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Miriam Kwari Herbalist
Hello good people. I hope that you all had an amazing holiday season with all your loved ones. I’d like to welcome you all back to another edition of “Our food our medicine” with me, your favourite Herbalist Nyasha.
Protecting your heart and circulation
The heart is a muscle that pumps about 10 000 litres of blood around the body per day in its complex circulatory system. By making changes to our diet to assist the vital organ, we can improve and maintain heart health considerably. Become familiar with the superfoods and even more familiar with the danger foods. It is up to you to make the difference.
The Superfoods
Vegetables: Barley, broccoli, buckwheat, cabbage, carrots, celery, chicory, chili, garlic, globe, artichoke, green peppers, leeks, oats, onions, potatoes, pumpkin and squash, tomatoes, turnips.
Fruit: Apples, cherries, grapes, lemons, melons, pineapple, plums.
Nuts: seeds and pulses, All dried beans, almonds, chickpeas, Sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts.
Herbs: Coriander, dandelion, fenugreek, marjoram, thyme.
Other foods: Olive oil, oily fish like mackerel or sardines, sprouts, wheat grass and barley grass juice.
The danger foods
Cut out saturated fats: trim meat of all fat; avoid animal-based fats like lard, processed meats, salami
Ham, sausages, meat pies, pastries, tinned meats, bacon, fast foods, fried chips, burgers and hard margarines. They contain hydrogenated fats, which are linked to cancer, heart disease and obesity. Use butter and margarine spreads sparingly.
Eats eggs only twice a week.
Avoid caffeine — coffee, tea chocolate, cola drinks, sports drinks, and high energy drinks -as well as excess alcohol. Research suggests that a small glass of red wine occasionally may benefit the heart. More than that will not benefit your health and think of how that small indulgence could over burden the liver.
Refined sugar (sucrose) raises cholesterol level in blood pressure and people.
Sweets, chocolates, cakes, biscuits, and sugar (brown sugar and molasses) and honey which have beneficial trace elements can be taken occasionally.
Excess salt is dangerous and a known cause of blood pressure. Avoid crisps, salted nuts, salty and deep-fried snacks, stock cubes, commercial pickles, chutneys and condiments, processed meats, tinned foods and put away that salt-shaker.
Replace table salt with your own herb mixes like celery, oregano, thyme, coriander, fenugreek, caraway seeds. Dry and store in a grinder, grind over food to lessen the salt. Make your own pickles and chutney. Such healthy replacements work very well in balancing the body mineral content. We then avoid situations where the body must overwork to get rid of toxins in our daily food diets.
I am sure you are all aware that we poison ourselves daily, depending on what we eat and drink. Such poisons accumulate slowly only surfacing as big problems health wise when we least expect it. When that happens, we then wonder where it all comes from when we were the ones who were not careful with what we were eating daily
A cup of tea made from cayenne and turmeric is recommended daily. Get in touch and let’s work out a list of food items for our heart patients.
Enjoy good food and look after the heart. This works for those who already have heart conditions as well as any other person who decides to be a healthy conscious person n 2022.
I have hope and faith that we all want to make 2022 a healthy year and to start it this way, is an amazing gift. Remember to get Graviola for all your family members for it is an amazing herb for good health.
Look after yourselves and each other.
God bless
Online Reporter