Monday 1 November 2010

Mighty mackerel

I'm conscious I've been blogging alot about lifestyle lately, but this is driven by the fact I find a lot of people don't realise what an impact their lifestyle has on their health and think that as long as they're having their five a day they'll be fine!

But enough of that for now, time to get back to talking about food...

One of the nutrition trends of the last few years has been using the 'Superfood' label. It's been used for regular foods such as spinach and blueberries to the latest food fad such as acai and pomegranate and is often used as a marketing tool.

There certainly are foods that are more nutritious than others but I think it's a bit dangerous to be faddy with food and suddenly eat lots of the superfood of the moment.

Over the years I've developed my own list of top foods for health that I eat regularly and which are all normal foods you can buy in the supermarket at a reasonable price. So for the next few blogs I'm going to talk about these foods and why they're on my top food list, starting with mackerel.

Mackerel happens to be one of my favourite oily fishes from a taste perspective and is also full of goodness. Primarily it's rich in essential fats which are beneficial for memory, mood, fat burning and the condition of your skin to name a few. I once ate mackerel every day for two weeks (as an experiment) and whilst I'd never recommend that anyone does that I must admit my skin never looked so good!

Mackerel is also a good source of some B vitamins, vitamin D, calcium and zinc and is a healthy source of protein which is important for so many of the body's functions.

I'm not a great cook, mainly because I don't have a lot of time for cooking (at least that's my excuse!), so I tend to have my mackerel smoked or out of a can both of which I enjoy, but it's not a patch on a grilled mackerel that's just been caught.

If you're not a mackerel fan sardines are another great oily fish to try - being so small they have much less toxin accumulation than the bigger fish like salmon or tuna, as do anchovies although it's hard to eat a lot of those in one go!
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