10 Things You Need To Eat

With so many nutrition studies coming out and talk of superfoods. How do you know what you should really be eating? Anahad O'Connor and Dave Lieberman, authors of The 10 Things You Need To Eat: And More Than 100 Easy and Delicious Ways to Prepare Them have simplified it and are here with some "must eat" food.

Beets
* Beets lower risk for many diseases, from cancer to Alzheimer's to heart disease.
* President Obama steers clear of them, but you shouldn't.
* Easy ways to cook beets
* Juicing is a great way to consume fresh produce
* "More recent research suggests that juicing releases vitamins and nutrients from plant cells (without the heat damage that can be caused by cooking), increasing their bioavailability and allowing them to be absorbed more easily. You can also pack many more servings of fruits and vegetables into a cup than you can eat off a plate."

Cabbage
* Studies show that cabbage helps fight breast cancer.
* The cabbage family includes Brussels sprouts, collard greens, broccoli, mustard greens and even arugula!

Tomatoes
* "People who regularly ate pizza-at least one serving a week-were 40 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who never ate it. And frequent eaters-those who had two or more servings a week-were a whopping 60 percent less likely."
* Cooking tomatoes only enhances their nutritional value.
* "People who ate the most pizza were 59 percent less likely to contract esophageal cancer, 26 percent less likely to develop colon cancer, and 18 percent less likely to contract laryngeal cancer."
* "... men who ate the highest levels of raw tomatoes lowered their risk of [prostate cancer] by 11 percent. But those who ate the most cooked tomatoes slashed their risk twice as much."

Avocados
* Avocados contain more fat than virtually any other fruit, but the bulk of it is monounsaturated fat. Good Fat that helps your heart!
* Placing avocados in a paper bag with apples and pears makes them ripen faster.
* Chocolate avocado mousse is a great guilt-free dessert.
* Replacing half of butter with avocado reduces fat content in desserts.

Spinach
* Eat more spinach, and keep the cancer at bay.
* Never boil your spinach.
* Spinach loses more than 50% of its antioxidants after a week of refrigeration.
* Antioxidants in spinach work best when eaten with olive oil.
* One of the most common ways of preparing spinach for use is to blanch it. This can be done through microwaving. Simply zap for 2 to 3 minutes on high power.

Quinoa
* In the 1990s, scientists at NASA set out to find the consummate grain, one that was so complete they could send it with astronauts on long-duration space flights to Mars and beyond. What the scientists found in their search was an amazing little grain called quinoa.
* A cup of quinoa is packed with as much protein as four eggs.

Lentils
* The fiber in lentils keeps you full longer, lowers cholesterol, reduces heart disease, and decreases the risk of overweight and diabetes.
* Lentils incorporated into burger make for a lighter texture without taking away from the flavor of the beef. It also cuts down on the amount of beef you need - so you save money

Berries
* Berries contain COX - 2 inhibitors, which act as painkillers, but without all the dangerous side effects.
* The four superberries are strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. They protect everything form heart disease to memory loss.
* Eating 3 or more servings a day of fruits like berries help lower the risk of diseases that damage vision. (223)
* Frozen berries are cheaper and great for smoothies and certain kinds of baking. Frozen berries have the advantage of being picked and preserved at the proper ripeness.

Super Fish
* Fish oil lowers blood pressure and is prescribed to heart patients.
* We don't recommend albacore canned tuna, but rather "light" tuna, because it has very low levels of mercury.

Nuts
* Nuts are widely misperceived as fattening, unsatisfying and nutritionally bankrupt, but these are food fallacies. People who eat nuts are actually more likely to lose weight than gain it. They also experience more improvements in their energy levels and cardiovascular and cognitive profiles.
* Next time you're suffering from a bout of insomnia, you might want to reach for a bag of walnuts before you start counting sheep.

For more on what you should be eating, check out their book The 10 Things You Need To Eat: And More Than 100 Easy and Delicious Ways to Prepare Them available in stores now.