Calling Doctor Pepper

Bell Peppers (especially the red variety) are a nutritional powerhouses. The average cup of constituted red bell peppers has approximately 45 calories. That's a small amount when you consider that it gives you over your daily requirement of vitamins A and C (1). There are some magnificent health benefits from making bell peppers (especially the red variety) part of your diet and just a few of them are:

1. Red bell peppers can help dramatically reduce inflammation (2) 

Years ago, Time magazine had a cover that said "The Secret Killer: The surprising link between inflammation and heart attacks, cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases."   Reducing or eliminating inflammation is a big deal. The more you can reduce it, the better your health will be. Since this cover story launched, there has been a great deal of research on it and the single best intervention is diet.

2. Massive antioxidant potential (3)

Sweet bell peppers, and most significantly the red variety with their amazing carotenoid content, help quench oxidative stress and helps slow down some of the effects of aging and imperfect cell replication. One of the problems caused by cellular division as a means of growth and repair (what our cells do) is that bad cells divide, too. So, a cell becomes damaged, then divides and you have a new copy of that damaged cell. What you really want is for damaged cells to be cleaned out of your body so only perfect cells divide and make new cells. This is one of the reasons why antioxidants are insanely important.

3. Eyesight

Several of them are incredibly important for eyesight. Two of them are called lutein and zeaxanthin, which are shown to be directly associated with improved eyesight, treating macular degeneration, and aiding dramatically in eye health (4,5). Consuming sweet bell peppers every day may help stave off a number of vision related maladies.

4. Iron And C Are Potent

One of the problems we all face is absorbing and utilizing iron. Iron is best for us when it's organically bound into the foods we eat. Just consuming the ferrous versions, such as ferrous sulfate or ferrous fumarate, is not nearly as beneficial as many vitamin companies would have you believe. When we digest real food high in iron and  eat foods high in vitamin C, we get increased iron absorption. This is important, because we need iron to help form hemoglobin, which helps transport oxygen through the blood to our tissues. Without this, we would die in a matter of minutes. Bell peppers contain both iron and vitamin C in the same food, so we can get all of those benefits without having to mix and match or chart our food combining. The list above is just a small amount of the benefits from eating bell peppers.

So, go check out our dried bell pepper selection here now: Amazing Dried Bell Peppers!

References

1. http://www.care2.com/greenliving/9-incredible-health-benefits-of-bell-peppers.html
2. http://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/arthritis-diet/anti-inflammatory/the-arthritis-diet.php
3. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?dbid=50&tname=foodspice
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12425683
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23571649

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