Why Coconut is a Health Food

Scroll down to see how you can get my fav coconut oil for free in October!

Try My Favorite Coconut Oil for Free in October!

This month, I'd love for you to try my favorite brand of coconut oil absolutely free. For the month of October, get a 16oz. canister of this amazing product absolutely free with any $99 purchase of supplements.

You don't have to add it to your shopping cart or use a coupon code.... we'll just sneak a canister of coconut oil into the box on the way out the door.

Secret Superfood: Chia Seeds!

One ounce of this super seed contains 11g of fiber, 4g of protein, 5 g Omega 3 fatty acids, and contains more antioxidants than flax seeds.

The Undiscovered Superfood

With all the marketing hooplah over superfoods like acai, goji and noni, we tend to foget that some of the best superfoods on the planet are right under our noses and don't cost an arm and a leg (like some of these overpriced multi-level marketed juice drinks do).

The latest hero to emerge on the superstar galaxy is... get ready for this-plums.

Yup, plums.

Food scientist Dr. Luis Cisneros and plant breeder David Byrne judged more than 100 varieties of plums, peaches and nectarines and found them to match (or even exceed) the highly valued blueberries in antioxidants and phytonutrients. According to Byrne, one inexpensive plum contains about the same amount of antioxidants as a handful of blueberries.

"People tend to eat just a few blueberries at a time - a few on the cereal or as an ingredient mixed with lots of sugar," Cisneros said. "But people will eat a whole plum at once and get the full benefit."

The researchers didn't stop after measuring the considerable antioxidant content of plums, which- by the way- has been noted in other tests, where plums consistently score near the top of the list of high-antioxidant foods. They also tested the effect of the compounds found in the fruit on breast cancer cells.

One benefit the team found was that the phytonutrients in plums inhibited in vitro (test tube) breast cancer growth without adversely affecting normal cell growth.

"We suggest that consumers take seriously the recommendation to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables - or even more - every day and to make sure that plums are part of that," Byrne said.

My Favorite Superfood: The Memory Enhancer

I'm always amused by those multi-level marketing juice drinks (Xango, Mangosteen, Xocai, Mona Vie) that go for 40 bucks a bottle and promise to cure everything from hair loss to cancer. I don't believe for a moment that those juices provide any more antioxidant power or health promoting properties than a good mix of plain old berries (like blueberries) that you can get anywhere at a fraction of the price.

Consider this:

A new study published in the current issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that wild blueberries outperformed 2 dozen other commonly consumed fruits like apples, bananas, red grapes and strawberries in an expanded test using the Cellular Antioxidant Activity (CAA) assay (lab test). The research shows that wild blueberries have the highest cellular antioxidant activity of the 25 fruits tested, as well as the highest total phenolic content and ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) value.

ORAC value is a "combo score" based on the ability of mixed antioxidants in a given food to perform as a team, often delivering more punch and power than you might expect from any of the individual ingredients- think "The Rolling Stones" as a band as opposed to Mick Jagger as a solo artist!

Lead scientist Rui Hai Liu, Ph.D. used the cellular antioxidant activity (CAA) assay -- a new assay developed by the Cornell University Department of Food Science to determine antioxidant activity of antioxidants, foods, and dietary supplements.

According to Dr. Liu, the CAA assay was developed to investigate how antioxidant compounds found in foods react inside real cells as opposed to test tubes, using human liver cancer cells as the testing model. The new CAA test is a more biologically relevant method as it accounts for uptake, metabolism, distribution and activity of antioxidant compounds within cells versus solely looking at antioxidant value.

The recently published study shows the cellular antioxidant activity of 25 common fruits, an expansion from earlier CAA testing done in 2007. "In expanding the test to include more fruits, we found that wild blueberries had the highest antioxidant activity, with other berries and pomegranates also showing strong performance" said Dr. Liu.

Previous research that I reported on showed that blueberry extracts fed to mice improved their memory and maze learning ability, showing the blueberries truly are a "brain' food. Blueberries are one food I eat every single day- without exception. I've written glowingly about them in The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth.

The new research is more evidence for what we've known for a while- blueberries are at the top of the heap when it comes to providing antioxidant power.

And by the way- you don't have to wait for them to be in season. Buy 'em frozen. In fact, eat them right from the freezer sprinkled with some nuts and a little raw milk or Pomegranate juice. There's nothing like it for staving off the craving for an 800 calorie pint of ice cream.