Why you should introduce raspberries into your diet
Raspberries are worth eating for their vitamin C content alone. In fact, a serving of just 100mg provides 43% of the recommended daily allowance.
Vitamin C offers many health benefits. It boosts the immune system and is good for the eyes; it protects the heart and has anti-ageing abilities. It can do a whole lot more besides and is certainly a valuable nutrient, but it is not the only nutrient hidden inside the tasty flesh of the little red fruit. Raspberries are packed full of goodness and can enhance the health in many ways.
Some Powerful Facts about Raspberries
- Raspberries have an unusually high fiber content
- Raspberries contain greater concentration of antioxidants than most other fruits
- Raspberry Ketone can help you lose weight
Dietary Fiber
Foods that contain high amounts of dietary fiber can create a feeling of satiety that dulls the appetite and reduces the temptation for snacking. This a benefit any dieter will appreciate because fighting feeling of hunger is one of the biggest hurdles calorie-counters have to try and surmount if they are to succeed in losing weight.
High fiber foods are also beneficial for the digestive system, the most noticeable benefit probably being their ability to open the bowels and ensure regularity. High fiber foods are more difficult to digest than many other foods, so the digestive system has to work harder. This means a few more calories need to be burned to complete the process. It also means the digestive system is given a form of high fiber workout that makes it stronger and less susceptible to disease.
Antioxidants
Antioxidants are molecules that hinder the oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that occurs inside the body. Although the process of oxidation is essential it can also produce “free radicals” which can cause chain reactions inside the body that lead to the death of important cells and can cause cancer and other diseases. Antioxidants prevent such chain reactions from happening, thereby protecting the health.
The list barely scratches the surface, but the antioxidants provided by raspberries include
- Vitamin C
- Carotenoids
As already mentioned antioxidants can protect against cancer, so that’s a pretty good reason to ensure the diet provides a sufficient amount. The antioxidants in raspberries can also protect the eyes from diseases including macular degeneration and cataracts.
With so many health-enhancing antioxidants crammed into each and every berry, raspberries are a valuable food, and beauty-conscious individuals may be interested to learn the same antioxidants that can ensure you feel good can help you to look good as well. Why? Because antioxidants also offer anti-aging benefits and can ensure the skin continues to look better for longer. The wrinkles will probably still get you in the end, but they won’t get you so quickly or easily.
Raspberry Ketone
Raspberry ketone is a buzz word in dieting circles these days, helped in part by that nice Doctor Oz., who was kind enough to endorse raspberry ketone during one of his shows. Oz compared its fat burning abilities to “lightning in a bottle”; now raspberry ketone is available in numerous supplement forms. It’s a strange state of affairs though, when people are willing to spend big bucks on supplements because they want to look good and largely ignore a fruit that can deliver the same compound and offers so many additional benefits that can ensure the body feels as healthy as it looks.
Click here to find out more about Raspberry Ketone
Despite its recent rise to fame, raspberry ketone is not favored by all. Some experts point out the need for further testing of the compounds fat burning abilities on human test subjects. At the moment most of the tests conducted have been on rodents, but the results were extremely promising. It is also worth noting many celebrities swear by raspberry ketone, stating it helped them get in shape in record time. The name Roxanne Pallette (Emmerdale Farm) will probably be familiar to many UK residents, and Kym Kardashian is famous on a worldwide scale. Both state raspberry ketone works, as do hundreds of people who pursue less glamorous lives, so although lab tests on humans may be in short supply many humans have tested raspberry ketone for themselves and state it delivers the goods.
Final Thoughts
Season permitting, raspberries are a nutritious fruit available to all—some people even grow them in the garden. As far as taste goes they have a lot to offer, and can eaten as is or used in any number of nutritious recipes. In this case though, the fact that they taste so good is merely the icing on the cake because raspberries are an exceptionally valuable food that has the potential to boost the health with each and every smack of the lips.
