One Tropical Fruit Juice Recipe and its Heart Health Benefits
Study after study shows that people who eat several portions of fruit each day are considerably less likely to develop and die from heart disease. Here is a great tropical juice recipe that will supply you with an abundance of heart health antioxidants.
Tropical Fruit Juice Recipe - Tropical Tango
1 orange
1 mango
1 kiwi
Peel kiwi, orange and mango before juicing. I recommend scraping off some of the white on the inside of the orange peel and putting that through the juicer also. The white of the orange peel is where most of the antioxidant flavanols are located in an orange. Such flavanols include hesperidin, tangeritin and naringenin. These three flavanols have anti-cancer properties, ant-inflammatory properties and protect our arteries from free radical damage that can cause atheroscelrosis and hypertension.
Oranges are also a great source of vitamin C. An important vitamin for the immune system, vitamin C is especially effective at protecting us from catching colds and flu. You will find vitamin C in just about every single cold remedy at the pharmacy.
Vitamin C is also one of the most heart protective of nutrients. It is extremely effective at protecting LDL 'bad' cholesterol from becoming damaged by free radicals. Such damage hardens cholesterol into the artery walls causing atherosclerosis, the #1 leading risk factor for heart disease. The damaging effects of free radicals upon cholesterol is now becoming widely excepted in the medical field as a major cause of atherosclerosis.
Mango is a good source of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant, and also a plant pigment that puts the orange hue in mangoes. One study found that elderly people who ate 1 serving of beta-carotene rich foods each day were 60% less likely to have a heart attack than those who ate less than one serving of beta-carotene rich foods.
Beta-carotene is also transformed by the liver into vitamin A, an essential nutrient for the proper functioning of a healthy immune system. Vitamin A is also essential for healthy eyes. A deficiency in this vitamin will lead to night blindness and eventually complete blindness. Low levels of vitamin A in the body is also associated with an increased risk of developing eye diseases like cataracts and macular degeneration.
Kiwi is also a good source of bet-carotene and is an excellent source of vitamin C too. Putting kiwi in your juicer recipes will provide you with the wonderful heart health benefits of these two nutrients.