Superfoods: Eating to Live Longer

Superfoods are things you can eat that will lower your cholesterol, clean up your blood stream - or at least not gunk it up - help lower your blood pressure, improve your memory, reduce inflammation in your joints, in fact all the things those medicines that you take are doing and without the side effects.

Eating more of these foods will help you feel better, have more energy and prevent disease, as long as you don't augment your diet with fast food, processed food, smoking and alcohol.

Finally, remember any food is a package, a bunch of cause-and-effect nutrients, which work together with your body chemistry. And scientists have just scratched the surface of what's going on. This means eating more of these foods rather than buying high-potency food supplements is the best choice.

So, here they are with a few comments on their major contribution to fitness:

• Beans: Dried, natural or canned, beans on average have the highest fiber content of any unaltered food.

• Blueberries: Berries in general have the highest amount of nutrients of any food and blueberries are at the top. Other nutrients, such as phytoflavinoids, potassium and vitamin C, enhance the berry's anti-inflammatory benefits.

• Broccoli: You should have listened to mom. The nutrients are immense with minimal cooking. But try to steam them rather than boil the life out of them.

• Oats: The soluble fiber acts like sponges in your digestive tract, soaking up the substances that become cholesterol in your blood stream.

• Oranges: Not to be confused with orange juice. Eating these provides a bunch of vitamins, including vitamin C in the way you're supposed to take it.