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Allicin gives garlic its distinctive smell. But the substance is also responsible for many of the health benefits of garlic.

Opinions differ when it comes to the smell of garlic. Some love him, others can’t stand him. Allicin is responsible for the strong smell of garlic. Allicin is a cleavage product of alliin, an amino acid found in garlic. If the garlic clove is injured, enzymes begin to break down alliin into allicin and other aromatic substances.

But allicin not only gives garlic its characteristic smell. The substance is also considered to be very healthy, which is why the food and pharmaceutical industries often work with it. A large number of food supplements and medicines based on garlic are now on the German market. According to the consumer center, the prescribed maximum amount for allicin as a drug is five milligrams per day.

The health effects of allicin

Scientists have long wondered why garlic is so healthy. It is still unknown how the tuber works exactly. Science assumes that the health-promoting effects of garlic come about through the interaction of the various ingredients. Allicin plays a crucial role in this.

Studies suggest that allicin:
Can prevent cancer because it prevents the formation of tumors as a radical scavenger.
Prevents infections with pathogens because it has an antimicrobial effect.
Prevents cardiovascular disease as it can lower the levels of bad LDL cholesterol.
It’s important to keep in mind that many of the studies on allicin have been conducted on animals. The extent to which these results can also be transferred to humans is scientifically controversial. In addition, the study results are not always clear: For example, a cholesterol-lowering effect of garlic was observed in only 44 percent of all studies from 1993 to 2006.

The antimicrobial effect of allicin may be one reason why garlic is particularly popular in the national kitchens of tropical countries. The antimicrobial effects of garlic, chillies, pepper, and ginger protected people from bacterial pathogens before the invention of the refrigerator. Germs in the food could be killed by garlic and marinades containing chilli.

You should pay attention to this when buying garlic

If you want to benefit from allicin’s healthy properties, you don’t need to resort to supplements or drugs. According to the consumer center, one should not assume that garlic in powder form or extracts has the same healthy effects on human health. It is therefore best to avoid artificial products and cook with garlic at home more often. It is not only healthy but also delicious.

If possible, buy garlic from Europe, as it travels shorter distances than, for example, Asian garlic. Garlic from China is also often heavily contaminated with pesticides. Bleaching agents that are banned in the EU are often used illegally there. You should therefore avoid snow-white garlic.

What would American pancakes be without maple syrup?

How is maple syrup made?

Maple syrup is a popular sugar alternative that is essential as a topping for pancakes, especially in North America. The popular syrup originally comes from Canada, where it is particularly valued as a cultural asset.

Maple syrup is the sweet sap of the maple tree. It is boiled down to make it durable. Typically, maple syrup has about 60 percent sugar content, so it has about a third fewer calories than pure sugar for the same amount.

Based on its color and aroma, maple syrup can be divided into different quality levels ranging from AA to D. Syrup of the best quality level AA has a very light color and a pleasantly mild aroma. The poorer the quality, the darker the color and the stronger the aroma.

The high quality levels are particularly suitable for raw consumption, for example as a topping for pancakes or fruit. The cheaper variants, on the other hand, can be used well for baking or as a sweetener for sauces.

Is Maple Syrup Really Healthy?

Unlike refined white sugar, maple syrup also contains vitamins and minerals. Maple syrup is particularly rich in zinc and manganese. In addition, Canadian scientists found 24 different antioxidants in maple syrup in a study. Antioxidants protect our body from free radicals from the environment and can thus prevent the development of civilization diseases. Thus, maple syrup is healthier than regular white sugar.

However, you should note that maple syrup is still a sugar. You should therefore always enjoy it in moderation. Excessive sugar consumption promotes the development of:
overweight and obesity
diabetes
cardiovascular diseases
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that you should consume no more than six teaspoons of sugar per day.

How sustainable is maple syrup?

Almost all of the maple syrup produced worldwide comes from the Canadian province of Québec. The syrup therefore usually has a long transport route behind it before it reaches our supermarket. You should therefore only use maple syrup if you absolutely need it for a dish because of its aroma.

If you only want to use the syrup as a sweetener anyway, it is better to use a more sustainable alternative such as honey or sugar beet syrup. Unlike agave syrup, rice syrup and maple syrup, these can be produced locally.

In this post, you will find three recipes for healthy jam. They are simple and proven housewife recipes. You can cook your own healthy jam from fresh berries and fresh fruit. You will find a jam recipe for summer, one for fall, and one for winter.

First, you only need two to five fresh ingredients. Secondly, you can cook your own jam creations yourself. And third, your health will benefit. Instead of buying jam, you can make your own jam. If you want to make jam yourself, you need fresh fruit or berries and preserving sugar.

1) berry jam in the fall

Preserving summer’s harvest in jam jars is tempting. Fresh blackberries can be picked well into October. You can easily make this grandmother-style jam with fresh berries yourself. If you want to make jam without sugar, there are alternative sweeteners like dates or honey. The recipe for blackberry jam makes four to five jars of jam.

Ingredients for the berry jam

  • 1 kg of blackberries
  • 500 g preserving sugar (2:1)
  • 4-5 jam jars

Step-by-step instructions for making berry jam

The preparation of the berry jam is very easy. The delicious jam is on the table in three steps.

  • Boil the sugar with 40 ml water to a clear, thick syrup.
  • Add the berries and cook for 30 minutes while stirring.
  • Then pour into jars that have been rinsed with hot water and close them immediately.

2) Summer strawberry rhubarb jam

When the strawberries are ripe in the fields, this summer jam is quickly conjured up on the table. You can pick the ingredients for this delicious jam fresh from the field or buy them at the weekly market. Make sure that you get ripe, sweet strawberries, because then the fruits will develop their full aroma. And this is how you succeed in cooking the healthy strawberry and rhubarb jam yourself step by step.

Ingredients for the strawberry rhubarb jam

  • 750 grams of strawberries
  • 500 g preserving sugar (2:1)
  • 250g rhubarb
  • Juice half a lemon
  • 4-5 jam jars

Preparation instructions for the summer jam

Summer is the peak season for fresh fruit and berries. The strawberries grow so numerous that they can be made into jam for the time after the strawberry season.

  • First, clean the strawberries, wash them, and cut them in half.
  • Mix the berries with the jam sugar.
  • Then puree the mixture with the hand mixer.
  • Wash the rhubarb and cut off both the leaves and the stalks.
  • Peel the rhubarb and cut it into small pieces.
  • Mix the rhubarb pieces with the lemon juice into the strawberry puree.
  • Then bring it all to a boil in a saucepan.
  • Let the jam cook for about 3 minutes while stirring.
  • Fill the jam quickly into jars that have been rinsed with hot water and seal them.

3) Winter jam from apples and raisins

In this jam recipe with apples, you can also try other spices such as vanilla, cloves, or ginger, depending on your taste. This delicious jam also tastes great in winter with Christmas spices such as cinnamon. When the days get colder, the wintry jam also tastes good warm on waffles or pancakes. An alternative for apple lovers is home-cooked applesauce.

Ingredients for the winter jam

  • 900 g peeled apples
  • juice of a lemon
  • 500 g preserving sugar (2:1)
  • 100 grams of raisins
  • 1 pinch cinnamon

Step-by-step instructions for apple jam

You can get the preserving sugar for making jam in any well-stocked supermarket. Especially in autumn and winter, you can buy it in stock if you like to make jam.

  • First wash the apples, peel and core them, and cut them into small pieces.
  • Then bring the apple pieces with lemon juice and preserving sugar to a boil in a saucepan.
  • Then add the raisins.
  • Then cook the mixture for 4 minutes while stirring.
  • Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cinnamon.
  • Fill the jam quickly into jars that have been rinsed with hot water and seal them.

If you want to cook brown rice, you have several options. We will introduce you to two variants – a particularly quick and a particularly healthy way of cooking brown rice.

Brown rice is so healthy

Basmati rice, long grain rice, parboiled rice, black rice, wild rice: there are many different varieties and types of rice. Brown rice is popular because it is largely untreated and still has the outer layers of the rice grain. Brown rice therefore contains more minerals and trace elements than white rice – but it also takes longer to cook. We explain how to cook brown rice properly.

Cook brown rice – soak, wash, cook

If you want to cook rice, you basically have two options: the swelling method and the water method. The soaking method is particularly energy- and water-saving, but has one major disadvantage: In addition to the valuable micronutrients, pollutants also remain in the rice. This is a problem with brown rice because it is usually particularly heavily contaminated with arsenic, as reported by the Federal Office for Risk Assessment (BfR). Arsenic is a metalloid that is carcinogenic to humans. You can find more information about arsenic, its occurrence and its effects in our article on the subject.

We therefore recommend that you soak the brown rice beforehand, wash it and cook it with a higher water-to-rice ratio. In this way you can reduce the arsenic content by up to 80 percent.

Cooking brown rice – this is how the preparation works:
Soak the brown rice in water overnight. The rice should be covered with water about two centimeters high.
The next day, rinse the rice until the wastewater runs clear.
Then put the brown rice in a saucepan with five times the amount of water. In other words, there are five cups of water for every cup of rice.
Bring the water to a boil on the highest setting. Once the water is boiling, turn the heat down to low and let the brown rice simmer, with the lid on, for about 20 minutes.
Remove the pot from the stove and let the rice sit in the covered pot for another ten minutes.
The brown rice is ready. At this point you can loosen the rice grains with a fork and add a pinch of salt. But be careful: very hot steam escapes when you open the pot.

Cooking brown rice using the quick swelling method

With the swelling method, you only add enough water to the rice so that it completely absorbs the water when cooking. Therefore, the source method is particularly water and energy-saving. However, the arsenic contained in the rice is not flushed out with this method of preparation. If you have enough time, you should still soak the brown rice first to reduce the arsenic content.

Cooking brown rice using the swelling method:
Optional: Soak the brown rice in plenty of water overnight.
Rinse the rice with clear water until the waste water is no longer cloudy.
Put twice the amount of brown rice in a saucepan: for every cup of rice, add two cups of water.
Bring the water to a boil on the highest setting. Once the water is boiling, switch to a low setting. With the lid on, let the rice gently simmer for about 20 minutes.
Remove the covered pot from the heat and let the rice sit for another 10 minutes.
At the end you can fluff up the brown rice with a fork and add a pinch of salt.
By the way: If you have cooked too much rice, you can heat up the rest of the rice the next day. Alternatively, you can freeze the cooked rice and preserve it for a long time.

Salmiak has always been a natural remedy that is particularly popular in northern Europe. If you overdose, however, it can also lead to undesirable side effects.

Where is salmiac found?

Salmiac is the mineral ammonium chloride. Only 110 sites of the rare mineral are known worldwide.

Licorice products with salmiak are colloquially referred to as “adult liquorice” because their taste has a repellent effect on children and salmiak can lead to acidification of the blood in higher doses. A product with an ammonia content of up to eight percent is still considered candy in this country. If a product contains more than eight percent salmiak, it is a medicinal product.

What are the health risks of ammonia?

Products containing sal ammoniac are particularly popular in northern Germany and the neighboring Scandinavian countries. In these regions, salmiak is considered a remedy that is traditionally used to treat sore throats. In addition, ammonia salt has a disinfecting effect, as it lowers the pH value of the saliva and thus kills bacteria. If you take an overdose of salmiac, there is also a risk of over-acidifying the body.

However, the liquorice contained in large quantities in salmiak pastilles often represents a greater danger than salmiak itself. If you overdose liquorice, cardiovascular disorders can be a possible result. The liquorice root contains the hormone-like substance glycyrrhizin. This removes potassium from the body and increases blood pressure. You should therefore not regularly snack on more than 50 grams of liquorice per day.

With normal consumption, however, it is unlikely to overdose on salmiak or liquorice to such an extent that your health suffers acutely. As long as you follow the consumption recommendation on the packaging, you are on the safe side and can enjoy the health-promoting effects of sal ammoniac.

Grapefruit is considered healthy because it contains many vitamins, phytochemicals and fiber. However, grapefruit can also be dangerous – especially in combination with certain medications.

Like all citrus fruits, grapefruits are very healthy because of their high vitamin C content. The grapefruit has a lot to offer and also provides many other important nutrients. That is why the fruit is also considered the queen of citrus fruits. However, fresh grapefruit and grapefruit juice can also become a serious health hazard. We explain what makes grapefruit so healthy and what you should definitely pay attention to when eating.

Grapefruit is healthy – thanks to these ingredients

Grapefruit has a particularly high content of vitamin C. The so-called ascorbic acid is important for the immune system and the development of connective tissue, among other things.

In addition, grapefruit also provides folic acid (vitamin B9), the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene and some other B vitamins in smaller quantities. The citrus fruit also contains the minerals potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and phosphate. The watery fruit has almost no calories and fat – but a lot of fiber pectin.

The many secondary plant substances also make grapefruit so healthy: carotenoids have an antioxidant, immune-boosting and anti-inflammatory effect. They should also be able to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, age-related eye diseases and possibly even cancer.

Not healthy: Grapefruit interacting with drugs

Grapefruit and grapefruit juice affect the effects of 85 drugs.
Serious side effects can occur with about half of the drugs. Stomach bleeding, kidney or heart damage and even deaths have been observed.
Mode of action: Grapefruits inhibit the body’s own enzyme CYP3A4. This occurs mainly in the liver and the intestinal wall and is responsible for the breakdown of many drugs. By inhibiting the enzyme, the drugs are broken down less quickly. Many medications have a stronger effect, some weaker.
The drugs affected include antihypertensive drugs, heart pills, sleeping pills and sexual enhancers.
Even a single grapefruit or a glass of grapefruit juice can cause significant interactions. Even 24 hours apart, grapefruits can affect the effectiveness of medications.
For example, grapefruits can lead to pain and muscle weakness in combination with cholesterol-lowering drugs, heart pills to palpitations, dizziness and shortness of breath, or water-repellents to high water loss and dehydration, according to the BR.

In addition, grapefruit can also interact with birth control pills. Accordingly, the pill does not lose its effectiveness, but can lead to side effects such as breast tenderness and an increased risk of thrombosis.

Eat grapefruits healthily: Recommended intake

Based on the results, the scientists from the study mentioned advise against consuming grapefruit and grapefruit juice at all if you are taking medication.

The researchers also point out that there is still a need for research on drug interactions. It is quite possible that other drug interactions will become known in the future. Therefore, as a precaution, if you are taking prescription medication, you should minimize the consumption of grapefruit or consult your doctor.

Incidentally, the “dangerous” plant substance naringin is also found in grapefruit and in the bitter or Seville oranges, which are often used for jam. The same consumption recommendations apply to these types of fruit. According to the BR, oranges and orange juice are harmless, as is apple juice.

If you are not taking any medication, you do not need to worry about unwanted side effects: Then you can enjoy the healthy grapefruit and self-squeezed grapefruit juice and benefit from the good ingredients.

Olive oil is supposed to be healthy: you hear and read that again and again. But why is that – and how does olive oil compare to other vegetable fats?

Olive oil is considered very healthy – that’s why it is an essential part of healthy diets and even diets like the Mediterranean diet. Some attribute the healthy effect to the high proportion of monounsaturated fatty acids, others to the many polyphenols. The latter belong to the secondary plant substances, give olive oil its bitter and pungent aromas and are said to have numerous positive effects. However, studies also show that there is still a need for research into the health value of olive oil – and that other vegetable oils are not necessarily less healthy. In addition, there are quality differences in olive oil that affect the health value.

Lots of healthy oleic acid: the ingredients of olive oil

Compared to many other vegetable oils, olive oil is characterized by its high content of oleic acid (a monounsaturated fatty acid).

14 g saturated fat
73 g monounsaturated fatty acids
11 g polyunsaturated fatty acids
14 mg vitamin E
60 mcg vitamin K

Is Olive Oil Healthy? Assessment based on the ingredients

To find out if olive oil is healthy, you can first look at the individual ingredients. The isolated ingredients do not necessarily have the same effect as the finished product. Nevertheless, the analysis of the ingredients can provide initial clues. The focus is on the ingredients that are supposed to make olive oil particularly healthy – i.e. oleic acid and polyphenols.

Olive oil consists mainly of oleic acid. This monounsaturated fatty acid is said to have numerous positive properties:
According to a review, scientists in two intervention studies found that oleic acid has anti-inflammatory effects. As part of the studies, a total of almost 280 people followed a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil. As a result, inflammatory markers in the blood dropped, which the study authors believe is apparently due to oleic acid. An observational study of around 3,000 Japanese women came to the same conclusion. However, both studies also say that the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid and the omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid also have an anti-inflammatory effect.
In experiments on cell cultures, oleic acid has an anti-carcinogenic effect, i.e. it inhibits the growth of tumor cells. However, clinical studies in humans are still pending.
According to two other studies, oleic acid helps against insulin resistance and strengthens the immune system.

Olive oil is healthy, but usually not suitable for searing

How healthy olive oil is also depends on how you use it. If you heat olive oil, for example, you have to be careful: If the smoke point of the oil is exceeded, toxic substances can form. Thanks to the heat-stable oleic acid, olive oils can usually be heated up to around 180 degrees. So you can use them for baking, steaming and gentle frying. You should only avoid searing or deep-frying at high temperatures.

Eggplants are healthy, consist mostly of water and are very low in calories. You can read in our guide what else is in aubergines and what makes them so healthy.

Aubergines belong to the nightshade family and originally come from India. Vegetables conquered the Arab world early on and came to Europe via Spain. Since then, the healthy aubergines have been particularly popular in Mediterranean cuisine. Originally, the vegetable was white to cream-colored and significantly smaller than today’s variants. Hence the name eggplant, which is still used today, or in the English language ‘eggplant’. Today, aubergines come in many different colors and shapes, with the dark purple version being the most common.

Aubergines are healthy: That’s in the vegetables

Because of their good nutritional value, aubergines are considered to be particularly healthy. They consist of 93 percent water and therefore the macronutrients are manageable. 100g aubergines contain:
17 calories
3g carbohydrates
less than 1g of fat
3g fiber.
Aubergines contain many valuable vitamins and minerals. These include, among others:
beta-carotene
folic acid
vitamin C
potassium
magnesium
calcium

Healthy aubergines: many positive properties

But it’s not just the vitamins and minerals they contain that make aubergines healthy. The purple vegetable also exhibits many other health properties, as studies show:
Anti-inflammatory: The anti-inflammatory properties have a positive effect on various inflammatory diseases, such as arthritis or gastrists.
Antioxidant: The vegetable is high in antioxidants, according to studies. These support the body in cell renewal and reduce oxidative stress. They also fight free radicals, which is also the reason for their potential anti-cancer properties.
Cardioprotective: The antioxidants it contains can promote the health of our cardiovascular system.
Antibacterial: In the laboratory, an alcoholic extract from the vegetable was effective against various bacteria.
Antidiabetic: The ingredients in aubergines also have a positive effect on blood sugar levels and can therefore be beneficial for diabetics.

Prepare healthy aubergines

So that you can benefit from the advantages of healthy aubergines, there are a few tips on how to prepare them correctly:
Like all nightshades, unripe eggplants contain solanine. The substance tastes bitter and causes stomach pains. Therefore, you should only process ripe eggplants.
Solanine is also the reason you shouldn’t eat eggplant raw. The proportion is very high directly under the base of the stem and in the raw vegetables. Therefore, you should rather enjoy aubergines cooked.
Aubergines continue to ripen after harvest. Apples and tomatoes emit a gas that speeds up this process. If you want your eggplants to last as long as possible, you shouldn’t store them near apples or tomatoes.
Since aubergines have little taste of their own, they are often prepared with a lot of fat. From a health perspective, you should avoid this. To prepare the aubergines tasty, you can put them in spices or marinate them. This method is especially useful if you want to grill or fry eggplants.

Rocket is healthy – this is mainly due to the vitamins, minerals and secondary plant substances it contains. But the healthy rocket is also rich in nitrate. You can read here what you should consider if you like to eat rocket.

The unmistakably spicy taste of the salad rocket makes it so popular not only for rocket salad, but also as a seasoning plant. In addition, the rocket is full of valuable ingredients. Therefore, arugula is very healthy. In this article you will find out what is in the plant, how your body benefits from it and what you should look out for with rocket.

These ingredients make arugula so healthy

Rocket not only impresses with its spicy-nutty taste, the jagged leaves are also full of vitamins and minerals. These include, among other things:
beta-carotene
folic acid
vitamin C
potassium
calcium
Because of the beta-carotene, which your body converts to vitamin A, arugula protects your eyes. The minerals it contains also promote heart health.

Furthermore, arugula is also healthy because its leaves contain valuable phytochemicals that your body has been shown to benefit from. These include:
Mustard oils: Mustard oils are among the bitter substances that are important for the body and are said to be able to prevent cancer. As you chew the leaves thoroughly, they mix with the digestive enzyme myrosinase. This compound produces isothiocyanates, which in turn serve to prevent cancer. Therefore, the National Cancer Institute recommends regularly including vegetables with mustard oils in the diet.
Antioxidants: Arugula is also healthy because of its high proportion of antioxidants. These fight free radicals and thus also have an anti-cancer effect. They also support your body in cell renewal and reduce oxidative stress.

Is arugula always healthy?

In addition to valuable minerals, vitamins and secondary plant substances, rocket also contains nitrate. The nitrogen compound occurs naturally in the soil, but is also found in fertilizers. Especially at low temperatures and little natural light, vegetables accumulate in nitrate.

Nitrate itself is harmless to adults. However, if stored for a longer period of time, the substance converts to nitrite. The substance is suspected of causing cancer and inhibits the transport of oxygen in the blood. Infants and young children in particular should therefore avoid nitrate-containing vegetables.

Since nitrate is mainly stored in the stalks of the spicy rocket, it is advisable to remove the stalks before eating the salad. Since the leaves produce nitrite when drying, lose valuable ingredients and lose their taste, you should use them as fresh as possible – then the rocket is particularly healthy. Once you have stored more of the lettuce plant than you can eat within two to three days, you can use the leaves to make a delicious rocket pesto. This way you can make them last a few days longer.

You can also plant the wild rocket yourself so that you always have rocket leaves that are as healthy and fresh as possible. You can also avoid packaging waste and don’t have to worry about germs in the bag salad. You don’t need a garden to plant arugula – a sunny window sill or a spot on the balcony is all you need.

The healthy blueberries are often referred to as the powerhouses among fruits. Here’s what you should know about blueberries and what makes them so healthy.

There are two different types of blueberries: wild blueberries and cultivated blueberries. Wild blueberries are richer in healthy nutrients than cultivated blueberries. You can collect the wild berries mainly in the forest and in heath and moorland. It is unlikely that you can become infected with the fox tapeworm through wild berries. Researchers from the University of Ulm found that the highest risk of infection is through direct contact with foxes or through transmission through dogs that have become infected.

What you should consider when buying blueberries

The blueberry season runs from June to the end of September. Because blueberries go moldy quickly, you should eat them—or freeze them—as soon as possible after purchasing or harvesting them. When buying blueberries, also pay attention to organic quality: Cultivated blueberries from conventional cultivation are usually contaminated with synthetic pesticides.

In winter you don’t have to do without the healthy berries. They are also available off-season in frozen or dried form.

Blueberries as a healthy source of nutrients

Blueberries contain many healthy ingredients. In addition to numerous dietary fibers, the berries contain the following nutrients:
carotene
Vitamin A
vitamin C
vitamin E
iron
magnesium
calcium
potassium
Blueberries owe their blue color to the pigment myrtilline. Myrtilline is one of the anthocyanins – these are secondary plant substances that have an anti-inflammatory and blood-forming effect. They also help the body to trap and neutralize free radicals.

Getting high in anthocyanins in your diet can slow down the skin’s aging process – helping to prevent wrinkles. The anthocyanin in blueberries is also said to be useful as a cancer prophylaxis.

Furthermore, blueberries contain healthy tannins, which are particularly found in blueberry juice. They help with diarrhea and kill harmful bacteria and viruses. Blueberry Nut Juice is a juice made from 100 percent blueberries. The healthy ingredients of the berries are thus retained as far as possible.

Good to know: 100 grams of blueberries contain only 36 calories.

Also healthy: tea made from blueberry leaves

Blueberry leaves also have health benefits. If you brew a tea from them, it helps with the following diseases, for example:
stomach pain
Diarrhea
bladder weakness
inflamed eyes (put compresses soaked in tea on them)
Rashes (wash gently with the cooled tea)
To prepare the blueberry leaf tea, pour 1/4 liter of boiling water over two teaspoons of blueberry leaves and let the tea steep for ten minutes. Strain it and drink a cup morning, noon and night.

Important: Do not drink the tea regularly, but only in case of acute symptoms.