The ILEAD Company® welcomes you to Fitness Friday. On Fridays, I will educate you on becoming mentally sound and physically fit. Nutrition and Fitness is influential!

Learn about healthy foods and incorporating ideas is the key. I am going to share with you another super food that will enhance your diet and support healthy living as a leader… KIWI!

Healthy Food – Trying Kiwi Wouldn’t Be a Bad Idea

The nouvelle cuisine movement of the 1970’s did a great deal to popularize kiwis in the US and today California provides 95 percent of the US crop. Now kiwis, or kiwifruit, are popular the world over and deservedly so as their pale green and delicious flesh, reminiscent of strawberries to some and pineapple to others, offers a potent mix of nutrients that elevate it to the status of a Superfood.

Kiwi’s Health Benefits

While many fruits feature one or two nutrients in their profile, kiwi offers an unusual array of health-promoting substances. Extremely rich in vitamin C, kiwi also offers folate, potassium, fibre, carotenoids, polyphenols, chlorophyll, glutathione and pectin. In addition, kiwi is an unusual source of Vitamin E because most sources of this important vitamin, like nuts and oils, are high in both fat and calories. Kiwi by contrast offers its rich nutritional bounty for only about 93 calories for 2 kiwis. In fact, on a calorie per nutrient basis, kiwis have only 3.8 calories per nutrient. Of 27 fruits tested, only cantaloupe (2.6), papaya (2.8), strawberry (2.5), and lemon (2.5) had fewer calories per nutrient.

Offering a rich bounty of Vitamin C – more than an equivalent amount of orange – kiwi can be relied upon to help neutralize the free radicals that damage cells, ultimately leading to inflammation and cancer. Vitamin C has such an important role in so many bodily functions, including the immune system, and is associated with preventing so many ailments, from asthma and atherosclerosis to osteoarthritis and colon cancer, that it’s no wonder that high consumption of the foods containing the vitamin is associated with reduced risk of death from all causes including cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Kiwi fruit promotes heart health by lowering triglyceride levels and reducing platelet hyperactivity which in turn seems to play a role in the development and stability of atherosclerotic vascular plaques.

Kiwi can promote heart health by limiting the tendency of blood to form clots. The vitamin C and E in kiwi combined with the polyphenols and magnesium, potassium, B vitamins and copper all act to protect the cardiovascular system. In one study in Oslo, Norway people who ate 2 or 3 kiwi a day for 28 days reduced their platelet aggregation response – or potential for clot formation – by 18% compared to those eating no kiwi. Moreover, those kiwi eaters also enjoyed a triglyceride drop of 15% compared to the controls.

Four medium kiwi fruit supply about 1.4 mg of lutein/zeaxanthin. As a result, this fruit is a non-leafy green source of these two important nutrients which have been associated with a decreased risk for cataracts, muscular degeneration, and the development of atherosclerotic plaques.

Kiwi is reported to have a laxative effect which can be beneficial to all but especially older people who are troubled by constipation. One study of 38 people over the age of sixty found that regular consumption of kiwi led to bulkier, softer stools and more frequent stool production.

Beyond the nutritional value of kiwis, there were great recipes that use kiwis that you and your family may enjoy. Let’s discuss this tonight during the TKO night show at 9:00p.m. EST. Chat with you soon!