Best Food for the Eyes

Eating certain types of foods, in addition to getting regular eye exams, can enhance and preserve the health of your eyes. Many of the foods considered beneficial to your eyes contain specific vitamins and minerals that can help ward of eye problems and slow the progression of age-related eye diseases. The American Optometric Association recommends several types of foods that can promote eye health.courtesy:wikihow.com



Green Leafy Vegetables: Green leafy vegetables top the list of best foods for the eyes. These vegetables, along with eggs, contain lutein and zeaxanthin, nutrients shown to reduce macular degeneration and cataracts, two age-related eye problems.

Zinc As A Link To Healthy Eyes: Zinc helps in the production of melanin, a protective eye pigment. Zinc is found in dairy products, such as yogurt, as well as meats, whole grains and beans.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Found most commonly in fish, including salmon, and fish oil, omega-3 fatty acids play an important role in visual development and retinal function. Best Health Magazine reports that these acids may lower your risk of age-related macular degeneration.

Foods Rich In Vitamin E: To protect eyes from damage caused by free radicals (unstable molecules that can impact healthy tissue), your diet should include foods rich in vitamin E, such as sweet potatoes, nuts (almonds are a good source) and fortified cereals.

Carrots And Eyesight: Fact Or Fiction: Will people--and rabbits--have better eyesight if they eat carrots? It's possible, says Dr. Amy Chow, O.D. Carrots contain beta carotene, which the liver turns into vitamin A that is then absorbed by retinal cells that enable you to see.

Certain Foods:

> Carrot
> Spinach
> Almonds
> Raspberries
> Salmon
> Broccoli

Popeye was right: spinach really does boost your muscles

Popeye's claim that "I am strong to the finish because I eat all my spinach" is scientifically correct, a study has found.
courtesy:http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Researchers have discovered that eating a bowl of spinach a day makes your muscles "profoundly" more efficient.



They found that eating 300g of the vegetable reduced the amount of oxygen needed to power muscles by as much as five per cent when exercising.

The effect is so powerful it works after just three days.

The secret is not iron but nitrates which are abundant in the vegetable.

These chemicals make the mitochondria – the "engine rooms" of every cell – more efficient, they found.

"It is like a fuel additive for your muscles – it makes them run much more smoothly and efficiently," said the lead author Dr Eddie Weitzberg of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Dr Wietzberg, who reported his findings in the journal Cell Metabolism, fed people pure nitrate supplements – the equivalent to the amount in a plate of spinach – every day for three days.

At the beginning and end of the experiment they were made to pedal strenuously on an exercise bike while their oxygen intake was measured via a tube to the mouth

It was found that the difference in energy in take was between three and five per cent – a significant figure.

Spinach is well known as the superfood that gave Popeye the Sailor Man his bulging muscles.

The famous cartoon character, who dates back to the 1930s, pops open a can of spinach whenever he needs to get out of trouble.

Originally it was thought that the iron content of spinach made it a power-food.

Now scientists have learned that nitrates are the true energy-boosting ingredient in the vegetable.

Green leafy vegetables of all kinds are rich in the chemical which until recently was not thought to have any nutritional value.

"We know that diets rich in fruits and vegetables can help prevent cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but the active nutrients haven't been clear," said Dr Weitzberg.

"It is a profound and significant effect. It just shows that Popeye was right."

Previously Prof Weitzberg and colleague Professor Jon Lundberg showed that dietary nitrate increases levels of nitric oxide in the body with the help of friendly bacteria.

Nitric oxide is an important molecule which opens up blood vessels, lowers blood pressure, and improves circulation.

Mitochondria, like all engines, lose a lot of energy through heat loss.

The nitrate seems to stop this waste and make the cell – and so the muscle – run more efficiently.