Food for Flexibility
On Wednesday, we discussed different reasons why Yoga is so incredibly beneficial, for not just the body, but the mind as well. Today, we wanted to expand on why eating the right types of food can ALSO assist you in flexibility!
One of the main source of foods for flexibility are sulfur rich foods. What does that even mean?? How can that make you more flexible? Well, sulfur rich foods are any and all fibrous leafy and non-leafy vegetables that will (for the most part) emit a very distinctive odor – these contain a large amount of sulfur. Wednesday we mentioned the website “Mind, Muscle Yoga”- they explain it like this:
“Sulfur is needed to make glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate which facilitates the formation of connective tissue. As the health of our ligaments and tendons is crucial to our mobility, ensuring you eat enough sulfur-rich foods will ensure optimal tissue formation and aid suppleness.
Sulfur-rich vegetables are any fibrous, usually non-leafy, usually green, usually smelly-when-cooked vegetable. These include:
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Garlic
Leeks
Mustard
Onions
Radishes
The most noted “sulfur” food – or at least one most everyone will recognize; are eggs. According to the website, Marks Daily Apple, “Few people even know much about sulfur besides the whole rotten egg, fire and brimstone thing. It’s a mineral with a role in our physiology, but it doesn’t showboat like the obscenely corporeal calcium, forming bones and teeth that you can literally feel and see. It won’t immediately soothe your restless muscles or put you right to sleep, like magnesium. Unlike zinc, it doesn’t figure prominently in the production of a sexy hormone like testosterone. And though you can take iodine and get an instant reaction from your thyroid, taking sulfur doesn’t produce anything tangible. In short, sulfur lurks in the background and keeps a low profile. Sulfur is required for the synthesis of glutathione, one of our premier endogenous antioxidants.”
We can’t stress enough how vital these foods are to the body, and how important they will be if you want to maintain flexibility!
Here are a couple of website that go into a bit more depth about sulfur rich foods – as always, check them out and leave comments below!
http://www.mindmuscleyoga.com/blog/food-for-flexibility
http://bodyecology.com/articles/refreshing_smoothies_ideal_for_health.php#.VOfki_nF-So
http://www.livestrong.com/article/289250-list-of-foods-high-in-sulfur/