We all know that eating a variety of foods is the key to a healthy balanced diet. But I’ll be the first to admit that I get stuck in my ways sometimes.
Once you start buying from the list of superfoods and avoid all the foods that don’t help with weight loss, you have a tendency to only stick to those items since you know they’re great.
Some people find comfort in eating the same foods since it becomes sort of routine, or just like me you might find yourself in a rut. But we all need a little diversity in our diets don’t you think?
And with so many different cultures in the world, it would be impossible to think that we all enjoyed eating the same things. We all have different taste buds, different likes and dislikes, and there are so many flavors to be enjoyed.
So instead of sticking to my rut, I set out to discover new foods with just as many health benefits as the superfoods I’ve been eating. And what I found was even better.
I’ll give you fair warning right now that some of these foods are outside of the box. Whether they’re taboo, taken for granted, or just a little misunderstood, you probably won’t find these foods on many menus in your hometown (and if you do, kudos!). But you’re definitely going to want to get to know them.
These foods may take some time to get used to, but it’s worth making the effort for the hidden vitamins and nutrients you’ll find contained within them.
Keep reading to learn more about these 9 foods we should be eating, but don’t.
Don’t Throw That Away!
You’re going to feel just as foolish as I did when I learned about all the good food I’ve wasted and unknowingly sent to the trash.
While we’re in a rush to get food on the table, it’s typical for us to discard fruit skins and cores, strange leaves on veggies, and even cooking water. But we’ve been making a BIG mistake here.
Fruit and veggie skins are loaded with vitamins, nutrients, and healthy beneficial properties like fiber and antioxidants…and you should never toss them out.
One thing to keep in mind is whenever you’re planning on eating the skins of your fruits and veggies, always remember to buy organic wherever possible.
The skins have the highest concentration of pesticides and you don’t want to be ingesting any of those. Make sure you also wash your produce thoroughly.
So which skins should you be eating?
1. Kiwi Skins
For such tiny fruit, kiwis pack a major punch in the vitamin C game. In fact, kiwis contain more immune boosting vitamin C than oranges and contain 100% of your recommended daily value!
But for most of us, adding that kiwi to our tropical salad usually means we need to peel the skin off first.
Boy is that a mistake.
Not only can kiwi skins ward off staphylococcus and E-coli, those nasty bugs that cause food poisoning, but studies have found that kiwi skins are “high in flavonoids that are rich in antioxidants and have anti-allergy, anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties”.
Marilyn Glenville, former president of the Food and Health Forum at the Royal Society of Medicine, told The Daily Mail that kiwi skin “contains three times the antioxidants of the pulp”.
Why is this news about antioxidants so great?
You see, all of the cells in our bodies need oxygen, but oxygen exposure also causes oxidation, which is when our body’s chemicals become altered. These altered chemicals are known as free radicals. Too much sun, alcohol, pollution, cigarette smoke, and many other things, all create free radicals inside us.
These free radicals start damaging parts of our cells and even start messing with our DNA. Free radicals are thought to contribute to the development of diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
Stopping free radicals is important, to say the least. That’s where antioxidants come in. “Antioxidants are natural substances that may stop or limit the damage caused by free radicals”. The antioxidants sort of confine the free radicals so they can’t start off on their path of destruction. They can even protect and reverse the damage caused by free radicals to some extent.
See why getting enough of these guys is critical?
Just slice the kiwi fruit like you normally would, except leave the skin on. Rub a bit of the fuzziness off and you won’t even notice the skin.
2. Orange Peel
According to LiveStrong, orange peels are full of “riboflavin, thiamin, niacin, folate, vitamin A, vitamin B6 and vitamin B5…[plus minerals including] 10 mg of calcium along with small amounts of iron, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and selenium”.
It’s no wonder orange peels are considered so healthy, take a look at all those essential vitamins and minerals!
But orange peels also contain “nobiletin, a type of polymethoxylated flavones (PMFs), compounds which are found to exert positive effects on the heart. These compounds lower your risk of heart disease and inflammation in addition to lowering the [bad] blood cholesterol levels” or LDL.
Now I’m not suggesting that you peel an orange and eat the skin alongside the fruit. Instead, here are a few ways to use orange peels to grab these beneficial vitamins and minerals for yourself:
I like to use orange zest in my oatmeal and even grate some into vinaigrettes for salads for a perfect burst of citrus flavor.
Throw an entire orange, unpeeled, into a juicer.
Chew orange peels to get rid of bad breath naturally.
Boil the peel for around 15-20 minutes and drink it like a tea to cure a hangover.
3. Banana Peel
We all know that bananas are chock full of potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure and reduce risk of stroke. But researchers in Taiwan “discovered that banana peel is rich in serotonin, which is vital to balancing moods” and warding off depression.
Plus, the researchers also learned that banana peels contain lutein, an antioxidant that provides nutritional support for healthy eyes and may even regenerate retina cells.
So how do you eat a banana peel?
News.com.AU says: “Boil the skin for 10 minutes then drink the liquid once cooled, or put through a juicer”. The team of researchers say you should drink banana peel water a few times a week.
Have You Ever Tried These Leaves?
Sure, we’ve all had iceberg lettuce and romaine leaves, graduating to eating healthier spinach leaves, and even got used to eating the uber popular superfood kale. But there are other leafy greens on the block you may not have thought to try.
4. Celery Leaves
If you buy your celery as a whole stalk and not pre-cut, you may be inclined to pass on stalks with fluffy, leafy tops, or snip them off and throw them out when you get home.
But think again.
Celery leaves are not only a good source of fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins A and C, but they have five times as much magnesium than celery stalks do!
Dr. Mercola states that magnesium is an important mineral involved in performing a wide array of biological functions, including but not limited to:
Activating muscles and nerves
Creating energy in your body by activating adenosine triphosphate (ATP)
Helping digest proteins, carbohydrates, and fats
Serving as a building block for RNA and DNA synthesis
Being a precursor for neurotransmitters like serotonin
You can use celery leaves as fresh herbs like cilantro in your dishes, add them to your soups, or even make your very own celery leaf pesto.
5. Broccoli Leaves
Even though we’re all used to eating the crunchy broccoli stalks and pretty broccoli florets, we may want to start eating broccoli leaves.
Just 28 g of broccoli leaf, which is less than one ounce, contains 90% of our recommended daily requirement of vitamin A.
Do you know how much vitamin A is in the florets?
A whopping 3%.
Vitamin A isn’t just essential for healthy vision, Dr. Weil says it’s also vital for:
Bone growth
Reproductive health
Immune system health
Helping the skin and mucous membranes repel bacteria and viruses more effectively
If you’re able to find broccoli leaves at your market, I recommend sauteing them like spinach. Grab a big saute pan, add a little oil of choice, and throw in some fresh garlic. Cook them until just wilted and tender, and then hit them with a bit of salt before serving.
Unexpected Proteins
According to the World Bank, humans have to produce “at least 50% more food to feed 9 billion people by 2050”. Factors like climate change and the depletion of natural resources at “unprecedented rates” means that unless we change the way we grow and eat food, food is going to become an expensive scarcity.
That’s a pretty frightening thought.
It takes a lot of land, water, and food to raise the animals we’ve all been accustomed to eating. And growing population numbers don’t make this easier.
So researchers started to look for other viable sources of easy-to-raise protein that don’t harm the environment in the process.
6. Crickets and Grasshoppers…Really
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization believes that eating bugs such as water beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, crickets, and yes, even worms, may actually help world hunger numbers decrease.
Bring on the bugs! Am I right?
Probably not.
See, even though people have been eating insects all over the world for centuries, so much so that some of them even consider insects to be a delicacy, most Westerners are just not that into the whole insect thing. Like, at all.
I think we need to get over our squeamishness because despite our total aversion to them, insects really have it going on with the nutrition thing.
Get this: “The average insect is around half protein by dry weight, with some insects (such as locusts) up to about 75% protein”.
So insects could be considered a stable source of high protein. Check out this nutrition label for around half a cup of cooked mealworms and the same serving size of crickets.
You read that right.
There’s close to 60 grams of protein in about 3.5 ounces of crickets. Yes, those tiny little bugs that chirp at night, they have over double the amount of protein found in a cooked t-bone steak (22 g).
The environmental aspect of eating bugs is awesome too. Bugs don’t need big slaughterhouses and they live on garbage and waste, so they would actually be helping the environment.
If eating insects sounds like your thing, the preferable way of enjoying these bugs is cooking them properly with high heat. It’s not uncommon to see critters deep fried and crispy or barbecued and doused in seasoning, or even added to high-heat stir-frys.
7. Seaweed
You may be familiar with seaweed due to your obsession with sushi, but if that’s all you know about seaweed, you are in for a surprise.
Westerners have been slowly adding seaweed to their menus, albeit very slowly, but Asian countries have been reaping the benefits of seaweed for centuries.
Edible seaweed is a broad term for the many species of marine plants and even algae found in our oceans. You can eat the red, green, and brown varieties for their amazing sources of fiber, calcium, vitamins, and minerals.
Plus, did you know that nori contains as much as 47% protein?
Sea veggies are also low in calories (about 20 per cup).
Seaweeds like kelp may even help regulate hormones because they’re high in lignans, which “block the chemical oestrogens that can predispose people to cancers such as breast cancer. Dr. Jane Teas of Harvard University published a paper saying that kelp consumption might be a factor in the lower rates of breast cancer in Japan”.
8. Lionfish
While these fish may be beautiful, lionfish are an aggressive reef eating species known to wipe out whole populations of native coral, which in turn destroys the entire ecosystem in the area.
Lionfish used to only live in the Pacific Ocean, but aquarium owners introduced these fish to areas all over the world. When these owners get rid of the lionfish and dump them in new waters, they become an invasive predator, preying on wildlife that doesn’t know how to defend itself against them.
Scientists say the lionfish population will continue to grow uncontrollably…unless we start eating them. So in response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched a campaign in 2010 called “Eat Lionfish”.
National Geographic says that lionfish have “moist, buttery meat that is often compared to hogfish, one of the most popular reef fish served in restaurants”.
Supporters confirm that eating lionfish is “healthier than eating snapper or grouper because lionfish have higher concentrations of heart healthy omega-3 fatty acids…[and are] also very low in heavy metals like mercury and lead”.
And A Berry On Top
Registered dietitian Nancy Copperman, MS, RD, CDN, explains that berries are so special in the world of nutrition due to their high levels of phytochemicals – naturally occurring nutrients that help protect cells from damage.
Berries like acai, raspberry, cranberry, and blueberry, routinely make superfood lists for their high fiber and antioxidant levels.
In fact, researchers in a study of 72 middle-aged people discovered that “eating just under a cup of mixed berries daily for eight weeks was associated with increased levels of “good” HDL cholesterol and lowered blood pressure”.
Those are pretty fantastic results for such a sweet treat.
So when I heard about a new berry that also promised incredible health benefits, I couldn’t be more excited.
9. Buffaloberry
The what berry?
According to a study in the Journal of Food Science, buffaloberries may be the next “superfruit”.
Buffaloberries are red berries about the size of currants that have a slightly sour taste and loads of fiber.
Their characteristic red skin is due to their lycopene content. We know lycopene as the antioxidant that lowers the risk of developing certain types of cancers. Researchers claim that the lycopene in buffaloberries is “high in comparison to tomatoes”.
Additionally, the antioxidant levels of buffaloberry “compared favourably to fruits such as raspberries, strawberries, and elderberries”.
Wow. How have I let something this awesome escape my knowledge?
Final Thoughts
As I sit here and look at this list, I have to ask myself why we’ve all been in the dark about so many of these foods. The health benefits are certainly not something to be ignored.
None of these ingredients are expensive, and we already use some of them in our normal everyday life, so why has it taken so long to praise them?
Ok, many of them are a little weird, sure, but could we get past that for the sake of nutrition and clean eating?
I bet if celebrities started endorsing grasshoppers for breakfast instead of meal replacement shakes, the public would be more willing and eager to hop on board.
The truth is, we should be our body’s best advocate and seek out healthy foods to explore on our own. And I’m definitely going to start eating some of these.
Which healthy, strange food are you most excited to try? Share your thoughts with me in the comments!
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