I’ve always loved celery. I particularly enjoy celery soup. I also love pieces of celery cut up and eaten with dips. Just three sticks of celery counts as one of your “five a day” fruit and vegetables. Celery is such a versatile vegetable and good for you too. It’s great if you’re on a calorie controlled diet too as when eating celery, you actually burn more calories than you consume. Contrary to what you might think, it’s not the chewing of the celery that burns the calories but the body’s effort that goes into digesting the quite tough fibre of it.
Scientists have now discovered that celery is very good for our mental health too, as it contains a chemical which can actually help people suffering from brain diseases such as dementia, CJD and Alzheimer’s. Luteolin, an antioxidant found in celery was found to have anti-inflammatory properties that reduced brain inflammation in the brains of mice, when added to their drinking water. Brain inflammation has been linked to both Alzheimer’s, CJD and dementia. Luteolin works by acting on the microlegia, the brain’s immune system cells. Scientists are very excited about the results of the research, describing Luteolin as a “promising agent” and believing
that in the correct dose it could be used to treat patients suffering from a wide range of debilitating brain conditions. Good news for Alzheimer’s, CJD and dementia sufferers everywhere. Here’s a recipe I’d like to share with you for a delicious Summer celery salad,which can be put together in minutes. The recipe is courtesy of The Shropshire Love Celery site.
CELERY, AVOCADO, PRAWN AND CUCUMBER SALAD
Ingredients:
• 1 celery heart, cut into 1cm slices
• 1 large avocado, peeled, stoned and sliced
• half a cucumber, peeled, halved lengthways and sliced
• 125-150g cooked and peeled prawns
• 5 tbsp good quality mayonnaise
• zest and juice of half a lime
Instructions
1 Mix the celery, cucumber and avocado in a bowl.
2 Scatter the prawns on top.
3 Stir the lime juice and zest into the mayonnaise, and mix into the salad.
Delicious! Bon Appetit!
7 comments:
Wow! I thought I had covered all aspects of dementia care in my book, "Dementia Diary, A Caregiver's journal--or the Tale of the boomerang Bubbe." You have opened up a whole new area that demands my study. I bet it's not just celery, but many other foods and nutrients that will prove to be useful in prevention, delaying and (hopefully) some day curing Alzheimer's and other dementias. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Thanks for submitting this post to our blog carnival. We just published the 34th edition of Brain Blogging and your article was featured!
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Shaheen
You are welcome Bob. I'm e-mailing you some links to recent developments over here in the treatment of Alzheimers (I did posts about them on my blog). There are many other foods including apparently curry! that can help. Hope you enjoyed your visit here.
It's so interesting post!
Thank you very much, Naomi!
Now I will eat celery more! And thank you for the recipe! Looks like we must try it ;).
Svet and Kyle
Thanks for including my post Shaheen. Good luck with your carnival!
I've always enjoyed celery Kyle & Svet. It's always nice when something you like is good for you too!
Thanks, Naomi, for submitting an article to the All About Alzheimer's Carnival at Alzheimer's Notes. Very interesting post about celery and Alzheimer's. You mention here that you have other articles on food in connection with Alzheimer's. I'd love to have the links to them so I could refer Alzheimer's Notes readers to them. Thank you,
Mary Emma Allen, co-blogger with Liz Lewis at Alzheimer's Notes.
Thanks for including my post Mary. I'll e-mail you the links to the other posts so that your readers can access them easily.
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