Cucumbers!

Since it has been so hot outside lately and summer is nearly on my doorstep, I've started eating lots of cucumbers. I like to slice them in sticks and eat them cold out of the fridge. They are a great healthy snack and if you have a little craving mid-morning or mid-afternoon, they are an excellent source of vitamin B and actually contain carbs to give you energy.

In fact, cucumbers are a very good source of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 and folic acid. Not to mention vitamin C, calcium, IRON (very important for me!), magnesium, phosphorous, potassium and zinc. Betcha didn't know that, did you? (Neither did I! A friend emailed me information about cucumbers that I think it is important to pass on. Plus, I translated it to English for you. That'll be $20. ;)

I plan on eating lots of cucumbers to hopefully keep my anemia at bay... or at least under control.

Vitamin E - Is Yours Legit?

I was reading about vitamin E the other day, about how good it is for the skin and all, when I stumbled across this: did you know that the vitamin E you buy may be artificial? It's true, and when I checked mine I was shocked to see that mine wasn't natural. How to tell? Read the label.

If your vitamin capsule contains d-alpha-trocopheryl, it's natural.

If it contains dl-alpha-trocopheryl, it's synthetic. It's that one little l in the name that makes all the difference.

I'm not just being an organic snob here, either. What I read was that the synthetic vitamin isn't as effective.

When in doubt, of course, one can always go to the source: vitamin E can be found in walnuts, peanuts, almonds, fish oil, sunflower oil, avocado, wheat germ and sweet potato.

Now that you know, eat one of these foods today.

I'm off to eat some almonds. :o)