Good-for-Your-Colon Hors d’Oeuvre

What’s the perfect party food for better colon health?
Easy -- a veggie platter with zesty bean dip. Why? Because beans, onions, celery, radishes, cucumbers, and peppers are great sources of flavonols -- a type of antioxidant that may help stop colon polyps from coming back in a more advanced state.
In a recent study, researchers tracked the diets of close to 2,000 adults who had been treated for colon polyps -- little benign tumors that have a chance of becoming cancerous. After 4 years of healthy living, the people whose diets were highest in flavonols were 76 percent less likely to have a recurrent polyp in an advanced stage than those with the lowest intake. Even if you’ve never had a colon polyp, onions and other flavonol-rich produce still do good things for your body -- because they’re often full of fiber and other vitamins and nutrients as well. Cheers to that! (Check out this video for tips on making your own raw-veggie basket.)
Want to give your party guests the gift of health? Serve up some of these quick and fancy appetizers:
Black Bean Dip
Feta and Herb Dip with Crudites
Caramelized Onion and Green Olive Pizzas
Radish Crispbread Find out which onions have the most antioxidant power.

Eat, Drink, and Make Your Blood Sugar Merry

All those holiday leftovers and New Year’s party plates can do a real number on your blood sugar. But here’s a drink that may help fix that: chamomile tea. There just might be something in chamomile that not only helps keep blood sugar stable but also guards against the damage high blood sugar can do. It is known for many medicinal properties: easing anxiety, menstrual cramps, insomnia, and skin problems. The newest potential benefit of chamomile was uncovered during animal research. Extracts of chamomile helped steady blood sugar and also guarded against enzymes involved in diabetes complications. More studies are needed to see if chamomile tea does the same for blood sugar in humans. But we already know that drinking tea is one of the best health habits around -- so it won’t hurt if you’re drinking chamomile ahead of the curve.

Eat your way to pearly whites!

Can you trade in your teeth-whitening products for something green instead? Maybe. Getting more greens in your diet -- along with other veggies and fruit -- could help thwart staining, write RealAge experts Michael Roizen, MD, and Mehmet Oz, MD, in their new book, YOU: Being Beautiful.
Sure, cutting back on coffee may help, too. But why not make more trips to the produce aisle for extra insurance. Apples, celery, and carrots act as natural stain removers, Drs. Roizen and Oz note in their book, while greens such as spinach, broccoli, and lettuce create a film over the teeth that serves as a stain barrier. Here are a few more tricks and tips for keeping your choppers gleaming and healthy:
Swish and sip some water after eating a couple of bites of foods known to stain teeth (like red wine, tea, blueberries, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, tomato sauce, and grape and cranberry juice).
Skip the bubbly beverages, even if they are diet. Check out why fizzy drinks are so bad for your teeth.
Think "nature’s candies." Go for sweet, natural treats that teeth love like raisins, dry apricots ets.

Aerobic exercise (or just dance, it's fun!)

Good news! You don't have to kill yourself with crunches to get a sleek stomach. But it turns out that you do need to get your heart rate up. Aerobic exercise is key to banishing both the deep belly fat and the superficial doughy stuff that give you a pooch. How much aerobic exercise does it take to trim a tummy? In a recent study, overweight people who jogged, cycled, or hit the elliptical for about 3 hours a week had the best belly-busting outcome -- as long as they exercised at an up-tempo pace. Not ready to go that distance yet? Try walking briskly for just a couple of hours per week. That's enough to at least keep belly swelling in check.

Eat big breakfast, and you will lose weight!

Eat big breakfast, and you will lose weight!

Hard to believe, but there could be a benefit to loading up your breakfast plate. Besides helping you eat less later in the day, a big breakfast might also help you lose weight. But you have to be smart about it. Load Up to Slim Down?Okay, so you can’t completely overdo it at breakfast and hope to drop pounds. But when obese dieters ate a big 600-calorie breakfast of healthy protein and carbs (think scrambled eggs, diced turkey, whole-wheat toast, and a banana), they lost significantly more weight than dieters who ate only half that much. Why? Researchers speculate that eating a large balanced meal in the morning helps stymie carb cravings later in the day -- especially if you’re cutting carbs and calories in an effort to slim down.