Hummus has a fairly simple list of ingredients. Its main ones are chickpeas and tahini. Chickpeas are a kind of bean and tahini is made from roasted and ground sesame seeds. Both of these ingredients should be on our list of healthy plant based foods. In addition to these main ingredients hummus is also cooked with and, or served with garlic and olive oil. Both of these ingredients are also healthy ones.

People often shun hummus because they believe that it is too fattening. This is because of the amount of oil that it includes. Oils come from both the tahini and the olive oil. these are both considered to be healthy oils. In fact we are encouraged to eat more of them as part of a Mediterranean style diet. You can make a diet style hummus with less oil content.

Chickpeas have been used as a staple food in the Middle East since ancient times. They are a kind of bean, even though they perhaps don’t look much like the usual cannellini or black beans that we know. We are always being encouraged to eat more beans as part of a healthy diet. This is because beans like chickpeas contain lots of protein and fibre. They are healthy for our hearts and digestive system. Chickpeas are ideal for adding to your normal food intake. You can simply add chickpeas to stews and soups as you cook them. They add flavour and also add interest to the meals that you normally cook. One of the most exciting ways to include chickpeas in our normal diet is to eat them in the form of hummus.

Making good hummus is a bit of an art. There are many variations on the standard homemade hummus recipe, but the all important thing is to get the hummus to be extra smooth as well and nice and creamy. This all depends on how you deal with the chickpeas themselves. You have to start off with the raw dry chickpeas, soak them well and then cook them until they are very tender. The water that the chickpeas are cooked in contains lots of flavour and this is also used in the best recipes. The way you cook and prepare the chickpeas will influence how smooth and creamy the hummus is, that you produce.

Once you have the basics of making homemade hummus sorted out you can start adding flavours such as roasted red pepper, garlic, lime, peanut butter or even sun-dried tomatoes. The list of flavours that you can add is only determined by your imagination. Hummus can also be made from other types of beans including black and white beans. These have subtly different flavours and texture to hummus made from chickpeas but are equally as tasty and exciting.

You may think that hummus is just another dip but that isn’t the case. It can be used as a spread with sandwiches and wraps as well as being added to many recipes including soups and pasta dishes. Hummus is a good thickening agent and has a great creamy texture as well as having a fantastic taste. You can use it where you might use cream or mayonnaise.

To find out how to make fantastic tasting healthy hummus and how you can use it in cooking lots of recipes check out How to Make Hummus

Wheatgrass refers the young green shoots of the wheat plant. From a health point of view there can be considerable wheatgrass benefits. This is the same wheat plant that is responsible for producing the wheat grain that is used to make bread. Usually wheat is grown as a mass crop on farms and it is left to grow from the seeds that are planted until it flowers and then produces the ears of grain that we are so familiar with. This grain is then harvested and used to make flour. The rest of the plant, which by this stage is very brown and dry, is simply used as bedding for animals in the form of hay.

What is not particularly well known is that, way before the grain has formed; the young shoots of wheat grass are so green and tender that they can be eaten. You can eat them like the green leaves of a salad and in fact this is exactly what some people do. They take the shoots and add them to their normal green salad. These shoots contain valuable health giving nutrients including antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. It also contains an unidentified factor which is believed to have very strong health giving properties. These Wheatgrass benefits are being recognised by more and more people across the world.

Wheat grass has been identified as being helpful for people having certain conditions. These health conditions include those relating to the skin, cancer, diabetes, anaemia and arthritis. People who eat wheat grass have found many health benefits. These wheatgrass benefits can also help people who have gastric problems, athlete’s foot fungal infections or are trying to lose weight. Most grain crops including rye and barley can be consumed as grass in a similar way and each has similar health benefits. However, wheatgrass itself seems to have the most active ingredients in the greatest proportions out of all the grass crops.

A lot of people have become so interested in wheatgrass as a dietary supplement that they will grow the wheatgrass from seed grain in small planter trays. Once the seedlings have grown into tender grass they harvest the wheatgrass and consume it. For some, this way of eating it seems to be wasteful because our digestive systems aren’t designed to extract the nutrients from grass in this form. In order to get the maximum amount of goodness out of the wheatgrass they juice it and consume it as a drink. This has become very popular amongst health enthusiasts. In fact you can even buy wheatgrass from some juice bars. There are also dried and powdered forms of wheatgrass juice as well as convenient wheatgrass capsules that you can buy. If you are interested in finding out more about wheatgrass and the health benefits that it can give than go to Growing wheatgrass

Cinnamon is mainly known as a spice and has been extensively used in the preparation of food for thousands of years. It was one of the first spices that came along the Silk Road from the East to be traded in Europe. Cinnamon is actually the dried bark of the Cinnamon tree. This is a small evergreen tree which originated in Sri Lanka and is still grown there as a crop. What you may not realize is that this spice has been also used in medicines for thousands of years as well. It was soon recognized that cinnamon had antiseptic properties and could be used to help get rid of infections. In Egypt they even used cinnamon in their mummification processes, where it stopped fungal growth and also provided a pleasant aroma. As scientists search for new medicines they have are looking once again at cinnamon, in order to discover if any cinnamon health benefits have been missed or undervalued.

There are many Cinnamon health benefits. Cinnamon can be used to help in a whole range of conditions. The Romans first recognised that it could be used to help with digestive problems such as indigestion, but it has also been discovered that it can help prevent excessive wind and possibly in the prevention of the development of ulcers.

It is thought that cinnamon can help with diabetes. Addition of it to the diet seems to make cells of the body that have become intolerant to glucose more responsive to it. This means that it can possibly help blood sugar levels in diabetics to become more normal once again.

In the case of arthritis it has been found that cinnamon can act as an anti inflammatory agent. This doesn’t mean that it can cure arthritis, but it certainly can help to ease the pain that people suffer with this condition. As well as this it can also help in preventing the stiffness that people feel in their joints.

With its strong anti fungal nature, cinnamon has been used to treat such conditions as Candida which can affect the genital areas and the mouth causing painful redness and itching. Candida is notoriously difficult to get rid of.  Cinnamon is much gentler on the body when compared with the usual fungal treatments. After all, we eat cinnamon so it can’t be that bad for us.

These are just a few of the cinnamon health benefits that have been identified. There are many more including its ability to help with certain cancers, heart conditions menstruation, menopause and toothache to mention just a few. To find out more about this wonderful spice go to Cinnamon Blood Pressure