10 answers people want to validate about nutrition and super food questions

What the public wants to know most about diets and nutrition are the answers to the following questions:

1. How do you eliminate after meal digestive discomforts?

2. How do you best suppress dangerous inflammatory reactions as you age?

3. How do you lose weight by eating foods cooked at lower temperatures or raw or dehydrated foods?

4. What areas of news have come out of the year's international anti-aging conference reports?

5. How do you renew your skin from the inside?

6. How do you remineralize small cavities in your teeth before they get bigger?

7. How do you increase the length of your telomeres with omega 3 fats as you age?

8. How do you use coenzyme Q10 and garlic or aged liquid garlic extract in order to reduce the progression of clogged and hardened arteries?

9. How do you choose foods to create more raw alkaline cuisine?

10. How do you know which super foods containing unique bioactive compounds called glucosinolates and indole-3-carbinol are best?

For example, cauliflower gives a strong protection against cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular disease. But a lot of people over look cauliflower because it gives off a smell when overcooked.

The trick is to chop in into fine pieces in a blender or food processor and mix it with salad greens or if cooked in a stew or soup, cook it with turmeric and/or low-sodium vegetable or tomato juice or with parsley. You can make a raw foods 'pizza' crust from raw cauliflower chopped up in a food processor. But don't go overboard on eating too many cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, kale, sea vegetables, or broccoli or it will affect your thyroid.

Purple tomatoes were displayed on October 27, 2008 in Norwich, United Kingdom when scientists from the John Innes Centre, UK genetically engineered tomatoes to contain very high levels of the cancer-fighting antioxident 'anthocyanins', which as a result have turned the usually red fruit into a deep purple. Dark-hued vegetables and fruits containing more anthocyanins are said to have healthful properties.

Here are the answers to the 10 questions people want to know about nutrition and super foods

1. How do you eliminate after meal digestive discomforts?

You eliminate a lot of after-meal digestive discomforts as you grow older by replacing the enzymes needed for digestion, absorption of nutrients, and elimination by getting the healthiest type of digestive enzymes. If you simply swallow just any digestive enzyme supplement, what you may be getting are the amylases in the supplements that break down starches that contribute to after-eating blood sugar spikes called glucose spikes.

You don't want to suffer from huge surges in blood sugar after you eat every snack or meal followed by a bloodstream full of too-much insulin, which ages your arteries and organs. One solution is eating more raw vegetarian foods chopped up small enough not to harm age-weakened teeth and worn crowns.

What you need are the tailored type of enzymes that work for you. A lot of people can't absorb fat-soluble ingredients because age has caused their bodies to make fewer enzymes that break down foods into absorbable nutrients. The right mixture of digestive enzymes can help so you can digest vitamins K, D, A, E, and the omega 3 fats, all of which are fat soluble.

When you take a lot of digestive enzyme supplements, they contain amylases the breakdown starches into sugar. Then you get sudden spikes in your blood sugar followed by insulin surges. Some people may experience insulin resistance. You don't want elevated glucose levels after eating each meal or snack because the high blood sugar surges can lead to vascular diseases, kidney failure, diabetic eye issues, or even some cancers. If you have a specific medical condition such as pancreatitis, your doctor will probably talk to you about digestive enzymes that contain amylases, if your health care professional is trained in this type of metabolic nutrition.

If you're an aging individual, you want to eat something that facilitates digestion of all those proteins, fibers, and fats you eat without breaking down starches into high surges of glucose/sugar in your blood. You have to target the underlying cause of your digestive issues. One solution is green coffee bean extract if you're eating lots of starchy foods such as weat, oats, potatoes, corn, and rice. Foods made from grain can spike blood glucose. Or you could keep eating lots of raw green salads such as cut up kale, spinach, arugula, Romaine lettuce, and celery or bok choy.

Another way to help is to reduce the sugar and starches in your foods such as adding sugar to pies and cakes or drinking tea with sugar. If you need sweet, a pinch of stevia is helpful. Then again, the chlorogenic acid in green coffee bean extract can help reduce the breakdown of starches into sugar as it hits your bloodstream. Or you could cut down on a lot of starches. The goal is to reduce your consumption of digestive enzymes full of amylase because the amylase breaks down the starches in all those grains you eat into sugar, which in turn gives you those high blood sugar spikes after eating. Your goal is to avoid rapid starch breakdown.

What new weapons do scientists now have to control blood sugar surges? Is Sacramento a city of pre-diabetics? Is the nation pre-diabetic? And can green coffee bean extract control blood glucose spikes?

Currently the antioxidant in the news is green coffee bean extract. In the Sacramento and Davis regional areas, the University of California, Davis studies the health effects of the antioxidants in green coffee bean extract. See, Cardio Tonic-BP - Natura Health Products. Also see the PDF article, Analysis of volatile components isolated from Hawaiian green coffee beans.

In that study, the volatile extract of Hawaiian green coffee beans exhibited strong antioxidant activity in two testing systems. Considering previous reports and chemical structures of components identified in this study, the antioxidant activity of volatile green coffee extract may be due to the presence of several components. They include 1-octen-3-ol, benzyl alcohol, methyl salicylate and 4-hydroxy-3-methylacetophenone. Also see another study, Lee KG, Mitchell AE, Shibamoto T. Biofactors 2000; 13:173–178.

some scientists are suggesting green coffee bean extract to fight the 'internal' processes that may cause too high elevations in blood sugar levels. For an in-depth article on this topic, please see page 10 of the winter 2011-2012 issue of Life Extension magazine. The article by Kirk Stokel is, "Are We All Pre Diabetic?" See, Are We All Pre-Diabetic? - Life Extension. Also see, Are We All Pre-Diabetic? - 2 - Life Extension.

2. How do you best suppress dangerous inflammatory reactions as you age?

You can stop the rapid aging of your digestive function by eating foods that can partially break down indigestible cellulose instead of eating foods, supplements, or enzymes that quicken the digest of carbohydrates into simple sugars. Keep away from supplements full of amylase or 'oligosaccharidases.' Instead, you want fiber-digesting enzymes, and foods that help you digest fiber, foods containing enzymes such as cellulase, hemicellulase, phytase, beta-glucanasse, pectinase, and xylanase.

These fancy words are all enzymes that can help digestion without that sudden surge after eating in sugar/glucose in your bloodstream. That's why a lot of people who keep having acid reflux feel better when they eat a bowl of chopped raw green leafy vegetables that are not full of starches or drenched in fats, cheese, nuts, and oils.

For those who eat few carbs, the body still has enough glucose because the liver can convert protein and fatty acids into glucose/sugar through the process of gluconeogenesis. People who take a supplement of digestive enzymes with protease and lipase that have specialized cellulases are able to use those enzympes to digest amino acids, plants, and fat-soluble nutrients without getting those high glucose/sugar spikes in the bloodstream. Check out the abstract of the study from the American Heart Association, "Abstract 2562: Fasting Plasma Glucose is an Independent Predictor of Hospitalization for Congestive Heart Failure in High-Risk Patients."

3. How do you lose weight by eating foods cooked at lower temperatures or raw or dehydrated foods?

Depending on how you cook your food, eat it raw, or dehydrate it, the same food can quicken obesity or help in weight loss. It also helps if you don't eat at night. The kitchen needs to close by 7:00 or earlier followed by a 16 hour fast overnight to help weight issues. And the main meal of the day should be in the afternoon.

When you eat foods cooked at high temperatures, it increases the rate at which you age. For further information on this, check out the article, "Are You Cooking Yourself to Death? - Life Extension" The article and references to studies are published in the January 2013 issue of Life Extension Magazine on page 7. Studies show that breast and prostate cancers increase in those who eat heavily cooked meat such as burgers.

4. What areas of news have come out of the year's international anti-aging conference reports?

This year it's resveratrol. New studies have come out from the Ellison Medical Foundation Colloquium on the Biology of Aging. The main focus is on the relationship between stress and aging, not just any type of stress, but endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. It's a collection of membranes within cells where proteins are created and folded.

Studies have fund that resveratrol can help increase the life span by helping the body protect against ER stress. For further detail on how the process happens, check out page 78 of the article, "Ellison Medical Foundation Colloquium on Aging," in Life Extension magazine, pages 77-80. You can read about the discovery that innate immunity is regulated by a protein that controls gene expression. So sometimes DNA isn't destiny after all, at least some of the time. See, "Conference Report: Ellison Medical Foundation Colloquium on Aging."

5. How do you renew your skin from the inside?

When you're young, your body makes ceramide molecules that keeps your skin healthy and young looking. The ceramides are on your skin's surface, there to protect the loss of moisture, keeping the skin firm by supporting the matrix of the skin. But the food containing ceramides is whole grain wheat, which nourishes the skin from within.

Ceramides derived from wheat inhibit the elastase enzymes that destroy the elastin, that elasticity of your skin. The studies on how to keep youthful hydration of the skin with ceramides include, "The moisturizing effect of a wheat extract food supplement on women's skin." The study is a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial published in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science, April 2011. See, Int J Cosmet Sci. If you're allergic to wheat extracts, you may want to avoid contact with wheat products.

How do you remineralize small cavities in your teeth before they get bigger?

Is it true that cod liver oil heals cavities? Or can coenzyme Q10 help heal inflamed gums? According to an excellent book by Ramiel Nagel, Cure Tooth Decay: Remineralize and Repair Cavities Naturally with Good Food, a section of the book on page 36 is titled, "Cod Liver Oil Heals Cavities." notes that "one teaspoonful of good cod liver oil has the vitamin A equivalent of 5 1/2 quarts of milk, or 1 pound of butter, or 9 eggs."

Nagel's book contains the wisdom of Dr. Weston A. Price's research, a dentist who wrote a book in the 1930s, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. You read can reviews of that book at the Weston A. Price organization's website or at the Price-Pottenger Foundation site.

How do you increase the length of your telomeres with omega 3 fats as you age?

Telomore length can be lengthened, say numerous researchers, with omega-3 fatty acid supplementation which may help improve the biomarkers of aging. You can check out the study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, where Jan Kiecolt-Glaser of Ohio State University and her team of researchers reported a protective effect for omega-3 fatty acids on preserving the length of telomeres in older people and also in middle-aged individuals.

Check out the site, Could Omega-3 Supplements Slow the Effects of Aging? And see, Omega-3 supplements may slow a biological effect of aging. You don't want shorter telomeres because they have been correlated with age-related degenerative diseases and premature mortality.

Many consumers want to know whether foods or a nutritional supplement makes a difference in aging. People don't want to be bombarded with marketing claims about supplements. But the public does want to know what will help slow aging from the inside out as much as possible. Also see, Omega-3 Lowers Inflammation In Overweight Older Adults. There are some foods and supplements that help older people and some medications that don't as more food is used as 'medicine.' See, Study Roundup: Can Anti-anxiety Medications Cause Dementia in Older People?

What helpful super foods may keep telomeres from getting too short too soon?

Foods that are said to keep short telomeres from getting shorter focus on fruits and vegetables and other plant extracts such as resveratrol that make up a part of balanced nutrition. In some research studies, fish oil also was named. Can you grow longer telomeres? They are the protective caps on your chromosomes that keep a cell's DNA stable, but shorten with age.

The shorter your telomeres are, the faster you age and experience the diseases of aging. The longer the telomere, the healthier the cell. After age 50, women's telomeres may grow longer or not get short as fast as men's over age 50. Short telomeres may signal shorter lifespan. But scientists are researching how to slow down the shortening of your telomeres or even grow them longer and possibly extend lifespan. Also see, Short Sleep Duration Is Associated with Shorter Telomere Length.

You'll see various nutrition ads touting how supplements or foods can lengthen the caps on your chromosomes. You could help yourself by researching whether nutrition can influence your telomere length with such supplements as resveratrol and pterostilbene that mimic caloric restruction.

Recently studies explore not only foods, but also how stress in childhood could shorten your telomeres, for example looking at childhood abuse. The question for researchers is whether childhood abuse or a bad marriage shortens the telomeres that speed up your aging process. Which shortens the telomeres more: stress or unbalanced nutrition?

Research continues on this notion, as no final conclusion has been in the news yet as to how to grow your telomeres longer after they've been shortened by time, wear, or stress. According to the Nov. 21, 2009 BBC article, "Childhood abuse speeds up body's aging process," physical or emotional abuse in childhood may shorten telomeres and speed up the aging process later in life. Chromosomes have telomeres at the end of each strand.

As you get older, the telomeres grow shorter.

But if you were abused as a child or perceived emotional issues as abuse, do your telomeres get shorter, thereby causing you to age faster with a shorter life span? That's what the new study is trying to find out. The Brown University study suggests that emotional or physical abuse as a child could speed up the body's aging process.

A team from Brown University focused on telomeres, the protective caps on the chromosomes that keep a cell's DNA stable but shorten with age, according to the BBC article. What the study actually looked at were the telomeres of 31 people. Each person reported childhood abuse. Scientists wanted to found out whether the telomeres shortened faster, thereby speeding up cells' ageing process.

But before you reach for nutritional supplements that are supposed to keep your telomeres from shortening too quickly, the experts are warning that the study needs to be repeated on a larger scale. Thirty-one people is a small number. You can read more about the study in the journal, Biological Psychiatry. The lead researcher is Dr. Audrey Tyrka.

Before you jump to any conclusions about how fast your telomeres are shortening due to something you can't help that happened in early childhood, the studies will have to look at early developmental experiences. What the scientists were trying to find out is whether childhood abuse or even if you perceive emotional stress as abuse could have profound effects on biology. The question is can perceived emotions or physical abuse influence cellular mechanisms at a very basic level?

What are telomeres?

They are short sections of specialized DNA that sit at the ends of all our chromosomes. Think of a telomere as the plastic tip at the end of your shoelace that keeps the fabric from fraying. The study is trying to find out whether childhood abuse increases your risk for illness. They have been compared to the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces that prevent the laces from unraveling.

How you actually age is that when cells divide over time the telomeres get shorter. When they get so short that they can't reproduce, you die. If you expose yourself to toxins such as smoking and radiation, the telomeres shorten at a faster rate. Tell that to your dentist when he/she insists on frequent full-head X-rays on older machines.

It's not only childhood abuse that might shorten telomeres, but also psychological and psychiatric issues. Basically, childhood trauma can shorten your telomeres and your life. But can a bad marriage do the same to adults? It's how you perceive the trauma. What happens is that if you have an emotional trauma in early childhood, you might also store up problems for the future that are similar in nature.

Science is trying to find a way for you to override your bad genes with food, nutrients, and removing toxic substances such as plasticizers from your body.

Okay, not every one your bad genes can be fixed. But certainly a healthy diet may have some benefit on some of your genetic variations. Your genes that have those little tags and switches that sometimes healthy foods can be of help to turn on the good genes and turn off the bad genes. Other influences besides food, plant extracts, and other nutrients, are sometimes lifestyle changes such as walking 45 minutes several days a week. Then there are holistic exercises such as Qi Gong or Tai Chi for balance.

Nutritional epigenetics

How you do override your bad genes is by protecting all your genes with antioxidants and oils that have gene repair abilities. Switching on the good genes that repair other genes is part of the science of epigenetics.

To protect your genes, first look to fish oil containing enough DHA. Why? Because DHA helps to repair 504 genes. But the DHA needs to be balanced with EPA to work. Is the vitamin consultant at your health food store experienced enough to guide you?

What about the nutritionist you consult at your HMO? Who can you turn to? Start reading for self-empowerment to at least know how various nutrients affects your body. Next, do you know whether you are getting enough zinc, but not too much because zinc is in charge of 33 gene?

You can talk to your health care provider to find out if you have a deficiency of vitamin D3. Some nutritionists suggest vitamin D3, in its natural form, not the synthetic D2. This information may be because vitamin D3 communicates with more than 200 genes. How much do you need? 1,000mgs? Less?

What does your body require to override bad gene tags that need to be switched off while the good gene tags are switched on? Find out whether you have a genetic variation that makes it worse if you take vitamin D supplements perhaps by calcifying your arteries. It's important to tailor your supplements to the way your body handles them, or get your nutrition in the active form from foods.

Can you grow longer telomeres?

As you get older, the telomeres grow shorter. But if you were abused as a child or perceived emotional issues as abuse, do your telomeres get shorter, thereby causing you to age faster with a shorter life span? That's what the new study is trying to find out. The Brown University study suggests that emotional or physical abuse as a child could speed up the body's aging process.

You could help yourself by researching whether nutrition can influence your telomere length with such supplements as resveratrol and pterostilbene that mimic caloric restruction. But what this study looked at was not so much what might reverse the effects on your telomeres of childhood stress and abuse, but whether the abuse itself shortens the telomeres that speed up your aging process.

Short sections of specialized DNA that cap the chromosomes

Telomeres are short sections of specialized DNA that sit at the ends of all our chromosomes. Think of a telomere as the plastic tip at the end of your shoelace that keeps the fabric from fraying. The study is trying to find out whether childhood abuse increases your risk for illness. They have been compared to the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces that prevent the laces from unraveling.

Childhood stress and short telomeres

The study worked with healthy people without psychiatric problems who reported abuse in childhood. But before you jump to conclusions, a lot more study is needed to find the specific impact of childhood abuse, emotional stress, or trauma on how fast your cells age. Scientists already found that chronic stress shortens telomeres, but how much, how fast? For further information, also see, "Childhood abuse speeds up body's ageing process," or "Mutant genes 'key to long life."

The big question is, if your telomeres are speeding up because of early emotional trauma, stress, or abuse, what can you do about it? Are there nutritional programs, supplements, or dietary regimens and relaxation exercises that can reverse and restore your telomeres so you can stay free longer from the diseases of rapid aging?

Science is trying to find a way for you to override your bad genes with food, nutrients, and removing toxic substances such as plasticizers from your body.

Okay, not every one your bad genes can be fixed. But certainly many of your genetic variations that have those little tags and switches that you can turn on and off with food, nutrients, and sometimes lifestyles such as walking 45 minutes several days a week.

How can you help yourself to override your bad gene variations?

Whatever gets rid of all that plastic in our bodies. It's glutathione (Recancostat) because it binds to some toxic chemicals in your body and flushes them into your liver, gall bladder, and colon, finally removing them from your body.

Plastics show up 10,000 times more than other pollutants in our bodies, even more than heavy metals. And there's a pathway that rids your body of plastics. Your body makes glucuronic acid that catches nasty chemicals like glutathione, where they end up in your color or urine and are eliminated as waste.

Intestinal enzymes can force you to re-absorb toxic chemicals back into your body

These are some ways to override bad stuff. But look out for enzymes made by your intestines that force you to re-absorb toxic chemicals back into your body. Guess what makes these enzymes in your gut? It's red meat eaten in large quantities or in diets that constantly emphasize red meat, especially char-broiled red meat.

This enzyme made by your gut after you eat lots of red meat is called beta-glucuronidase. So now you need a safety net, and your body makes D-glucaraic acid that stops your enzyme called B-glucuronidase from putting toxic chemicals back into your bloodstream.

D-glucaraic acid is an enzyme made by your gut after you eat lots of red meat

The information on this you'll find in a lot greater detail in Total Wellness newsletter, April 2009. But the point of this is that there are nutrients and foods out there that are simple, wholesome, and cost-efficient that have the ability to override a lot of your bad genes and reduce the risk in them at least while you're eating right.

Your health care professional can let you know whether you need vitamin B12 or a multiple vitamin in a sublingual form you can absorb better as you age, or whole foods, or maybe CO-Q10 or magnesium, or even Omega 3 fatty acids DHA and EPA balanced with Omega 9 found in avocados and a little Omega 6 found in extra virgin olive oil. Or maybe you need a swig of Kyolic liquid aged garlic to get rid of the H. pylori in your stomach that is giving you acid reflux.

Only you know when you ask the right questions of your physician, and then get a second opinion from someone trained in complementary, alternative, integrative, and preventive medicine. The answer is out there. You need to find out all the possibilities existing right now to help you override any genetic variations that can be helped with nutrition or lifestyle changes.

Read the latest findings on why you need more (and how much) vitamin D3 to prevent heart disease, calcifications, autoimmune chronic diseases, diabetes, and recurrent infections. See the article, Dobnig, H. " Independent association of low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin d and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D levels with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality," Archives of Internal Medicine, 168; 12:1330-49, 2008.

Many nutritionists recommend about 1,000 mgs daily, but the dose you take is up to you and your consultation with your own doctor. But be aware of what is written and researched out there and find out how it applies to you as an individual because we all have different needs and many variations in our genes. When you change your diet, do you change your genes?

How do you switch on the good genes and switch off the bad genes when you change your foods? Epigentics and nutrigenomics are fields of study that look at how your body switches the tags on genes on or off. When you're looking for hope, start by looking for validation. It works.

One in eight people in the U.S.A has at least two of the conditions that pose a serious risk leading to heart disease.

According to the April 26, 2010 Los Angeles Times article by Thomas H. Maugh II, "Nearly Half in U.S. have heart disease risks," high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes are plaguing Americans, according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This article also appears in the April 27, 2010 Sacramento Bee on the front page under "Health." See the L.A. Times article of April 26, 2010, The Heart Disease Trifecta.

Is it the food Americans eat, a sedentary lifestyle, or a perfectionist boss or spouse that creates the symptoms that lead to heart disease? Or is it 70 percent lifestyle and 30 percent genetic? See the April 27, 2010 article "Paging Dr. Gupta," CNN, Heart disease risk heightened in nearly half of Americans.

8. How do you use coenzyme Q10 and garlic or aged liquid garlic extract in order to reduce the progression of clogged and hardened arteries?

The Journal of Cardiovascular Disease Research recently published a study/trial of middle-aged men which found a protective effect for CoQ10 and garlic extract against the progression of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and inflammation. You can read the study or its abstract in the Journal of Cardiovascular Disease Research, July 2012. 3(3): 185-90. Check out the original study in a PDF file, "Aged garlic extract and coenzyme Q10 have favorable effect on inflammatory markers and coronary atherosclerosis progression: A randomized clinical trial."

Also, C-reactive protein levels (CRP) declined by an average of 0.12 mg/L in those who consumed the CoQ10 and garlic extract. The study included 50 firefighters at risk of coronary problems. You may also want to check out some of the studies from Kyolic liquid aged garlic extract. In the study, the participants taking the garlic consumed a daily capsule containing CoQ10 and aged garlic extract for one year. See the sites, health benefits of aged garlic extract and How To Find Kyolic Garlic Benefits | Health and Fitness.

9. How do you choose foods to create more raw alkaline cuisine?

Protein foods (meats, fish, beans) as well as some carbohydrates (flour, grains, sugar) create an acid condition by leaving carbonic acid, sulfuric acid, and phosphoric acid. Fruits and vegetables, as well as salt, leave behind minerals such as potassium, magnesium, iron, calcium, and sodium, which buffer the acids and are thereby alkalizing.

Try a raw vegetable salad. If the cut up chunks are too big to chew, put them in a food processor and make the pieces small enough to handle. Check out the List of Alkaline Foods. You're not limited to salads. And don't consume baking soda to make your body alkaline. Use foods such as vegetables and some fruits or berries. Some foods that taste tart actually act as alkaline foods in the body. Check out the article, Chef Sal's Amazing Journey to Raw Alkaline Cuisine.

Highly Alkaline Forming Foods

Lemons, limes, watermelon, Cantaloupe, Baking soda, sea salt, pumpkin seed, sprouted lentils, seaweed, kelp, sea vegetables, onion, taro root, lotus root, sweet potato, nectarine, persimmon, dates, figs, mango, papaya, parsley, raspberry, tangerine, and pineapple, celery, seedless grapes (sweet), watercress. These are the most alkaline-forming foods.

Also see the list of foods at the site, Which WHFoods are highest in phytonutrient antioxidants? The foods have their antioxidant content measured. Also, according to a study of the antioxidant content of foods commonly eaten in the U.S., which was published in the July 2006 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the World's Healthiest Foods that rank highest in their content of antioxidant phytonutrients are listed at the site. Not surprisingly, the site notes, "peeling apples and cucumbers decreased their antioxidant content to 33-66% and 50% of the amount in the unpeeled foods, respectively."

Very low acid-forming foods include curry, koma millet, kasha, amaranth, brown rice, pine nuts, spinach, black-eyed peas, string beans, wax beans, zucchini, chutney, rhubarb, coconut, guava, dry fruit, figs, and dates. But foods that form high acid levels in your body, that is, highly acid-forming foods, include the following: Artificial sweeteners, meats, pork, poultry, fish, seafood, beer, wine, liquor, processed cheese, fried foods, breads, sugar, carbonated soft drinks, cereals (refined), cigarettes and tobacco, coffee, tea (black), flour (white, wheat), jams, jellies, maple syrup (processed), molasses (sulphured), pasta (white), pastries and cakes from white flour, pickles (commercial), white bread, vinegar and yogurt (sweetened). When you buy dried fruit, get the unsulphured type dried without chemical preservatives.

10. How do you know which super foods containing unique bioactive compounds called glucosinolates and indole-3-carbinol are best?

Start with cauliflower, which has bioactive compounds called glucosinolates and indole-3-carbinol. Cauliflower has been studied and shows promise in protecting against cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis, according to the article "Cauliflower the Head of the Cruciferous Vegetable Family," published on page 97 in the January 2013 issue of Life Exension magazine.

What you want from a food, eaten in moderation to avoid thyroid issues from too many cruciferous vegetables, are glucosinolates. These phytochemicals get metabolized into isothiocyanates. You can check out a study in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry that shows how isothiocyanates in cauliflower "exert their anti-cancer activity," according to the study mentioned in the Life Extension magazine article.

The article also details a study on improving cardiovascular health with cauliflower published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition about how a high intake of cruciferous vegetables reduced the risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease by 31%. It's the compounds in cauliflower that may be cardioprotective.

Basically, scientists think the number of LDL particles is a stronger predictor for developing hardening of the arteries or atherosclerosis and vascular events such as stroke or heart attack. Studies have been done on how indole-3-carbinol (I3C) in cauliflower can improve heart health. Check out the study or the magazine article. Check out more details on cauliflower at the World's Healthiest Foods site. Consumers want to know which super foods are healthiest when it comes to phyto, micro, and macronutrients.