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If you want to reap the health benefits of broccoli and other cruciferous veggies, supplements just won’t do, according to new research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

"Adequate levels of nutrients like vitamin D are often difficult to obtain in most diets. But the particular compounds that we believe give broccoli and related vegetables their health value need to come from the complete food," says Emily Ho, the principal investigator with the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.

The study shows that glucosinolates, a class of phytochemicals found in cruciferous vegetables that may reduce the risk of breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer, is poorly absorbed and of far less value if taken as a supplement.

Intensive cooking depletes the vegetables’ health benefits as well, Ho says. However, they can be lightly cooked for two or three minutes, or steamed but left crunchy, and still retain sufficient health benefits.

Get more tips for boosting the health benefits of your veggies:
The Best Produce for Women 

Get More Antioxidants
Vegetables You Should Eat Together

read more

Photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

If you want to reap the health benefits of broccoli and other cruciferous veggies, supplements just won’t do, according to new research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

"Adequate levels of nutrients like vitamin D are often difficult to obtain in most diets. But the particular compounds that we believe give broccoli and related vegetables their health value need to come from the complete food," says Emily Ho, the principal investigator with the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.

The study shows that glucosinolates, a class of phytochemicals found in cruciferous vegetables that may reduce the risk of breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer, is poorly absorbed and of far less value if taken as a supplement.

Intensive cooking depletes the vegetables’ health benefits as well, Ho says. However, they can be lightly cooked for two or three minutes, or steamed but left crunchy, and still retain sufficient health benefits.

Get more tips for boosting the health benefits of your veggies:
The Best Produce for Women 

Get More Antioxidants
Vegetables You Should Eat Together

read more

It’s likely that more than half of your grocery budget goes to foods that come in a bag, box, or can. But scan a typical ingredients panel and you’ll see that what you’re really paying for is a lot of added fat, sodium, and chemical preservatives. To help you get more nutritional bang for your buck, our team of pros did a supermarket sweep for the buys that are as beneficial for you as they are for your wallet.

We’ve all been there. The winter blues set in and we reach for the nearest plate of holiday cookies, packing on the pounds. Then spring arrives and we get back outside, start exercising, and slim down for summer. But what if we could control our appetite, maintain a flat belly, and boost energy year-round? The answer lies in a simple letter: D.

Cutting-edge research has shown that vitamin D is a powerful weight-loss ingredient—but sunlight, which produces D naturally, is harmful to our skin and hard to come by (hello, office hours!). Now, for the first time, this breakthrough eating plan optimizes D-levels, helps you feel full, and actually triggers your fat cells to burn fat—not store it. By fueling your body with D-rich nutrients, you can supercharge your fat-burning state and speed up weight loss by 70 percent!

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Americans have been cooking with wine ever since Julia Child brought the finer points of French cooking to our shores 50 years ago. But now a humbler libation is making its star turn: beer. “Cooking with beer is a hot culinary trend,” says Rebecca Newell, executive chef at The Beehive, an eclectic comfort-food restaurant in Boston. “The microbrew boom of the 1990s made people aware of the true craftsmanship with which beer can be made, and now they’re experimenting with beer in the kitchen as well as at the bar.”

The right beer can deepen the flavors of both sweet and savory dishes, which is why Newell switched from cooking mussels in white wine to exclusively in lager. (And unlike at the bar, there’s no need to worry about ingesting too much—most of the alcohol burns off during cooking, even as the flavors intensify.)

What’s Brewing?

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Used to be, a little milk gave you all the vitamin D you needed. Now you’d have to chug a lot of it to get the daily dose suggested by the Institute of Medicine. But many docs say the new guidelines, which rose from 200 international units (IU) to 600 IU, still fall short. “It’s a step in the right direction,” says Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., M.D., director of the Vitamin D, Skin, and Bone Research Laboratory at the Boston University School of Medicine. “But essentially every tissue in your body needs vitamin D; 600 IU is just too low.” The nutrient affects some 2,000 genes and could amp up your immunity to fight off everything from depression to cancer. Plus, many women are D-deficient, says Sarfraz Zaidi, M.D., author of The Power of Vitamin D. Based on new research, you should get 1,000 to 2,000 IU a day. WH waded through the science to find out how taking enough of the so-called super vitamin may help cut your disease risk.

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Recently, the British Medical Journal reported that people who took calcium supplements (500 milligrams or more a day) were 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack.

So should you toss your bone-building pills? Not so fast, says WH nutrition advisor Martha Belury, Ph.D., R.D., of Ohio State University. “We need more studies to determine whether calcium actually causes heart attacks, or if the relationship is due to something else,” she says, adding that other studies that looked at calcium-rich foods haven’t found the same link.