LIVE HEALTHIER WITH THESE ITALIAN FOODS| POWERHOUSE SALAD

Part of homemaking is providing good foods for ourselves and our families. The traditional Italian diet has been touted as one of the healthiest in the world and here we’ll explore some common ingredients of Italian cuisine that are easy to work into your diet to reap the health benefits. I show a unique way to use basil as well as showcasing some of the ingredients to make a deliciously easy, nutrient dense salad for a simple lunch or side dish
I accessed a number of studies to present the information here, though I am not a health professional and encourage you to do your own research 🙂
#italiancuisine #healthyfoods #homemaking #simpleliving #homelifestyle

Italian food is world-renowned for being tasty and colorful and it’s also known for being one of the healthiest ways to [Music] eat one of its strengths is that the flavors are so varied and growing up in our Italian household my mom always served up a variety of dishes and there was this preservation of local and Regional cooking Traditions there was a big focus on enjoying the pleasure of good food so we’re going to talk about some of the common ingredients in Italian cuisine and how they can help us live better and longer the first one is fish because Italy is a peninsula in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea fish is a staple in a lot of Italian cuisine and fish is so incredibly good for you because it’s high in Omega-3s it’s excellent for maintaining your brain health and it’s also good for maintaining your eye health and there’s also some evidence to suggest that it’s good for staving off depression as we age when I stayed with my cousins and my aunts in Italy fish was served regularly it was either baked in the oven with olive oil and lemon or sometimes it was added to salads or grilled but it was prepared in all kinds of ways it’s also good to know that canned fish is just just as good as fresh the thing you want to watch for though is try to get wild caught fish as opposed to farmed because wild caught fish is much higher in those all important nutrients than farmed and it also has far fewer pollutants the next one is garlic and throughout ancient history garlic has been used for its medicinal and health properties garlic is part of the onion family and it contains sulfur and something called Allison and these components are responsible for a lot of the health benefits that garlic possesses and one of those health benefits is helping our blood vessels relaxed to help lower blood pressure it also contains antiviral properties to ward off colds and flu the National Library of Medicine did a study in 2015 where they gave participants the equivalent of a clove of garlic a day for a period of time and the result was that it lowered oxidative stress that led to osteoporosis is and in another study one clove of garlic taken for 12 weeks reduced knee pain in women who had Aro arthritis now not all garlic is created equal and when you buy it take a look at where it’s sourced from and try to avoid garlic that is sourced from China because it doesn’t have as much of the beneficial compounds as regular garlic the Allison which is the component that is responsible for the heart benefits and Immunity Etc is much much lower in the Chinese varieties I have been getting some garlic from Costco that is sourced from Spain and it is absolutely phenomenal another staple is basil basil in ancient times was held to be a sacred and Noble herb and the word basil comes from the ancient Greek basilon which means Royal basil gives beautiful color and flavor to many dishes but it also has some serious health benefits too basil is full of antioxidants and it contains something called eugenol which is a compound that helps fight free radicals in our body that leads to cell damage it helps fight inflammation and the oils found in the leaves also have some antibacterial properties that help fight respiratory infections and skin infections you’ll get the most benefit from fresh basil as opposed to dried because the drying process does destroy some of the nutrients so try to find it at your local grocery store or a farmer’s market or you can grow it in containers in a Sunny Spot in your yard and when you use it make sure you’re adding it towards the end of your cooking because the oils in basil are very volatile and very delicate so you want to be preserving as much of those health benefits as possible so you can blend it into pesto or you can put it into pasta sauce right at the very end of cooking or chop it up and put it into salads you can even garnish vanilla ice cream with a couple of fresh basil leaves for a delicious and unique treat also we have olive oil I was recently reading about a substance called nitric oxide being dubbed as a miracle molecule and the reason it’s called this is because it keeps our blood vessels healthy and reduces the risk of heart attack and Stroke by up to 75% olive oil is full of polyphenols which enhances the relief of nitric oxide into our blood vessels it also increases the number of mitochondria that gives our cells energy as we age though the nitric oxide that we produce slows down and 80% of women over 40 are deficient but increasing these levels is easy just drizzle some extra virgin unheated olive oil over your salads your grilled fish or chicken or add it to your soup raw when it’s ready to be served a study conducted in Spain showed that people who ate olive oil regularly had nitric oxide levels 540 higher than people who didn’t eat the olive oil at all so it’s great to include that in your diet the next thing is coffee now coffee has been an essential part of Italian culture ever since the first cup was poured in Venice in the 1500s it’s an essential part of day daily life many Italians drink between 2 and four cups of espresso a day and there’s a lot of health benefits that go along with it nutrition experts at the John Hopkins school of medicine say that moderate coffee consumption as in a few cups of coffee a day is very beneficial for reducing the risk of colon cancer by up to 26% it can also reduce the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease and seems to have a protective effect on on the liver protecting the enzymes within it also it’s important to note that what you put in your coffee makes a difference as to how healthy it is so instead of loading up on lots of cream and sugar in your coffee try using maybe a little milk or some other non-dairy alternative and reducing the amount of sugar or sweeteners if you use those next we have tomatoes now tomatoes are a staple in Italian cuisine and they serve the base to pasta sauce to salads to soups they’re so versatile and they are served everywhere in Italy they are also loaded with antioxidants like lycopene and other nutrients that benefit our health and one of them is lowered heart disease studies show that consumption of tomatoes can reduce your risk of heart disease by 14% a study was done where participants ate either raw tomatoes tomato sauce or tomato tomato sauce with olive oil all three groups showed lower inflammation and cholesterol but the group that ate the tomato sauce with the olive oil showed the most positive change in heart health numbers and researchers think this is because the olive oil helps your body absorb more lopine also just in time for summer Tomatoes can help protect against sunburn too a study in the Journal of nutrition showed that people who ate tomatoes with olive oil regularly had 40% fewer instances of sunburn and if you’re wondering about the nutritional value of fresh tomatoes versus canned they are both excellent fresh tomatoes will have usually a little bit higher vitamin A content as opposed to canned or bottled but the canned or bottled Tomatoes will usually have a higher lycopene content very nutritious and they are both used liberally in Italy if you are using canned or bottled tomatoes and I do that all the time just make sure you’re checking the label to make sure it doesn’t have any unwanted additives lastly we have ganap Padano cheese and this cheese is one of my favorite hard cheeses and it has a very rich Heritage and it originates from the Po River Valley in Northern Italy it undergo a meticulous aging process which results in this beautiful complex nutty flavor one thing that makes grop Padano cheese unusual is that it is virtually lactose free the way in which it’s aged greatly reduces the lactose that’s in the end product so if you are lactose intolerant this is a wonderful flavorful cheese that you can enjoy without discomfort it also has a lower cholesterol level than a lot of other cheeses so it is a perfect choice to enjoy in moderation as part of a health diet Gran Padano is of course delicious just on its own drizzled with a bit of Honey or of course grate it on to your favorite pasta dish or Minon so much of Italian cuisine is just simple fresh ingredients put together just like this salad of tomatoes some garlic some basil Gran aano cheese salt and pepper drizzled with some nice olive oil and you’ve got a Powerhouse dish full of antioxidants heart healthy compounds and Immunity boosting ingredients so hopefully you’ll make this a part of your summer menu plan thank you so much for joining in with me today I appreciate it so very much and we’ll catch you in the next one [Music]