National eat red week

February 7, 2008

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is first eat red week (Feb 4 -10). This is an offshoot of the wear red campaign. The wear red (on Feb 1) campaign was started several years ago by the American Heart Association (AHA), as part of Heart Health month. The idea is to draw attention to the fact that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer for women as well as men. Check out goredforwomen.org which is run by the AHA. I wear a “red dress” pin, the logo for red for women, on one of my favorite jackets.

Why should you be eating red? The idea is to try to get people to eat more red colored fruits and vegetables. The red color indicates high levels of antioxidants, which are good for you. Eating fruits and vegetables with high levels of antioxidants have been shown to have lots of health benefits. One of the fruits with the high levels of antioxidants is cherries. They are packed with antioxidants known as anthocyanins, which have been shown to lower both cholesterol and triglycerides. Though the fresh cherry season is short they are now available year round as juice, dried, frozen and canned. Tart cherries tend to have higher levels of anthocyanins but they are all good; juice and dried cherries have higher levels than frozen and canned. I love frozen cherries, and will eat them semi-thawed or put half a bag on my cereal in the morning. Check out choosecherries.com for some info and some delicious recipes.

Other good sources of anthocyanins include eggplant, red grapes, blackcurrants and most red and purple berries. Many fruits have the highest levels in the skin, so eat the skin.

So this week eat red to protect your heart and health.

Technorati Tags: antioxidants, heart, cherry, red fruit