benefits. When I order my Ice Cream, I do with Almonds or Pecans.

Yoghurt and Milk

Yoghurt and Milk, especially the fat-free or low-fat types help reduce the pressure on the heart. Dairy products are known to be rich in Potassium – a mineral that has been linked to lowering the level of blood pressure.

When you consume low-fat or fat-free dairy or dairy products, you get little to no saturated fat, the kind of fat that can raise your bad cholesterol level. Other sources of Potassium are most fruits and vegetables. Examples include potato and banana.

The Bell Peppers

Thankfully, man soups cook in this part of the world usually contain the bell peppers blended with tomatoes, onions, etc. Many people just feel they add the red bell peppers in order to make the soup thick and redder in color. Yes, it does these things and makes the blend “attractive”.

The orange, yellow, and red colors of the bell peppers mean that they contain phytonutrients and additional antioxidants. These antioxidants help to make sure that our body can battle back free radical damage.

Garlic

Generally, we use Garlic as a flavouring for food but it has been used for a long time as a herb for medicinal purposes. It has been used for many conditions related to the heart and blood system. Some of these diseases include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, heart attack, and hardening of the arteries.

Apart from the fact that it can make the mouth smell, we should use garlic moderately and with caution as it might prolong bleeding. Therefore you should stay away from garlic at least two weeks before a scheduled surgery and probably menstruation.

Green Tea

Green tea has been shown to help prevent cardiovascular heart diseases. A study carried out on 40,530 Japanese adults revealed that participants who drank more than five cups of green tea a day had a 26% lower risk of death from heart attack or stroke than those who drank less than one cup of this tea in a day.

Even though no adverse effect was reported in people that took the five or more cups of green tea, it should be noted that it contains oxalate, which can cause kidney stones. So, drinking tea moderately will still give you some health benefits.

Turmeric

Several studies have revealed that turmeric helps in maintaining heart health by reducing cholesterol oxidation, reducing plaque build-up, clot formation, reduce bad cholesterol (LDL), reduce pro-inflammatory response, etc.

Heart attacks are caused by atherosclerotic plaque buildup or high cholesterol levels, therefore, adding turmeric to your diet can help you reduce this risk by a great amount.

In recent weeks, we have discussed very serious food matters relating to food security, food safety, foods that help parts of the body and food recipes. Today, we are adding some sort of fun to our learning by talking about foods that look like the parts of the body they help.

Foods That Look Like Parts Of The Human Body They Help

I know you may be tasking your brain already, trying to think of one that you know already. Don’t worry, I am going to share some interesting ones with you here. You go through the pages to see all these foods and the part of the body that they help. Have fun while learning too.

1. The Carrot and The Eye

The cut section as seen in the image below has patterns of radiating lines that look like the pupil and iris of the human eye. It may not be a coincidence that the beta-carotene present in carrots help the eyes. The beta-carotene is good for our overall eye health.

When we eat foods that contain beta-carotene, our body converts it into vitamin A. The vitamin A ultimately gets converted into retinol that is being used by the eye for certain functions.

2. The Walnut and The Brain

This is the most striking of them all — the resemblance between the walnut and the human brain. Taking a look at the picture below, you would agree with me that they share this amazing resemblance between themselves and the former helps the latter — they (walnut) are often referred to as “the ultimate brain food”.

Walnuts have an abundance of with DHA, a type of omega-3 fatty acids, an essential fatty acid that helps keep the brain functioning normally. A large part of the brain is made up of what is normally referred to as “structural fat”.

It needs high-quality fats like the omega-3 fatty acids to function properly by keeping the brain fluid and flexible. Walnut is very rich in these omega-3 fatty acids.

3. The Ginger and the Stomach

Many forms of ginger that you will buy as a whole would have one part that has a shape looking like the shape of the human stomach. The resemblance is not as striking as that between the walnut and the brain but they sure bear some resemblance in their shape.

I grew up seeing adults using ginger ale drinks to help relieve stomach aches and upsets. Ginger on its own is also a helpful digestive that helps digest food. It is a known remedy that chewing on fresh ginger helps digest heavy foods.

4. The Celery and the Bone

Celery, when you remove the leafy part sure look like the bones of the forearm — ulna and radius. Celery, botanically known as Apium graveolens, is rich in calcium — the essential mineral for bone formation in the human body.

This is not just the end about how celery helps bone formation, it also contains vitamin K, which along with the essential minerals magnesium and phosphorus, helps make the proper absorption of calcium in the body possible.

5. The Avocado and the Uterus & Cervix

Cutting avocado horizontally as shown in the image below make sit shaped like the uterus and cervix together. It look like Uterus and helps the uterus in some ways — it has been reported to help with hormonal balance and work against the development of cervical cancer. The most interesting part is this…

Just as it takes 9 months for a baby to fully develop in the mother’s womb, it takes an avocado exactly the same 9 months to grow from a blossom into a ripened fruit! Isn’t that amazing.

There are more but these are the top 5 I found interesting and decided to share with you!