by Mario Carini

Created on: September 04, 2009

What you eat can have an effect on how long you live. Today's diet of fast food and low nutrition foods is largely responsible for the epidemics of cancer, diabetes and heart disease we see around the world. A shorter life and what life there is, is filled with pain and misery.

Food is a necessary part of life. The proper foods provide the nutrients the body needs to ward off disease and provide the energy necessary to cope with the stresses of life and get through each and every day.

While many know they should be eating well, they are unaware of the kind of food they should be eating beyond what is heavily advertised in the media. While many try to eat right, they still find themselves falling short on staying healthy. They hear about the necessity to eat fresh fruit and vegetables, yet what they buy at the grocery store is severely deficient of many of the essential vitamins and minerals they need to stay healthy.

In a perfect world, eating the right diet is all anyone would ever need to keep disease at bay and life a pain-free and stress free life. Unfortunately, today's reality requires supplementation to augment the poor quality of food.

If you hope to live a long and pain free life, you need to incorporate specific foods that are known to have special qualities to keep the body healthy. These "super foods" are extremely necessary and should be in every diet plan. While all fruits and vegetables are beneficial, some are superior to others.

There's a good chance that many foods on this list are not on your dinner plate but should be.

Avocados are a good source of vitamin E. Rich in potassium, they help control blood pressure. While they are fattening, the fat is of the healthy monounsaturated variety.

For many years, berries were something you added occasionally to your breakfast cereal. It is now known that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities are extremely helpful. Chief among them are blueberries that contain up to 20 times the antioxidant powers of other foods and help improve memory and overall mental health. Many dark blue and red fruits are rich in anthocyanins, so eating a good deal of blueberries, strawberries, eggplant, plums and raisins will help improve overall health. Tomatoes are a good source of lycopene also found in watermelon, grapefruit, guava, papaya and red bell peppers. The resveratrol present in wine has helped the French live longer and avoid the heart disease that afflict many Americans even though both

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