Broccoli is rich in vitamin C.  It is also rich in beta- carotenes that are converted to vitamin A in the body. Some nutrients  in broccoli, such as selenium and diindolylmethane (DIM) have anti-cancer properties. This diindolylmethane is a powerful modulator of our innate  immune response system and has anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-cancer properties. Broccoli also contains glucoraphanin which can be be processed into an anti-cancer compound called sulforaphane. A high intake of broccoli can reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

Broccoli contains carbohydrates,  proteins, fats, vitamins , minerals, and water. The fat in broccoli is .037g per 100g serving, and water constitutes 89.30g. Carbohydrate in broccoli is 6.64g per 100g serving, sugar is 1.7g, soluble dietary fiber is 2.6g, and protein is 2.82g.

The tree-shaped flower heads or florets of broccoli, and its meaty stalks are rich in nutrients. Among these nutrients are the following vitamins and minerals:

• beta-carotenes
• vitamin A
• vitamin B1 (thiamine)
• vitamin B2 (riboflavin)
• vitamin B3 (niacin)
• vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
• vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)
• vitamin B9 (folate)
• vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
• vitamin K (menadione)
• magnesium
• phosphorus
• calcium
• iron
• potassium
• selenium
• zinc

Broccoli is best eaten raw or steamed. Most of its nutrients are lost when boiled over ten minutes. The leaves of broccoli are also edible, and contain more beta-carotenes than the florets.

In the primeval days, after Adam and Eve fell from their pristine Edenic state, men started looking for the elixir of youth. Expeditions were sent around the globe to conquer unreach territories and to find the elusive elixir believed to restore man to eternal youth.

All of them searched the globe painstakingly, and have grown old and weary until old age took their lives. Even now, in this 21st century era, some are still searching and hoping that somehow this elusive elixir of youth can finally be found.

Can we really live longer and be happy?

Of course, yes! Regular exercise, balanced diet, healthy lifestyle, and positive mental attitude can restore us to vibrant health, youthful body, and longer life.

To live longer we must be healthy; to stay younger we must be healthy. It is therefore imperative that we strive to be healthy.

How can we be heathy?

To be healthy, we need to eat nutritious food. When we say nutritious, it must contain all the essential nutrients needed by the body for proper functioning. These essential nutrients are found in fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables.

A balanced diet must contain carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals. Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables contain all these.

To live longer we must abstain from fleshly meats – they are carriers of communicable diseases, and they hasten us to the grave. To live longer, we should avoid intoxicating liquours that can destroy our liver and other organs of our body. These alcoholic drinks can lead us to petty brawls that can sometimes cost our lives, or to vehicular accidents that can cripple, maim or even result to our untimely death.

To live longer, we must believe in long life. Believing is the most important thing. We must enjoy life and live it with zest. A natural vitality inherent in the body will manifest itself when we believe in good health and hope to live longer. We are what we think. The mind has a tremendous power to make us what we want to be. As we think, we become. Therefore, let us feed our mind with enobling thoughts. Let us think about health; let us think about long life.

To live longer and happy, we must practice healthy living. Let us wake up early in the morning, and give thanks to the Lord who has given us another beautiful day. Have a regular exercise: muscle stretching, walking, jogging, and deep breathing until you perspire. Take a bath, and take your breakfast. Never ever skip your breakfast. Skipping it tends to make one obese, and this can cause a lot of health problems for us. Eat lots of fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables. If possible, if you can afford it, drink lots of fruit and vegetable juices. They are rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals that can cure many diseases including cancers.

To live longer, we must not abuse our body. We must not gulp or use toxic substances that can destroy our body, such as coffee, cigarettes, softdrinks, ice creams, synthetic food flavors, enhancers and colors, and illegal drugs. These are all the causes of so many diseases and deaths in the world. So avoid them, and live longer.

To live longer, we must sleep on time. Sleep has rejuvenating effects on the body. Sleep before 10 o’clock in the evening. This is the most beneficial time to sleep when the body’s production of melatonin is at its peak. And do not oversleep – it is not good for the body either.

Horse radidsh is very good for the whole body. It strengthens the immune system, restores skin condition, controls blood pressure, relieves headaches and migraines, prevent diabetes, reduce inflammations and arthritis pains, restricts the growth of tumors, heals ulcers, rebuilds weak bones, enrich anemic blood, calms the nervous system, and is good for beriberi, rickets and scurvy.

Horse raddish has a very important phytochemical niazimin which have been found to have molecular components that can prevent the development of cancer cells.

Fresh roots from young horse raddish tree can be used to treat fever. The infusion of horse raddish roots is good for those with asthma. Horse raddish fruits can prevent eye disorders, and can increase the semen count in men. Unripe horse raddish pods can be used to prevent intestinal worms. Tender horse raddish leaves can reduce phlegm and are administered internally for catarral conditions and scurvy. The flowers of horse raddish can be used to heal inflammation of the tendons and abscesses. The juice of the horse raddish leaves can be taken to remove phlegm and mucus in the body. It is good for the removal of mucus in inflamed sinuses, and for asthma too.

And worse, farmers would sell their fruits and vegetables to buy pork, beef or mutton in the market. They exchanged their nutritious food to the toxic and decaying flesh meats of dead animals! They sell their tubers or root crops to buy bread and other processed foods that are mixed with harmful substances and are dangerous to the body!

It is the desire of us all to be in good health always. When we are sick and bedridden, we lose our money on medicines, hospital bills, and doctor’s fee. We incur a lot of absences from work, and if unlucky, we lost our job.

Good health is very important to everyone. All material wealth is nothing without good health. Million dollars are useless to a tycoon who is sick with incurable, terminal disease!

It is therefore very important that we strive to be healthy. If we abhor vegetables and have not eaten them yet in our life, it is high time to try it now. The unfavorable taste is just in the beginning – you will adjust and get used to it sooner. It only takes the will, determination, and discipline to do it.

Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables are best for excellent health because of the following reasons:

1. Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables are the original food that God has given to man for his sustenance. As an omniscient God, he knows what is best for us, and he won’t give us lesser than that being our Maker and Owner of our lives whose loving kindness and tender mercy endure forever and ever.
2. Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables are rich in phytonutrients that have excellent healing powers for all diseases including cancers.
3. Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables supply the body all the essential nutrients needed for excellent health. They are rich sources of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals in most precise balance. Contrary to most beliefs, vitamin B12 is also found in vegetables. Spirulina, and other seaweeds are rich sources of vitamin B12. There is nothing to worry of becoming anemic when you are vegetarian. In fact, the heme of the chlorophyll in all leafy green vegetables has magnesium which is converted in the body into iron for the production of red blood cells.
4. Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables have light proteins that are easily digested and assimilated by the body. Flesh meats, on the other hand, have hard-to-digest heavy proteins that can putrefy in the body and cause various diseases.
5. Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables are rich in powerful antioxidants. One of these antioxidants is the amazing resveratrol or oligomeric proanthocyanidins from grape seeds that programs cancer cells to self-destruct. Eating fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables protects our body from the free radical damages due to environmental pollutants and stress.

Fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables are best for excellent health. God did not and cannot go wrong when he created fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables as man’s best diet. The various proven health benefits attested by hundreds of testimonies are proofs that fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetable are best for excellent health.

Bitter gourd has many medicinal values that are essential for healthy body. The juice from its raw fresh leaves mixed with the juices of lemon and oregano is a powerful expectorant of phlegm and hard mucous, and it can cure lingering coughs and colds.

Bitter gourd is well noted for enhancing longevity. Regular consumers of bitter gourd live up to hundred years old, and are still strong and healthy. It prevents or counteracts type II diabetes, and increases insulin sensitivity. It is rich in iron that helps in the  prevention of anemia.

Bitter gourd contains four bioactive compounds that activate a protein AMPK to regulate fuel metabolism and enable glucose uptake. It also contains lectin that has insulin-like property. Lectin lowers blood glucose concentrations by acting on peripheral tissues.

The following vitamins and minerals are found in bitter gourd:

• vitamin A
• vitamin B1 (thiamin)
• vitamin B2 (riboflavin)
• vitamin B3 (niacin)
• vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
• vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)
• vitamin B9 (folate)
• vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
• vitamin E (d-alpha tocopherol)
• vitamin K (menadione)
• calcium
• copper
• iron
• magnesium
• phosphorus
• potassium
• selenium
• sodium
• zinc

Bitter gourd is a good source of carbohydrate, protein, vitamins and minerals. It is a good blood toner and purifier. It improves blood circulation, and prevents many diseases. The nutrients in bitter gourd help in treating defective carbohydrate metabolism.

A vegetarian diet is best for us because it is the safest and the healthiest diet for a longer happy life.  A vegetarian diet is complete in carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals for a healthy and strong body.Vegetarian diet is best for us because it strengthens and boosts our immune system to protect us from stress, pollution, and many diseases.

A vegetarian diet is best for us because it cures and prevents a lot of diseases. A vegetarian diet is best for us because it detoxifies and cleanses  our body of the highly acidic system brought on by our flesh meat eating. A vegetarian diet is best for us because it eliminates a lot of body pains and minimizes a lot of sufferings and afflictions that are common in sick people.

A vegetarian diet is best for us not only for health reasons, but for economic reasons as well. A vegetarian diet is simpler, cheaper and easier to prepare. There is no need to cook the vegetables – you can wash them clean and eat them raw, and get more health benefits from the live enzymes and phytonutrients in them to ward off cancers and other diseases. You can save money on fuel and ingredients. And you can save time too.

I am glad more people are now aware of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. More health conscious people are becoming vegetarians. I feel happy seeing people living a long, happy, healthy life. It is nice to know that our relatives, friends, and neighbors are healthy and free from any communicable diseases.

I have already written many articles about vegetarianism and vegetarian diet in this website, and I will continue writing until more people are informed of the many health benefits of a vegetarian diet.

But money cannot buy health. Rich people are not exempt from diseases, and even the richest die of terminal cancers which their money has no power to reverse. It is for man’s good to finally come into realization of how futile and worthless wealth can be in a life bereft of good health, and therefore very mandatory that he strives to acquire good health.

Good nutrition is one among the eight secrets of good health. Food is the most basic need of man to live. But it is not only the eating and gulping of food you like – it must be nutritionally balanced to be truly beneficial for the body.

A nutritionally balanced diet must include carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals. Rich sources of these nutrients are fruits, nuts, grains, and vegetables.

Most people, especially the children prefer meat than vegetables. They believe that proteins can only be obtained from meats, fish, and other animal products. But this is not true. On the contrary, plants, seeds, grains and vegetables are more abundant sources of proteins. Proteins from meats are heavy proteins and are hard to digest. Plant-based proteins are light proteins and are easily digested and assimilated by the body.

Fruits, nuts, grains, and vegetables have all the nutrients needed for excellent health. True, no plant or herbs can produce vitamin B12 – a very essential vitamin in the formation and production of the red blood cells. But the human body can produce its own vitamin B12 when it has enough supply of cobalt which is available in plants or herbs such as Nova Scotia dulse, and Norwegian kelp (types of seaweeds). Vitamin B12 or cobalamin is also partially found in food rich in vitamin B1 or thiamine such as nuts, seeds, beans, brown rice, whole-grain cereals, oats, and leafy vegetables.

Flesh meats of animals, on the other hand, are very harmful to health. Meats of diseased animals are carriers of communicable diseases which are easily transferred to human beings. Most animals today are feed with growth hormones, feed additives, and their meats are loaded with preservatives, food colors, and other toxic chemicals that are dangerous to the body. Healthy animals are butchered in dirty slaughter houses, and bacteria and other pathogens thrive on these meats, and are already putrefying and decayed before it reach the consumers. Eating of flesh meats had long been suspected as the cause of tumors and cancers. Only in this modern time have it been verified and confirmed by medical doctors as true.

Think twice before eating meat. Where do people get these dreadful diseases: cancers, tumors, mad-cow disease, foot-and-mouth disease, bird’s flu, and the latest scare – the Ebola Reston virus?