18 Healthy Snack Foods to Bust the Winter Blues

Written by Kristi Arnold

If the winter blues, also known Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), sneak up on you after the holidays, try these 18 mood-boosting  healthy snack foods to turn your frown upside down. The key to a good mood boosting snack is finding  quick and easy sources of B12, folic acid, selenium, vitamin D or omega-3 fatty acids. B12 and folic acid may prevent disorders of the central nervous system, mood disorders and dementia. Folic acid is usually found in beans and greens, while B12 is found in meats, fish, poultry and dairy. Selenium is a trace mineral that acts as an antioxidant in the body. Antioxidants help clear the body of free radicals that may be associated with oxidative stress on the brain, leading to mild and moderate depression. Additionally, selenium reduces risk of some cancers and inflammatory conditions. Omega-3 fatty acids can lower your risk of depression. Omega-3s are a good fat needed for normal brain function. But, your body can't make omega-3s on its own, so you need healthy food sources of the fats, such as freshwater fish. Vegetarian or vegan? No worries; try these vegan sources of omega-3s. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with mood disorders including PMS, SAD and depression. Eat foods rich in vitamin D and, when possible, top it off with sunlight, which helps the body absorb vitamin D. Find a mix of your favorite snacks among these 16 quick and easy sources of mood-enhancing vitamins and minerals. Pick-Me-Up Mixed Nuts and Fruits Combine a pick-me-up mix of nuts and dried fruits or berries for a wintertime snack. A mix of Brazil nuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, dark chocolate chips and dried banana chips drizzled with a bit of honey or molasses brings in several minerals that can improve your outlook. Bananas: Grab a banana by itself or add it to your morning cereal or yogurt to enjoy the benefits of bananas. Bananas are full of magnesium, which reduces anxiety and improves sleep. And they also contain potassium, which improves circulation delivering more oxygen to your brain. Additionally, the natural sugars provide a quick energy boost, while a banana's fiber content makes the boost last longer than energy from simple carbohydrates. Bananas were previously thought to also boost brain seratonin because of the seratonin and tryptophan amino acid content. But recent National Institutes of Health studies found consuming seratonin and tryptophan from foods doesn't correlate to mood enhancement like consuming a purified tryptophan supplement does. Brazil Nuts: Eating just three Brazil nuts per day can provide your recommended daily dose of selenium. Walnuts: The protein, omega-3s and vitamin E in walnuts all keep your body energetic. Walnuts are also high in magnesium and are a great on-the-go snack for regulating blood sugar and preventing mood swings. Dark Chocolate: Cocoa is a great source of phenylethylamine, which stimulates seratonin production in the brain. Serotonin is a natural antidepressant. Don't overdo the chocolate bars though, as caffeine and sugar can be depressants. And stick with chocolates with at least 70 percent cocoa. Dark chocolate also contains potent antioxidants. Sunflower Seeds: Also full of phenylethylamine, sunflower seeds make a great snack on their own, or in combination with mixed nuts. Berries: Berries, particularly blueberries and strawberries, reduce inflammation (which can keep your brain functioning properly) and are high in antioxidants. Molasses: Blackstrap molasses contains vitamin B6, selenium, magnesium, manganese, calcium, copper, and high amounts of iron. Honey: Natural honey is a true super sweetener; it's filled with B vitamins, folic acid, iron, and manganese, and compounds like quercetin and caffeic acid, which fight fatigue, depression and anxiety. Cheerful Salads Looking for a snack that eats more like a meal? Try a Spinach Salad topped with more of your brain's favorite fats and minerals. Or choose a Tomato Salad. Seafood: Seafood and shell fish is high in selenium. Fish: Fresh water salmon is a great source of omega-3s. Tomato: Tomatoes are the best source of lycopenes, a potent antioxidant. Spinach: Dark leafy greens like spinach, chard, collard and kale are chock full of folic acid, antioxidants and magnesium.  Avocado: Avocado's high concentration of healthy fats make it the perfect fruit snack or salad topping. A simple Fruit Salad of grapes, walnuts and sliced bananas with a bit of honey and lime juice can stave off mood swings and help you sleep. Grapes: Grapes and grape juice are filled with antioxidants. Grapes are also a perfect late night snack, since they're high in melatonin, a natural sleep aid. Complex Carbs Whole grains and complex carbohydrates---including oats, buckwheat and millet---can all improve your mood. Enhance your favorite muffins by swapping in some of these whole grain flours in place of about one quarter to one half of the recipe's flour. Buckwheat: Buckwheat is high in B vitamins, which improve energy and mood. Millet: Millet and other whole grains are complex carbohydrates that help your body regulate blood sugar and avoid mood swings. Super Veggies Add a side of garlicky asparagus or rotate Asparagus Parmesan into your dinner routine. Garlic: Antioxidant properties and high levels of selenium give garlic a key role in regulating your moods. The benefits of garlic are particularly seen when consumed raw. Asparagus: Five spears of asparagus can net you an entire day's allowance of folic acid. Image: AmySelleck

The Happiness Diet: 12 Foods to Boost Your Mood

Written by Jessica Reeder

By now, it's hard to deny that your diet affects more than your pants size -- it's also a major factor in your happiness and well-being. Too often, though, diet recommendations focus on the things you should not eat. Here at Organic Authority, we think it's more fun to talk about what you should eat (and enjoy)! So let's take a moment to review some of the best dietary mood boosters, courtesy of bestselling book The Happiness Diet. 1. Vitamin B12 It helps prevent disease, makes you sleep better and feel more balanced. Great sources for B12 are shellfish (pass the lobster!), fish, beef, liver and eggs. Vegans should eat plenty of nutritional yeast and B12-fortified products like soymilk. 2. Iodine There's a reason that table salt is fortified with iodine: It's a necessary nutrient for life, and we generally don't get enough of it. Iodine keeps your thyroid healthy, regulating your metabolism and keeping your brain (and other organs) functioning smoothly. So eat your sushi: Great sources include seaweed, fish, clams, shrimp, sardines, eggs, grass-fed meat and milk, and potato skins. 3. Magnesium This often-overlooked "miracle mineral" helps you relax -- from your mind to your nerves and muscles -- helping stave off depression and anxiety. Find it in leafy greens, whole grains, salmon, beans, sunflower seeds and blackstrap molasses. 4. Cholesterol Surprise! Cholesterol, far from being the enemy of any healthy heart, is actually an important part of your brain's ideal diet. Yes, you should avoid trans fats and LDL cholesterol. But HDL (the good kind) can strengthen your brain and help prevent it from the effects of age. So eat your eggs, salmon, meat, milk, cheese and even lard from sustainably raised, grass-fed animals! 5. Vitamin D Vitamin D is the reason you love the sunlight! Our primary source for this essential vitamin is the sun, which our skin uses to convert cholesterol into D. It doesn't just make you happy and relaxed, but also helps your body fight disease, depression, PMDD, cancer and the pesky old common cold. Aside from sunlight, get your D from fatty fish, butter and lard from pasture-raised animals, and mushrooms that have been exposed to the sun. 6. Calcium Not just a bone-builder, calcium stabilizes your mood, mental balance and hormone levels. Too little calcium can also cause weight gain and PMS. Luckily, calcium is easy to come by: Good sources include sardines, milk, yogurt, cheese, kale, cabbage, collard, mustard, and turnip greens, spinach, almonds, pecans and walnuts. 7. Fiber Low fiber consumption has been linked to depression and suicide -- not just because it reduces inflammation and helps you regulate your blood sugar, but because high-fiber foods also contain the other important happiness nutrients! Don't just stir processed fiber into your water, though; eat real live plants to see fiber's true benefit. Any plant will do, but the best are leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, beans and fruit. 8. Folate Folate is brain food! It makes you think more clearly and helps you avoid mood imbalance (aka depression). Great sources include spinach, kale, black beans, black-eyed peas and lentils. 9. Vitamin A Eat your carrots, right? Wrong! In fact, the most viable source for Vitamin A is animal fat. A helps your body create neurotransmitters like dopamine, ultimately regulating your mood, memory and learning. The best foods for A are liver, egg yolks, shellfish, butter, and whole milk; vegans should eat a lot more carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach and squash. 10. Omega-3s These essential fatty acids strengthen your heart to keep you from, you know, dying. But they also help you form complex thoughts and stave off a huge variety of diseases. They're used by every cell in your body. Eat more fatty fish like sardines, mackerel and salmon, free-range eggs, and grass-fed meat! 11. Vitamin E Fun fact: Vitamin E is actually a collection of eight antioxidants that help protect the fats in your brain from free radicals, so your body can get the most use out of all that salmon you're eating. Get plenty of vitamin E to help prevent depression, Alzheimer's, cancer, inflammation and good old cognitive decline. The best foods are almonds, olives, beet greens, turnip greens, collard greens and Swiss chard. 12. Iron Your body need iron to produce energy, and that's especially important for your brain development. In fact, studies have shown that low iron makes teenagers perform worse on tests, and (more ominously) infants with low iron levels may have cognitive challenges later in life. And while you may have heard that leafy greens are the best source of iron, in fact your body gets more from shellfish, grass-fed beef, duck, dark chicken meat and liver.

Superfood: Worth the Hype or Flashy Fad?

Written by Kristi Arnold

It seems there's always a new, hip super food. Chia, kombucha and acai berries -- they've all had huge commercial marketing pushes claiming their many health benefits. But are they really any more super than more economical superfoods like blueberries and almonds? Is it just a fad or is the hype well-founded? Superfoods are foods that have very high nutrient density compared to calories, and high ORAC ratings (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity), an antioxidant potency indicator. Antioxidants are important in neutralizing free radicals, which can attack cells and weaken immunity, leading to disease. There are plenty of traditional everyday superfoods full of antioxidants that are probably in your pantry and refrigerator right now: Oats, beans, berries and nuts are all among the pantheon of superfoods. But, the superfoods that get more media attention include berries and seeds uncovered from the depths of South America or Asia, lauded as the "newest" health food. But, do these trendy foods really live up to the hype? And do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of lack of availability and higher price? Goji berries are full of flavonols, yet so are many more economical berry choices, like blueberries, raspberries and cranberries. Goji berries are near the top of the list when it comes to ORAC. Flavonols and other flavonoids are believed to reduce cancer risk as well as the spread of cancer. These Chinese berries tout an ORAC of 25,300, more than three times that of the next fruit on the list: black raspberries at 7,700. The much lauded antioxidant-filled pomegranate comes in at 3,307 ORAC. However, cacao beans (the key ingredient in chocolate) beats out everything else at 95,500 ORAC for raw cocoa powder, and 62,100 for raw cacao nibs. Cooked dark chocolate comes in at 13,120--about half that of goji berries. Maqui berries are also at the top of the ORAC list, with a rating of 27,000. The berry has anti-aging and immune-boosting flavanoids (anthocyanins and polyphenols) along with anti-inflammatory compounds. It's also an excellent source of vitamin C, calcium, potassium and iron. But, as a burgeoning new superfruit, it's not as available or affordable as other superfruits. As with most superfruits, maqui berries have no direct equal, but a good variety of traditional, more available fruits, can stand in for the nutrient-packed maqui. Acai berries are one of the flashiest of the hyped superfoods. With miraculous weight loss claims coupled with the berries' antioxidant properties, it's a marketing darling. But, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), no. Acai's antioxidant properties are less than many other sources, including red wine, pomegranate juice, grape and blueberry juice. And as for the weight loss hype, there's no evidence to support it, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Pomegranate juice has received much antioxidant acclaim. And most of it is actually warranted, with pomegranate juice rated by the NIH as the top antioxidant. (Red wine and Concord grape juice are close behind in antioxidant potency.) This hyped superfruit lives up to most of its flash. But even with its supported health benefits, advertiser have gone too far. The FDA and FTC slapped down some of POM Wonderful's claims about the superfruit in a lengthy lawsuit over the course of 2012. Another problem arises when you consider expense. While it's more potent than Concord grape juice and blueberry juice, it's also significantly more expensive. There are, however, additional health benefits to consider: While all three juices help with hardened arteries, pomegranate juice may also reduce the spread of both prostate cancer and breast cancer. Chia is one of the more recent additions to the superfood craze. Chia seeds offer a great source of vegetable-based proteins (double that of any other seed or grain). They also have double the potassium of bananas, beneficial antioxidants, fiber, and essential fatty acids (including triple the omega-3 fatty acids found in flax seeds). Essential minerals such as phosphorous, manganese, calcium, sodium and potassium are also on board. So, yes, chia is pretty darn super. It's, unfortunately, not often found in regular grocery stores, but usually available in health food stores and online. While not packing quite the same nutrient punch, some substitutes that are more available and usually less expensive include flax seeds and quinoa. Kombucha is lauded for its ulcer-healing properties and as a digestion aid. Kombucha tea, called a superdrink, has been found more effective than black tea in healing gastric ulcers, according to the NIH. Kombucha tea is derived from a fermented product somewhat like a mushroom that helps the stomach and liver with digestion. There's no direct substitute for kombucha tea, and the store-bought variety has a lofty sticker price ($3-$5 per bottle). But, it's easy to make at home with SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts) to ferment your black tea. These trendy superfoods are certainly nutrient packed, but until they become more widely available and less expensive, it may be more frugal to stick to more common superfruits. Most live up to the hype nutritionally, but perhaps not enough to warrant the extraordinary sticker price. Keep in touch with Kristi on Twitter @Veggieconverter. Images: Stuart Webster

 

Little Fish: Why to Love Them and How to Eat Them

Written by Shilo Urban

My father has always loved eating sardines pulled straight from the can, and my mother has always made him eat them in the garage because she absolutely hated the smell. While a popular part of many cuisines including the healthy Mediterranean diet, small fish such as sardines and anchovies have yet to really catch on in America. Known for juvenile palates that favor bland tastes, many Americans eschew the briny, salty slam the little fish deliver. However, with potent health benefits and greater environmental sustainability than most big fish, perhaps its time to reconsider adding little fish to your diet. High in omega-3 fatty acids, sardines and anchovies are heart-healthy. The little critters are also packed with a wealth of other nutrients, including potassium, iron, phosphorus, protein and B vitamins. They’re also an excellent source of dimethylethanolamine or DMAE, a compound that may enhance your mood and brain function. Sardines and anchovies are also lower in contaminants such as mercury than their big-boned cousins. With a much shorter life span, little fish have less time to built up toxins in their flesh and are therefore safer to eat than big fish like tuna. Eating plankton to survive, these foraging fish also have a lower environmental impact than their farm-raised friends. Little fish come in a variety of shapes, sizes and prices. The tastiest and most expensive options are hand-cut and hand-packed, such as tart Anfele anchovies from Spain. You’ll also find smoked sardines from Portugal, delicate fish from Norway and meaty fillets from Argentina. Some little fish are still sold in cans, but more and more are offered in PCB-free plastic packaging. Whether you are buying top-end fish from a gourmet food store or a tin of sardines for $2.50 at Trader Joe’s, look for sardines and anchovies with the fewest ingredients on the label. Small and strong-flavored, little fish add a briny depth to any savory dish. Try them in the following dishes and you might just add a new favorite fish to your diet. Straight up: Pull from the can and onto a whole-wheat cracker. Top with a dab of hot sauce such as Tabasco, and enjoy with iced tea (my father’s favorite snack). Appetizer: Toast small slices of French bread until they are crispy. Layer each with a piece of roasted red pepper, an anchovy or sardine, sliced red onion and a spring of watercress. Watch the treats disappear! Pasta: Liven up your basic pasta with tomato sauce by topping it with a few sardines that have been broken up. Garnish with torn basil leaves and freshly ground black pepper. Pizza: Pizza with anchovies is a classic Mediterranean treat. Gussy up your basic margherita pizza (with tomato, mozzarella and basil) with a handful of anchovies. Balance the salty meal with a cold microbrew or glass of chilled white wine. Salad: Chop vinegar-cured anchovies and add to any salad for boost of protein and flavor. Anchovies are especially tasty paired with fresh lemon juice and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Sanwiches: Toast two slices of whole wheat bread and add layers of sliced avocado, tomatoes and sardines. Sprinkle with fresh lemon juice and add a touch of arugula for crunch. Dressing: The secret ingredient to Caesar-style salad dressings, anchovies offer depth and sass to any sauce. For a fresh homemade dressing, blend together 12 oil-packed anchovies, ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, ¼ cup chopped Italian parsley, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and ½ teaspoon freshly ground black or white pepper. Image: rockyeda