#ygkChallenge: Choose Nutrient Dense Foods

Welcome to Kingstonist’s weekly challenge, dare, resolution or whatever you prefer to call it. Each week we establish a new and ambitious community goal, encouraging our readers, followers, friends and families to step out of their comfort zones and do something great, and hopefully a little out of the ordinary. Consider this your official and personal invitation to join us in completing a small but meaningful achievement. By taking part in this community-wide initiative, we hope to make Kingston a slightly better place to live, work and play. And of course, we also hope that you will feel proud of your contribution and achievement.

This week’s challenge encourages you to:

Choose Nutrient Dense Foods! With a wide variety of healthy food selections available at your local farmer’s markets there’s no reason not to choose foods that are highly nutritious. This week, I challenge you to include in your meals each day, one of the nutrient dense foods listed here.

1. Avocado: a healthy source of fat, rich in vitamins and minerals, and a great source of lutein, which can help to protect against eye disease.
2. Blueberries: high in antioxidants they help to fight disease-inducing free radicals in our body. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that anthocyanins (blue-red pigment found in blueberries) were protective against hypertension.
3. Beans/Legumes: high in fiber as well as having a stabilizing effect on your blood sugar as they are digested slowly. Multiple studies have shown that beans may reduce the risk of colon cancer.
4. Onion: a great source of flavonoid antioxidants, such as quercetin, they combat inflammation. They are also rich in organosulfur compounds, which help to suppress the growth of cancer cells.
5. The last nutrient-dense food on my list is a spice: turmeric. A study published in the journal Neuroscience fed curcumin (an extract of turmeric) to rats with plaques in their brains and found that the curcumin improved spatial learning and memory.

The challenge is on: benefit your health by eating nutrient dense foods!

Sign up and commit to completing this week’s challenge by commenting below with an “I’m in“, “challenge accepted“, “en garde” or something along those lines. Further, help us spread the word via Twitter and Facebook by using the hashtag: #ygkchallenge. As you work towards completing this week’s task, please feel free to lend others a helping hand by providing tips on how you achieved success.

Thanks to brx0 for today’s photo.