That's Fit

We know that colorful foods are best; color provides a variety of nutrients our body needs. And let's face it -- it's much more fun for our taste buds that plain old potatoes and other white foods.

How about some refreshing summer cooler drinks that will give us a fair amount of nutrition, too? Whole Foods Market has some creative recipes that will enhance your seasonal fun.

Let's start with the green Minted Lime Freeze. If you love mojitos, this is a fabulous, frozen, non-alcoholic version of that fun drink. Fresh-squeezed lime juice provides vitamin C and the mint leaves are your leafy greens.

Each week, we'll be offering original recipes and unique ways to use those Super Foods that pack nutritional power. After all, you are what you eat -- make it count!

Vitamin C is vital for the normal growth and development of the human body. It repairs tissues, helps wounds heal, and forms blood vessels and collagen -- an important protein used to make skin, scar tissue, and tendons. Vitamin C is good for cartilage, bones, teeth, and it's a rich and powerful antioxidant, instrumental in blocking the damage caused by free radicals. Pretty super, eh? Yep, but we only benefit from the power of vitamin C by ingesting it.

Our bodies don't manufacture or store vitamin C, so we must consume plenty of vitamin-C rich foods in our daily diets. Miss out on this potent property and your deficiency may lead to dry and splitting hair, rough and scaly skin, nosebleeds, anemia, weight gain due to slowed metabolism, and even scurvy. Get enough and you'll protect yourself from life-threatening illnesses like heart disease and cancer.

Although all fruits and vegetables contain some amount of vitamin C, oranges offer the most readily available supply of it. The orange, a Superfood with about 60 calories, is also famed for its 170 cancer-fighting phytochemicals and 60 flavonoids, as well as its ability to reduce inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and asthma. A daily orange will also help combat diabetes and obesity, and its flavonoid hesperetin and the compound herperidin lower blood pressure and cholesterol. There's more: An orange's peel contains limonene, which may ward off skin cancer.


Healthy Orange Chicken

Curried Zucchini and Orange Soup

For more lowdown on the orange, see what Sunkist has to say about this super citrus fruit.

If your mom was one to push the orange juice when you were sniffling and sneezing, she may have had good reason.

A review of more than 30 studies shows that taking one 1,000-mg vitamin C supplement per day may help shorten the duration and severity of cold symptoms, especially when you're under stress. You don't need to take a supplement 365 days a year, though, because vitamin C doesn't prevent colds from coming on. It just might help once that cold arrives, though.

There's a lot of speculation about the merits of vitamin C. Some believe in it; some think it's pretty useless. Whatever your view, the current recommended dose of this vitamin is 60 mg daily. One eight-ounce glass of orange juice contains 97 mg.

I caught a minute of ABC's The View on Tuesday and learned that co-host Whoopi Goldberg is trying to quit smoking. Good for her.

"I want to be done by December 15," Whoopi told her audience. A wise plan, considering smoking damages nearly every organ in the human body, is linked to 10 different cancers, and accounts for 30 percent of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. Yet one in four Americans still light up.

Smoking is by far the leading risk factor for lung cancer. And it is far more dangerous for women than men. Now wrap your head around this fact: The nicotine found in cigarettes is as addictive as heroin. If that's not reason enough to stop smoking, I don't know what is.

Nothing says 'Thanksgiving' like turkey and -- strawberries? Sounds a bit funny doesn't it? But I suppose if cranberry sauce compliments the holiday's traditional bird, then why shouldn't strawberry sauce make sense?

The first holiday of the season is rapidly approaching (it's this Monday in Canada and a mere few weeks away for the States) so if you're looking for a few new ideas to make your Thanksgiving-day meal a bit different or more exciting, why not give this recipe for Holiday Strawberry Cranberry Sauce a try?

The best bit about the sauce is that you get all of the health benefits of the cranberry with the additional goodness of strawberries, which are full of antioxidants, vitamin C, vitamin K, manganese and much more. Sounds like a worthwhile change to me.

I like the view in this piece that we shouldn't rely on a pill to get all of the vitamins and minerals we need to keep our bodies healthy. Many exist in abundance in food so why no make a commitment to include them as part of a regular diet rather than always turning to a multivitamin? I'm not saying they multivitamins are useless, but if it's possible to absorb vitamins in food, why not give that a try too?

For those who are interested in giving it a go, here is a list of 10 essentials, along with one of the many reasons each is so good for you and some of the foods that are packed full of them:

• Iron - Prevents anemia, found in tofu, lean red meat, nuts and seeds, dried fruit and fortified cereal.
• Vitamin C - Helps your body deal with stress, found in orange juice and citrus fruits, strawberries, broccoli, spinach and bell peppers.
• Vitamin D - Aids in cancer prevention, found in fortified milk and yogurt, salmon and can be absorbed from a small amount of sun exposure.
• Vitamin E - An antioxidant that helps lower the risk of a stroke, found in almonds and sunflower seeds.
• Vitamin K - Aids in blood clotting, found in avocados, kale, spinach and pine nuts.
• Calcium - Essential for bone health, found in milk and dairy products, broccoli, almonds and sesame seeds.
• Folate - Fights cancer, found in peanuts, lentils, corn and spinach
• Selenium - Keeps immune system strong, found in shellfish, Brazil nuts and sesame seeds.
• Magnesium - Helps keep bones strong, found in beans, seeds, nuts and green leafy vegetables.
• Potassium - Works to keep blood pressure level, found in sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, kiwi and bananas.

To find out more about why these are all so good for you, as well as other foods that contain the 10 vitamins and minerals, take a look here. The article even includes a recipe for each, and they all look pretty tasty.

Well it seems the old standby Vitamin C isn't all it's cracked up to be when it comes to curing the sniffles and misery caused by the common cold. A 60 year study concluded recently in Australia (that's one long study) that found taking high doses of Vitamin C on a daily basis only slightly reduces the risk of getting a cold in the first place (8% for adults and 13.8% for kids) and doesn't shorten the length of colds at all once they've been caught. So is it worth it to take a big Vitamin C pill every single day just to average 11 days of illness a year instead of 12? That extra day of wellness is pretty special (I hate colds!) but I also hate taking pills -- decisions decisions!