For your eyes only
Naini Setalvad
If you want to keep your eye healthy or have been diagnosed with eye problems, one of the common ones being macular degeneration, don’t despair. A wide variety of brightly colored vegetables can keep your vision healthy and help macular degeneration at bay, a leading cause of blindness in people over 55. What you need to do is increase the intake of antioxidants, especially vitamin A, lutein and zea xanthin and vitamin C, eat good quality fats and add omega 3 in your diet daily.
All veggies and fruits that are yellow or green in colour help keep eyes healthy. Lutein and zeaxanthin, the antioxidants that help keep your eyes healthy, are present in a variety of vegetables and fruits. That’s not to say that you should gorge the rest of the time on unhealthy junk food. Ultimately, an overall healthy diet and lifestyle supports a healthy vision.
Do your eyes a favor. The next time you’re at the market, go for colour. Bring home a basket filled with a rainbow of colours from orange and green to red and purple and more.
The best sources of zeaxanthin are yellow-coloured fruits and vegetables. It is highest in orange and yellow-colour pumpkin, yellow corn, yellow and orange bell pepper, carrots, yams, musk melons, peaches, grapes, oranges, mangoes, and dried apricots. Did you know that your eyes also contain antioxidants called lutein? Lutein is the only antioxidant present in the retina and lens of the eye and it is called the eye vitamin.
Lutein protects the eyes from strong anti-oxidation damage by ultraviolet rays. Lutein can be found in the back of the eye where the retina is located. When lutein levels in the eyes decrease with age, cataract formation takes over. To ensure that you don’t get early cataracts, eat plenty of lutein and other antioxidant-rich foods. Spinach, broccoli, lettuce, green peas, tomatoes, corn, watermelon and kiwi fruit are all rich in lutein.
Because lutein is most abundant in greens, try and get at least three servings of dark, leafy greens every day. The darker the green, the higher is the lutein content. So make sure you consume leafy greens like spinach, fenugreek, parsley, mint, green coriander and broccoli every day in some form or the other. You can mix the chopped leaves in soups or dal, add the leaves boiled and pureed to dough to make chapattis or simply stir fry in vegetable dishes.
Also, lutein is in more in just vegetable leaves. Some edible stalks contain it, too, such as celery and fennel. It’s present in broccoli. Lutein is also found in vegetables and fruits like peas, green beans and avocados; it is present in some edible skins, like cucumbers and bottle gourd or zucchini. In future, don’t peel cucumbers eat them with the skin and simply toss the well washed and unpeeled veggie in salads.
Pumpkins and carrots are excellent eye foods as these have a good amount of beta carotene; so try to include them in some form everyday either in a soup, salad, vegetable, raita or even juice.
Carrots and pumpkins are very high in vitamin A which is essential for our eyes. A deficiency of this vitamin can lead to night blindness. Turmeric is a very valuable spice — you can add it to your vegetables and lentils in powder form or eat the fresh root chopped in salads or cut it into pieces marinate in salt and lemon.
Antioxidants can be found in practically all fresh vegetables and fruits. Try and eat a wide array of colours such as red and yellow bell peppers, brinjals, grapes, carrots, pumpkin, peaches, tomatoes and dark green leafy vegetables. Pomegranates and all kinds of berries are among the highest antioxidant rich fruit.
In addition get lots of vitamin C to see well! You can get this wonder vitamin not just from citrus fruits like oranges, lemons and limes but also from red and yellow peppers, pumpkin, papayas, all berries, mangoes, pineapple, watermelon and of course our Indian gooseberry that is amla. Even guavas have tons of vitamin C. Remember its best to have vitamin C in the raw form since it’s very sensitive to heat. So what are you waiting for, crunch into a nice fruit and veggies salad daily and prevent retard and reverse eye diseases.
Cook in good quality fat found in cows ghee, oils high in monsaturated fats and garnish food with coconuts snack on seeds like sesames, flax seeds add walnuts and pistachios’ to your diet.
You should also control some risk factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol intake, obesity and eating a diet high in salt, refined sugar and oil or butter. Smoking is believed to destroy antioxidants in the body. Sugar leaches important vitamins and minerals from our bodies, necessary to keep our eyes healthy and too much fat from oil and butter interferes with the absorption of vitamins and minerals.
So start eating healthy and make sure your eyes serve you well to the very end.
Finally, make sure you exercise moderately and keep away from smoky places. Always guard your eyes against harsh sunlight.
— The writer is a Mumbai-based obesity and lifestyle disease consultant. She councils for diets online. Email — healthforyou@vsnl.net/ healthforyou@nainisetalvad.com
