We generally trust that ‘health foods’ will benefit us in the way they claim to, but just how good for us are they?

• Cereals: We’re often told to start the day with a nutritious bowl of cereal. While breakfast cereals contain vital vitamins and minerals, what the brightly coloured packaging or glossy advertising campaigns don’t always tell us is that they can also be laden with sugar, salt and saturated fats. Cereals can be a great way to start the day, but be careful to avoid high sugar varieties. Instead, go for an oat-based cereal or sugar free muesli to help stabilise your blood sugar.
• Breakfast/cereal bars: Like breakfast cereals, these are full of sugar and saturated fats, shattering their image as a nutritious, low-fat and low-salt nibble. They can sometimes have the same fat and sugar content as a chocolate bar so best to snack on fruit and nuts or seeds instead.
• Fruit juices: Fruit juice drinks tend to be full of sugar – there can be less than 10 per cent real fruit juice, the rest is sugar (or even artificial sweeteners), water and flavourings. If a ‘fruit juice’ has the word ‘drink’ in the title, then it should be avoided as otherwise it will not be 100% fruit juice. Look out for ‘100 per cent fruit juice’ on the label. This means it contains no added sugar, but you should still be aware of the natural sugars found in fruit, so don’t go overboard, or dilute the juice with half water. In the same way, fruit yoghurts contain little in the way of real fruit pieces and are often packed with sugar, additives and preservatives so go for organic, natural yogurt, preferably with a live culture to aid your digestion. A seemingly ‘healthy’ fruit yogurt, even an organic one, can contain up to eight teaspoons of sugar.
• Canned soups: Canned soups are often packed full of salt and high in fat, especially the creamy and cheesy varieties. A diet too high in salt is linked with an increased risk of high blood pressure. Just one cup of soup can contain a third of your recommended daily salt allowance. Even supposedly low-salt canned soup contains a substantial amount of salt. Your best bet is to avoid completely and go for homemade soups instead. They are so easy to make. Also some soups, like tomato soup, can contain a fair amount of sugar, not what you would expect in a savoury food. Also sugar can be added to spaghetti sauces, tomato ketchup and baked beans so read the labels, as there are alternative products without sugar. .
• Pre-prepared salads: Pre-prepared and ready-washed salads are often washed in chlorine, not water. The chlorine is used to disinfect the salad and kill bacteria, but it also destroys the vitamins and minerals. It can be rinsed in up to 200 times the amount of chlorine found in tap water, although most of the residue is removed to ensure it meets government safety regulations. Organic salads cannot be washed using chlorine, so try to buy these if you can. Watch out too for any dressings enclosed; some can be very high in calories.

It’s well known that cranberries can help protect against cystitis but there are other foods for women with disease fighting properties:

1. Papaya. This tropical fruit packs about twice the vitamin C of an orange. After analyzing the blood of over 13,000 people, scientists from the University of California, San Francisco, found that women who had lower levels of vitamin C were more likely to have gallbladder illnesses. One medium papaya (about ten ounces), with its 188 mg of vitamin C and a mere 119 calories, is a good source of the vitamin. The once exotic fruit now can be found in most supermarkets.
2. Flaxseed. Rich in oestrogen-like compounds called lignans which are a potential weapon against that lady killer breast cancer. You can add flaxseeds (also called linseeds) to cakes and bread, but the easiest and healthiest way to get the beneficial lignans is to sprinkle a few tablespoons of ground flaxseed on your morning cereal. Look for the seeds in health food stores or in supermarkets and buy organic ones. They’re easy to grind in a blender or coffee grinder or you can get them ready ground in a vacuum pack and then store them in the fridge. Buy the seeds if you want the lignan-effect as there are no lignans in the oil.
3. Tofu. Foods high in soya protein can lower cholesterol and may minimize menopausal hot flushes and strengthen bone. Isoflavones, plant chemicals in soya beans that have a structure similar to oestrogen, may be the reason. A half-cup of tofu contains about 25 to 35 mg of isoflavones. Other beans like lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans etc are a good source of isoflavones too.
4. Collard Greens. This humble vegetable may help fight osteoporosis, which afflicts many women late in life. In addition to getting adequate amounts of calcium and vitamin D, some studies suggest that vitamin K may have a bone-protective effect as well. Based on data from one of the largest studies of women, the Nurses’ Health Study, researchers discovered that women who ate enough vitamin K-rich foods (at least 109 micrograms of the vitamin daily) were 30 percent less likely to suffer a hip fracture during ten years of follow-up than women who ate less. The researchers stated that dark-green leafy vegetables — Brussels sprouts, spinach, broccoli — are all good sources of the vitamin. But collard greens, with about 375 micrograms per half-cup, are among the best.

Mosquito repellents are essential on holiday, but many of us have concerns about the effects of putting strong concoctions, such as the pesticide DEET, on our skin. Try these natural alternatives to stay bite and bug free this summer:

• Mosi-guard Natural is a natural and effective repellent spray available from health foods shops and chemists. The active ingredient used is a naturally occurring extract of lemon eucalyptus oil. It protects for up to ten hours against sand flies, ticks, midges and mosquitoes.
• Mix citronella oil (citronella oil is available from most health food shops) extracted from the plant cymbopogon nardus, with a carrier oil and rub into the skin. Also try rubbing wild mint leaves, which contain the natural repellent pulegone on your skin.
• Combining the following essential oils to make a natural insect repellent:
  • 1/2 ounce citronella oil
  • 1/4 ounce lavender oil
  • 1/8 ounce pennyroyal oil
  • 1/8 ounce tea tree oil
  • 1/8 ounce jojoba oil

Do not use this blend undiluted on your skin. Follow these instructions for diluting:

• To make an insect repellent oil that can be used on your body, add 16 ounces of jojoba or almond oil to the base oil mixture and blend thoroughly.

• For an insect repellent spray, add 16 ounces of vodka to the base oil mixture, pour into a spray bottle, and shake before using.

• Arnywear sarongs, kaftans, stroller covers and soft toys are available from chemists and off the web. Arnywear is a new fabric impregnated with a natural mosquito repellent that is totally safe for children. It gives a no bite zone of around 50cm for thousands of different types of insects.