Garri Recipe: Garri Choco-Balls As A Functional Food .

 Garri a staple food for a lot of people in the world.   Echbee Foods produces nutritious meals and snacks from yellow garri. The recipe today is the Echbee Garri Choco-Balls.

This nutritious recipe is a healthy substitute to sugar -packed cereals. The choco-balls made from yellow garri,cocoa powder and other ingredients show cases the functional status of garri.

What is a functional food? Functional foods are referred to as power / super foods based on the health benefits they provide and wellness they promote.Functional foods help fight diseases/ prevent diseases and boost immunity utilizing different methods depending on the nutrients it contain. 

   Benefits of functional foods.

  1) promotes gut health and enhance immune system. Garri as a functional food promotes gut health because of its fiber content, which also helps it absorb toxins from the digestive tract. Garri is a prebiotic, the fiber resists digestion but goes to the lower digestive tract and acts as food for probiotics thus promoting gut health. read more

Yellow garri is a functional food because aside from providing the essential nutrients for growth ,provides Vitamin A  as well  as fiber for health and wellness. The addition of cocoa powder increases the benefits making the garri choco-balls a super food.

Look at few benefits of cocoa powder: its rich in theobromine that helps reduce inflammation, protects from diseases such as diabetes,cancer and heart disease. Cocoa  is rich in phytonutrients but low in fat and sugar. Cocoa powder contains rich natural antioxidant, mopping up free radicals from the system.

Garri Choco-Balls. Can be eaten as a snack

Garri Choco-Balls. Can be eaten as a cereal.
 

Dark chocolate consumption reduces stress and inflammation.

Dark chocolate consumption reduces stress and inflammation.Findings from two new studies show dark chocolate consumption reduces stress and inflammation, while improving memory, immunity and mood. New research shows there might be health benefits to eating certain types of dark chocolate. Findings from two studies being presented today at the Experimental Biology 2018 annual meeting in San Diego show that consuming dark chocolate that has a high concentration of cacao (minimally 70% cacao, 30% organic cane sugar) has positive effects on stress levels, inflammation, mood, memory and immunity. While it is well known that cacao is a major source of flavonoids, this is the first time the effect has been studied in human subjects to determine how it can support cognitive, endocrine and cardiovascular health. Eating chocolates raw,or in combination with other food still delivers the health benefits. The fine blend of chocolate and yellow garri is a super combination that is delicious and healthy, see. Dark chocolate consumption reduces stress and inflammation.

Dark chocolate could prevent heart problems in high-risk people.

A study published in the British Medical Journal, shows that daily consumption of dark chocolate can reduce cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, in people with metabolic syndrome (a cluster of factors that increases the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes). Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Dark chocolate (containing at least 60% cocoa solids) is rich in flavonoids -- known to have heart protecting effects -- but this has only been examined in short term studies. A team of researchers from Melbourne, Australia used a mathematical model to predict the long-term health effects and cost effectiveness of daily dark chocolate consumption in 2,013 people already at high risk of heart disease. All participants had high blood pressure and met the criteria for metabolic syndrome, but had no history of heart disease or diabetes and were not on blood pressure lowering therapy. A 100% compliance (best case scenario), the researchers show that daily dark chocolate consumption could potentially avert 70 non-fatal and 15 fatal cardiovascular events per 10,000 people treated over 10 years. Even when compliance levels were reduced to 80%, the number of non-fatal and fatal events potentially averted was 55 and 10 per 10,000 people treated over 10 years, and could still be considered an effective intervention strategy The authors stress that only non-fatal stroke and non-fatal heart attack were assessed in their analysis, and that the potential effects on other cardiovascular events, such as heart failure, are yet to be tested. Also important, they say, is that these protective effects have only been shown for dark chocolate (at least 60-70% cocoa), rather than for milk or white chocolate, probably due to the higher levels of flavonoids found in dark chocolate. The blood pressure and cholesterol lowering effects of plain dark chocolate could represent an effective and cost effective strategy for people with metabolic syndrome (and no diabetes).

RESEARCH: WHY YOU SHOULD EAT DARK CHOCOLATE.

Dark chocolate is good for you and scientists now know why. Dark chocolate helps restore flexibility to arteries while also preventing white blood cells from sticking to the walls of blood vessels. Both arterial stiffness and white blood cell adhesion are known factors that play a significant role in atherosclerosis. What's more, the scientists also found that increasing the flavanol content of dark chocolate did not change this effect. A study published in the March 2014 issue of The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.(FASEB) Diederik Esser, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Top Institute Food and Nutrition and Wageningen University, Division of Human Nutrition in Wageningen, says the impact of chocolate consumption on vascular health and that increasing flavanol content has no added beneficial effect on vascular health. Diederik Esser noted however, the increased flavanol content clearly affected taste and thereby the motivation to eat these chocolates. So the dark side of chocolate is a healthy one. Esser and colleagues analyzed 44 middle-aged overweight men over two periods of four weeks as they consumed 70 grams of chocolate per day. Study participants received either specially produced dark chocolate with high flavanol content or chocolate that was regularly produced. Both chocolates had a similar cocoa mass content. Before and after both intervention periods, researchers performed a variety of measurements that are important indicators of vascular health. During the study, participants were advised to refrain from certain energy dense food products to prevent weight gain. Scientists also evaluated the sensory properties of the high flavanol chocolate and the regular chocolate and collected the motivation scores of the participants to eat these chocolates during the intervention. This discovery could lead the way to therapies that do the same thing as dark chocolate but with better and more consistent results, but until the 'dark chocolate drug' is developed, however just o make do with what nature has given . Go ahead eat dark chocolate.

FOODS DANGEROUS TO PETS.