General tips
Buy Organic Foods : There are 12 foods where buying organic makes even more sense than normal.
According to the EWG (Environmental Working Group) the 12 most contaminated foods are:
- apples
- bell peppers
- celery
- cherries
- imported grapes
- nectarines
- peaches
- pears
- potatoes
- red raspberries
- spinach
- strawberries
All tested positive for pesticide residue – even after having been washed! Sweet bell peppers were the vegetable with the most pesticides overall, with 39 pesticides detected on a single sample. Conversely, if you're going to buy conventional, peas, broccoli, onions, pineapples, mangoes, bananas, kiwi and papaya had the lowest occurrence of pesticide residue.
Buy Local Food : As an ‘everything in moderation’ kind of guy, I’d find a strict local food diet fascinating but obsessive and intimidating, says Peter Marks, program coordinator for the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project in Asheville, N.C. He suggests a more gradual approach: Every week or month, replace one food in your diet that’s provided by a big, faraway company with a locally grown food.
Weight loss
The Glycaemic Index Diet
The gi index weight loss program is linked to the gi (or glycaemic index), a list of types of food and a score representing the ease with which the carbs in the food gets transformed to glucose in your system. The theory is that slow release foods (ie those food types with a low Glycaemic score), keep you feeling full longer and help to take in fewer food without craving snacks all the time.
It is also extremely effective for diabetes sufferers, as the low GI foods are helpful in minimizing surges in blood sugar secretion.