What You Need to Know About Avocado Recipes and Improving Your Health Condition
Avocado recipes are full of nutrition, flavor, and diversity! Eating avocados is an easy way to improve your health. They provide both nutrition and energy for those on the HCG diet.
These beautiful green fruits are great for more than just guacamole: they can be added to Mediterranean dishes, snacks, and even desserts.
Native to Central Mexico, avocados grow on trees, and are cultivated throughout the world in tropical and Mediterranean climates. They’re a popular staple of California.
Avocados, due to their rich, creamy interior and high fat content, are often thought to be too high in fat to add to a healthy diet, but they are, in fact, very good for you.
Avocados are indeed high in fat, but most of their calories come from monounsaturated fat: “good” fat. The fat in avocados helps lower LDL (bad) cholesterol while raising HDL (good) cholesterol. It calories are a good source of solid energy: grabbing avocado before heading out for the day or doing something intensely physical will help to keep you fueled.
Avocados are also high in potassium — higher than the potassium famous banana by 35%! They’re also rich folate. Both are beneficial for improving heart health; plus, they’re low in sodium and contain vitamin E. Avocados actually help your body absorb important caretenoids, which are beneficial to overall health.
photo by startcooking kathy & amandine
Luckily, it’s easy to gain all of these health benefits using avocado recipes.
- Avocado Tacos:
– throw 2 avocados (pitted and sliced) in 4 corn tortillas with shredded lettuce, diced onion, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese and your favorite salsa.
- Avocado Papaya Salad:
– mix 2 chopped avocados, 1 peeled sliced red grapefruit, 1 chopped papaya, and 1 torn head of lettuce; add a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Mango also works in place of papaya.
- Chocolate Avocado Mousse:
– surprise avocado sneaks into this decadent dessert; warm 3 tbsp almond milk in a saucepan with 2 tsp corn starch until it thickens, blend 3 oz dark chocolate and 1 tbsp cocoa powder in a blender while pouring the almond milk in, then, when it’s completely melted, 1 ripe diced add avocados, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tbsp agave nectar and chill 30 mins.
Avocados’ texture makes them a healthy alternative to mayonnaise. A quick and easy snack or breakfast for a boost of long-lasting energy is mashed or sliced avocado with salt, pepper, and optional olive oil on toast.
The only thing you shouldn’t do to an avocado is cook it; warming avocado slightly is fine, but they don’t hold up well to cooking temps. Otherwise, experiment with healthy avocado recipes!
Here Are 3 of the Best Juicing Recipes You Can Drink for a Healthy Living
Using juicing recipes in your day-to-day life is a healthy way to boost your vitality, energy, and nutrition. Getting into a juicing routine and having fun with different kinds of delicious, nutritious juice is a good step on the road to healthy living.
For those undertaking the HCG diet, juicing is valuable in the first and last stages.
Optimizing your health with juice is easy, once you know where to start.
Following healthy recipes is a great way to do so, and there are a lot of fantastic recipes out there — so many, in fact, that it can be hard to choose! The best juicing recipes you can drink for healthy living depend simply on wholesome, nutritious ingredients.
Using fresh, organic ingredients where possible is the healthiest route, and using whole fruit and vegetables ensures that your body gets the full, intended nutrition of each item.
Avoid recipes that involve added sugar or overly processed or additive-heavy protein or flavor packs (some of them are great, but make sure you’re only getting the best ingredients).
The most basic, advantageous recipes are plain and simple: fruit and veggies!
Recipes that combine both, but are mostly vegetable (about 75%), will be the healthiest, full of the most nutrients. Fruit-only juice is tasty, but higher in sugar and lower in nutrients. Mix it up.
Three of the best juicing recipes are also the most simple.
photo by Matthias Rhomberg
Apple Cucumber Anything Juice
- 1 med. apple
- 1 med. cucumber
- 1-2 c of whatever fruits and veggies you have lying around!
Orange Carrot Juice
- 8 large carrots
- 2 large oranges, peeled
Beet Juice with a Twist
- 2 beets (include the greens if you like; they’re packed with nutrition!)
- 2 carrots
- 1 apple, cored
- 1 inch-long piece of fresh ginger
When you find combinations that you like, your imagination is really the limit.
Drinking fresh juice can give you energy, increase your metabolic rate, enhance your immune system to help you prevent and fight off illness, fill you with cancer-fighting phyonutrients, aid weight loss, fight aging and depression, and is a cost-effective way of helping your health — so why not drink up? The only side effects to drinking lots of juice are added health and a cleanse to the system.
Tip: drink up your fresh score from your juicing recipes immediately after you make it; the enzymes and nutrients will be still be alive, meaning healthier for you!
What You Need to Learn About Eggplant Recipes and Your Body that Only a Few Docs Know
Remarkably versatile, the eggplant — or aubergine — is native to India, but eggplant recipes have been making their way into dishes around the world for many years. Its beneficial qualities weren’t appreciated until later, however — for a long period of history, it was thought to be poisonous!
No worries; it can be an intimidating vegetable (actually, it’s technically a fruit — a berry, by botanical standards!) for those who aren’t used to cooking with it, but it’s perfectly safe and tasty.
Eggplant can be used for a variety of recipes to suit different tastes. Salted, stewed (as in French Ratatouille), deep-fried, roasted, grilled, stuffed; eggplant is used widely in Indian food as well, of course, being native to the country.
What isn’t widely advertised about this odd-looking purple fruit, however, is its health benefits — eggplant recipes are as nutritious as they are diverse.
photo by avlxyz
Eggplant is a good source of potassium, fiber, manganese, vitamin C, K, and B6, niacin, magnesium, copper, phosphorus, pantothenic acid and folic acid — just several of eighty different nutrients it contains!
Eating eggplant while on the HCG diet is healthy in moderation.
Some of its health-boosting qualities are thanks to its richly colored, dark, edible skin (no peeling needed), which are a main source of antioxidants and phytonutrients, which help to block the formation of cancer-causing free radicals.
Because of this quality, eggplant may play a role in heart health, too; it has cholesterol-lowering properties, helping the blood flow more healthily through the blood vessels.
Because it contains the antioxidant nasunin, it also plays a role in removing excess iron from the body, which can aid in the prevention of joint disease such as rheumatoid arthritis.
It’s also the nasunin that can particularly aid health-conscious post-menopausal women: after menopause, women’s bodies can accumulate too much iron, which eggplant can “chelate”, which means — again — lessening free radicals. Its folate content also makes it healthy for women.
Eggplant is also low in sugar and saturated fat, making it a good choice for those on the HCG diet, especially in phase 3. Try these easy recipes:
- Homemade Babaganoush: roast eggplant and puree it, then add garlic, tahini, lemon juice and olive oil. Dip vegetables or pita, or use in sandwiches.
- Baked Eggplant Salad: bake eggplant, cut into cubes, and toss with grilled sweet bell peppers, onions, lentils, and balsamic vinaigrette.
- Grilled Eggplant: grill eggplant on the BBQ with peppers, zucchini and olive oil and add red wine vinegar, fresh oregano, and crumbled feta cheese.
Enjoy eggplant recipes that pack a nutritional punch!
What You Need to Know About Tilapia Recipes that Most Doctors Will Never Find Out
Tilapia recipes are popping up everywhere? Why? What’s so special about this particular seafood?
“Tilapia” is what hundreds of species of similar cichlid “tiliipaine cicchlid tribe” fish that swim in fresh, tropical waters. For years, they’ve been a major part of fishing in Africa and Levant; in recent times, their popularity has increased thanks to their nutritional value.
For starters, Tilapia have a very low mercury content. With mercury health concerns on the rise, many people turn to tilapia for an alternative; it also comes with many other benefits, such as being low calorie, low in saturated fat content compared to many fish, low sodium, and low in carbohydrates.
Tilapia is high in protein and contains phosphorus, niacin, selenium, vitamin B12 and potassium.
It’s important to know what kind of tilapia you’re buying, however; commercially farmed tilapia are higher in saturated fat and may pose health risks.
photo by mallydally
Healthy, delicious tilapia can be enjoyed in a variety of tilapia recipes, such as:
Baked Tilapia with Dill
- 4 tilapia fillets (4 oz. each)
- 1 lemon, sliced thinly
- 1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
- Salt and pepper to taste
- ¼ c mayonnaise
- ½ c sour cream
- 2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
- 1/8 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
Season tilapia with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Arrange lemon slices over top and bake tilapia in a lightly greased 9×13 pan in a preheated oven at 350 F for 15-20 min. Mix the remaining ingredients together and serve as a sauce with the tilapia.
Tilapia is a healthy, nutritional option for people who have chosen to undertake the HCG diet. Because of its high protein, low calorie properties, tilapia, when cooked under the HCG guidelines, makes a great meal idea. It’s especially ideal because of its phosphorus, niacin, and B12, which — according to Dr. Simeons, the founder of the HCG protocol — are quickly taken up by the body and burn excess fat.
HCG Caribbean Tilapia & Asparagus
- 100g tilapia
- Caribbean spice (such as a lemon pepper blend for grilling)
- A dozen asparagus
- Salt to taste
Rub spice into tilapia and grill on the BBQ for 5-10 minutes (approx. 350 F). Do the same to the asparagus, dampening it slightly to the seasoning sticks. Add salt to taste. Enjoy these simple but delicious tilapia recipes!
