You may have heard of some crazy theories about combining food that are supposed to help the body process different foods with maximum efficiency and also with minimum digestive discomfort.  But what you may not know is that there are also optimum food combinations to strive for that will help your body to process and most efficiently use the most therapeutic nutrients that they contain.

For example, did you know that you should always try to pair your iron-containing foods with citrus?  That’s right, citrus fruits like lemon juice and orange juice will actually make it easier for your body to keep more of the iron in the foods you eat and assimilate them for actual use and utilization by your body.

Not only that, citrus is beneficial to eat in combination with a bevy of other foods as well. For instance, we discussed a while ago the discover and recommendation that you consume your green tea and other antioxidant containing beverages with a couple squeezes of lemon juice, or something else that contains vitamin C. The vitamin C helps your body hang onto almost six times more antioxidants than it would without the vitamin C addition.

My husband was getting low readings on his iron counts when he was trying to donate blood, so he received a recommendation from his health counselor at work that he try to pair iron containing meats with something like a little bit of orange juice, so he could better process and use the iron in the foods he was eating, that’s how we found out about that one.

Vitamin C is also said to help your body utilize calcium and vitamin D better, so often times you will see orange juice with these two nutrients added. It’s especially advisable for women, who are often deficient in both of these vitamins and minerals. Try not to ever consume calcium supplements with carbonated beverages, as the carbonation, or what makes a drink carbonated, can actually leach the calcium from your body.

When it comes to asthma, there are so many signs that point to a healthy diet and a slimmer body being correlated with less asthma occurrence and asthma attacks, as well as healthier lung function overall, that it’s hard to say with a straight face that diet has absolutely nothing to do with asthma.  I have had asthma since I was about eight years old. I remember the feeling of a squeezing, bit fist around my lungs from a very young age.

I think I was a rather nervous young child though, I’ve always been a little on the worrier side of things, and I also think that kind of anxiety and constant “on” switch tends to lend itself to more frequent asthma attacks and more asthma in the first place in children and adults.

Some studies have suggested that vitamin C, or foods rich in vitamin C, tend to have naturally anti-asthma properties, and they also seem to be tied to overall healthier lung function and less lung related diseases.  This would make sense since vitamin C is an anti inflammatory antioxidant that also happens to benefit the body in a myriad of other ways.

Foods that are rich in vitamin C are not only nutritious, but are also a favorite sweet alternative to sugary processed sweets for dessert. To get the maximum benefit, try substituting dessert with something like clementines, a delicious little orange fruit that fits in the palm of your hands and does not have seeds, so you can enjoy it with minimum hassle and mess on the road or at work, all you do is peel and eat.

Or eat grapefruit for breakfast, which happens to be deliciously in season now.  Strawberries are high in vitamin C and a lot of other antioxidants, and they are the perfect summer fruit for adding to fruit salads, eating as a dessert with a little whipped topping and also for eating with a low fat, low cal angel food cake. Who doesn’t love strawberry short cake!? There are also some excellent herbal remedies for asthma that are worth looking in to.

I have a new line of soups that I really love now, that I think are even better than a lot of the Wolfgang Puck organic canned soups that I’ve tried. In fact, this brand, Pacific Naturals, has the better butternut squash soup, and it also happens to be dairy free as well, making it the perfect healthy creamy soup option for vegans, or anyone else who is trying to reduce or limit their dairy. The ingredients are really all natural and organic, so you can feel good about what you are eating, and yet the flavor is amazing.

I like to add a bit of seasoned sea salt to the mix to when I make the butternut squash soup, and that really adds an extra kick to it as well. I love how I don’t feel totally full or gross after I eat this soup also, but very nicely satisfied and pleasantly full. It also has a lot of dietary fiber in it, so that explains partially why it keeps you full. The first ingredient in the butternut squash soup is butternut squash puree, which I like because the vegetable is actually the first ingredient in the soup, which means your fiber content is all natural, from a veggie and not some man made source of fiber which tends to cause gas and discomfort.

You may have to get used to the flavor, because it is a bit on the sweet side, and some may have issues with the cinnamon-y flavor of it, but once you get over it, this is really a great, natural, fiber filled soup to add to your meal and give you the fiber and the flavor you’re looking for while filling you up for hours to come.  Oh, the other great part is the calories, you can eat a huge bowl of this soup for just 180 calories, that’s half the carton. My husband and I just ate a bowl for lunch and we are totally satisfied and full.

This is an interesting one. I did not know that my love for tomatoes (pretty much since the day I was born) would probably help me to prevent getting sunburn, or at least cut down on the odds of my skin burning.

Well, apparently the beneficial antioxidant found in tomatoes in abundance, lycopene, helps your body to defend itself against sunburn, which in turn helps you to prevent the free radical damage that goes along with sunburn, and the DNA damage as well, which may help cut down on your risk of getting skin cancer.

A recent study showed that study participants who consumed tomato paste (5 TB) a day for three months had about a quarter more protection against getting sunburnt than their counterparts who did not consume any tomatoes in that time period. This leads them to believe that the lycopene in tomatoes helps to prevent the skin from undergoing the radical damage that it undergoes when it become burnt by the sun.

In fact, many antioxidants may also help you to prevent sunburn and also free radical damage when your skin is exposed to the sun’s rays. We need sun, we need the UV rays to not only produce energy, but also to help our bodies produce the ever increasingly important vitamin D, which has been linked to helping the body defend against DNA damage and cell damage.

So, eat up on the tomatoes. Tomato season is coming up, and I’ve got my plants ready for planting, just need to be sure that the last frost is over and in August it’ll be tomatoes galore here at our house – love it! I could eat a whole tomato, just sliced up with nothing on it, they’re so delicious when they’re garden fresh and organically grown.

I used to only eat mangos one way – dried. Dried, organic mangos are awesome. They’re like natures version of a chewy, flavorful fruit rollup. Remember those little sugar bombs that you used to indulge in as a kid? The ones that would never fill you up, give you a sugar rush, and make you even hungrier than you were before you ate the dang thing!? Yeah those!

Well, unlike nutritionless fruit rollups, dried mangos have a lot of nutritional value, but of course eating the real thing is better for you, as with any fruit vs. dried fruit. The dried version does maintain some of it’s fiber, but eating the whole fruit will give you even more fiber. In fact, there is an estimated whopping 4 grams of dietary fiber in just one medium mango! That’s a great source of natural fiber.

Not to mention, they have great, beneficial, body cleansing enzymes that help you maintain your digestive effectiveness as well as keep you regular. One thing that I swear by if I’m feeling a little bit bloated and constipated is to drink a Naked Mango smoothie with probiotics to help “get things moving” again. If you don’t like the idea of drinking juiced fruits, then try mango fresh or dried, they both will help to act as natural stimulant to your digestive waste removal.

Mangos are a tropical fruit, and as with many other tropical fruits, they are somewhat high in sugar compared to other fruits, like apples for instance. However, don’t let that stop you from eating this incredibly nutritious, cleansing fruit. It is great if you’re looking to cleanse your system after day of bad eating. You just cut one up (beware the long, oblong shaped fibrous pit in the middle), in the morning and eat that for breakfast. You’ll be amazed at how long this roughly 150 calories fruit fills you up!

The natural enzymes in mango actually help to “scrub” out the intestines, the stomach, and they also aid in digsetion. Papaya is another fruit that can aid you in digestion. Mango is also very high in Vitamin A and B6 as well.