New Year's Resolution - eat a salad every day

Excerpts from an article on napsnet.com

Enjoying a salad a day can help increase your energy level, fill you up and provide essential vitamins and minerals found in a variety of produce.

Sweet, crunchy and flavorful, this Berry, Walnut and Avocado Salad is a treat for the taste buds and a bonus to your diet.

Berry, Walnut and Avocado Salad
Serves 4-6
1 pkg (6 oz.) spring mix salad
¾ cup fresh strawberries, quartered
⅓ cup glazed walnuts
⅓ cup golden raisins
1 large SlimCado, diced
⅓ cup Blue cheese crumbles
¼ -½ cup Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette

In a medium bowl, toss together the spring mix, strawberries, walnuts and golden raisins. Top with avocado and blue cheese crumbles. Drizzle lightly with dressing just prior to serving.

Papaya - the fruit that fights wrinkles

Excerpt from a 12/17/08 article in the Idaho Statesman by Michael Roizen, MD and Mehmet OZ, MD.

Go ahead, feed your face. Eating the right stuff makes you look younger, and one fruit in particular leads the charge: papaya. What makes it so perfect is that it's brimming with vitamin C. And getting lots of that vitamin may mean more youthful skin.

A recent study in women over age 40 found that women who consumed that vitamin had fewer wrinkles and less thinning and dryness in their skin. (You can also put that vitamin, in the form of a 10 percent L-ascorbic acid preparation, right on your face. But do it at night; it rapidly breaks down with exposure to UV light.)

Vitamin C is a natural friend to skin. The nutrient is essential for making collagen, the protein fibers that give skin its strength and resiliency. C also disarms free radicals that would otherwise chip away and weaken those fibers. A little extra vitamin C isn't the only food that can turn back your skin's clock. Nourish it with these strategies:

• Munch on walnuts. In the vitamin C study, researchers also saw that diets rich in linoleic acid - an essential fatty acid in walnuts - meant moister, plumper skin.
• Ease up on saturated fats and refined carbs. Both can turn your skin old too soon.
• Think whole grains. The magnesium and B vitamins you get from them help with the regeneration of skin cells.
• Keep the fruits and veggies coming. To stay smooth and healthy, your skin needs a whole slew of antioxidant-rich produce.

Avocado, remedy for bad breath

Excerpt from an article by Rone Hooper in Good Health Weekly.

Here are a few simple remedies that you can use at home to help you cure your bad breath.

1. Eat avocado
   Avocado is one of the lesser known of the bad breath remedies. Eating a small amount of avocado can help many people to ease the chronic bad breath that ails them and everybody around them. Plain avocados are best. Don’t eat avocados with garlic on them, because then your breath will smell of garlic!
   
   Other remedies include:
   
2. Brush and floss daily
   
3. Eat less protein
   
4. Drink more water
   
   

Artist uses Brooks Tropicals’ fruit stickers in her art.

Introduced in an earlier blog, Luis Caldwell combines globes, soccer balls and lots of fruit stickers in her sculptures.

Her most recent sculptures include Brooks Tropicals’ fruit stickers and is installed in the brand new and beautiful Public School 244 in Flushing Queens. The project has been very well received.

Dessert party

A dessert party was held today to celebrate Craig Wheeling’s promotion to President of Brooks Tropicals. Here are some of the well wishers at the event.

Homestead Toy Drive thru 12/15

Make the holidays a little more enjoyable for young teens in need this holiday season. Give an unwrapped toy for a young teen age 12-17 years-old.

“Wish List” items include Board Games, Gift Certificates, Backpacks, CD’s, DVD’s, Toiletries, Sports Equipment, Costume Jewelry, Strategy Games, Sports Team Clothing or Memorabilia to name a few.

The Miami Rescue Mission is spearheading this drive. You can drop off toys in the Brooks Tropicals’ HR office or at T. R. Jones and Co. on 1780 N. Krome Ave. in Homestead where a collection box is located in the lobby.

Happy Holidays' artwork

This year’s Redlands Christian Migrant Association artist is Mariana. Her cute snowlady will be gracing our ads, website and market update during the holiday season.