Low-glycemic fruits won’t give your blood sugar that undesirable sudden spike.

Fruits are rich in vitamins needed to support a healthy body. Citrus fruits and many other fruits contain vitamins C, A and E and work as anti-oxidants, protecting the body from the damage caused by free radicals.

Fruit aids in digestion, working as a natural laxative. The fiber in fruit encourages the body to rid itself of toxins and waste. Fruit is a much better source of all-important fiber than are grains, which can inflame the body.

Phytochemicals work with nutrients and dietary fibers to protect against diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. They also give fruit their naturally bright color.

It’s important to eat a wide variety of colored fruits to ensure that your body gets a variety of phytochemicals, all of which offer their own individual nutritional benefit. This is known as the “Rainbow Diet” principle.

Fruit also has a positive impact on brain function. Plenty of fruit can actually improve memory. The natural sugars in fruit stimulate the brain so we can think faster and recall information more quickly.

Fruit is also low in sodium so it helps reduce the chance of gaining water weight.

Ample fruit consumption helps fill the stomach faster, encouraging fewer high calorie foods to be consumed. As a result, fruit promotes weight loss and cleansing.

• Cherries
• Grapefruits
• Kiwi
• Grapes
• Oranges
• Prunes
• Pears
• Plums
• and apples are great lower-glycemic fruits.

But don’t just revolve your choices around the glycemic index. Fruits like blueberries are truly a superfood as is pomegranate. They have a higher glycemic index but are amazingly healthy and should be eaten.

Where people get in trouble is when they confuse store bought orange juice with a a raw orange. The latter is really the only healthy choice.

Fruits are perfect, as nature intended, for health, wellness and weight loss.

The herb contains two types of anthraquinones responsible for its effectiveness: free anthraquinones and sugar derivatives called glycosides. The sugar derivatives are vastly different than corn syrup, sugar, maltose and other dietary sugars added to foods. Free anthraquinones stay in the intestines and cause a bowel movement by temporarily irritating the intestinal wall. The sugar derivatives are absorbed from the intestine and circulate through the blood, heading straight for the nerve center in the lower part of the intestine. Once the sugar derivatives reach their destination, they cause the bowel to evacuate its contents.

Many pharmacists who do not understand herbology report mistakenly that cascara sagrada cannot be taken internally for more than 10 days. However, trained herbalists use the herb combined with other ingredients in effective colon cleansers that are used for sometimes up to six weeks to restore colon function. The herb is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an over-the-counter drug, although natural health practitioners do not use it as a drug, but rather to restore colon function.

In one study done in 1991, patients tested a cascara sagrada natural laxative, a senna laxative and a polyethylene glycol electrolyte solution. There was no difference in results. However, knowing that you can get the same results using an herb rather than a chemical, wouldn’t you rather ‘go herbal’?