If you haven’t read the Potent Foods You Need to Know Part I, for you own health ben­e­fits, I highly rec­om­mend you to check it out now, today I am going to con­tinue the part 2.

Figs

Fiber-rich figs are low in calo­ries at 37 per medium (2.25” diam­e­ter) raw fig and 48 per dried fig. A recent study by the USDA demon­strated that they con­tribute to a feel­ing of full­ness and pre­vent overeat­ing. Sub­jects actu­ally com­plained of being asked to eat too much food when fed a diet con­tain­ing more figs than a sim­i­lar diet with an iden­ti­cal num­ber of calories.

Serve them with other fruits and cheeses. Or poach them in fruit juice and serve them warm or cold. You can stuff them with mild white cheese or puree them to use as a fill­ing for cook­ies and low-calorie pastries.

Fish

The health ben­e­fits of fish are greater than experts imag­ined – and they’ve always con­sid­ered it a health food.

The calo­rie count in the aver­age four-ounce serv­ing of a deep-sea fish runs from a low of 90 calo­ries in abalone to a high of 236 in her­ring. Water-packed tuna, for exam­ple, has 154 calo­ries. It’s hard to gain weight eat­ing seafood.

As far back as 1985, arti­cles in the New Eng­land Jour­nal of Med­i­cine showed a clear link between eat­ing fish reg­u­larly and lower rates of heart dis­ease. The rea­son is that oils in fish thin the blood, reduce blood pres­sure and lower cholesterol.

Dr. Joel Kre­mer, at Albany Med­ical Col­lege in New York, dis­cov­ered that daily sup­ple­ments of fish oil brought dra­matic relief to the inflam­ma­tion and stiff joints of rheuma­toid arthritis.

Greens

We’re talk­ing col­lard, chicory, beet, kale, mus­tard, Swiss chard and turnip greens. They all belong to the same fam­ily as spinach, and that’s one of the super-stars. No mat­ter how hard you try, you can’t load a cup of plain cooked greens with any more than 50 calories.

They’re full of fiber, loaded with vit­a­mins A and C, and free of fat. You can use them in sal­ads, soups, casseroles or any dish where you would nor­mally use spinach.

Kiwi

This New Zealand native is a sweet treat at only 46 calo­ries per fruit. Chi­nese pub­lic health offi­cials praise the tasty fruit for its high vit­a­min C con­tent and potas­sium. It stores eas­ily in the refrig­er­a­tor for up to a month. Most peo­ple like it peeled, but the fuzzy skin is also edible.

Leeks

These mem­bers of the onion fam­ily look like giant scal­lions, and are every bit as health­ful and fla­vor­ful as their better-known cousins. They come as close to calorie-free as it gets at a mere 32 calo­ries per cooked cup.

You can poach or broil halved leeks and then mar­i­nate them in vinai­grette or sea­son with Romano cheese, fine mus­tard or herbs. They also make a good soup.

Let­tuce

Peo­ple think let­tuce is nutri­tion­ally worth­less, but noth­ing could be far­ther from the truth. You can’t leave it out of your weight-loss plans, not at 10 calo­ries per cup of raw romaine. It pro­vides a lot of fill­ing bulk for so few calo­ries. And it’s full of vit­a­min C, too. Go beyond ice­berg let­tuce with Boston, bibb and cos vari­eties or try water­cress, arugula, radic­chio, dan­de­lion greens, purslane and even pars­ley to liven up your salads.

Mel­ons

Now, here’s great taste and great nutri­tion in a low-calorie pack­age! One cup of can­taloupe balls has 62 calo­ries, on cup of casaba balls has 44 calo­ries, one cup of hon­ey­dew balls has 62 calo­ries and one cup of water­melon balls has 49 calo­ries. They have some of the high­est fiber con­tent of any food and are deli­cious. Throw in hand­some quan­ti­ties of vit­a­mins A and C plus a whop­ping 547 mgs of potas­sium in that cup of can­taloupe, and you have a fat-burning health food beyond compare.

Oats

A cup of oat­meal or oat bran has only 110 calo­ries. And oats help you lose weight. Sub­jects in Dr. James Anderson’s land­mark 12-year study at the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky lost three pounds in two months sim­ply by adding 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of oat bran to their daily food intake and noth­ing else. Just don’t expect oats alone to per­form mir­a­cles – you have to eat a bal­anced diet for total health.

Onions

Fla­vor­ful, aro­matic, inex­pen­sive and low in calo­ries, onions deserve a reg­u­lar place in your diet. One cup of chopped raw onions has only 60 calo­ries, and one raw medium onion (2.15” diam­e­ter) has just 42.

They con­trol cho­les­terol, thin the blood, pro­tect against cho­les­terol and may have some value in coun­ter­act­ing aller­gic reac­tions. Most of all, onions taste good and they’re good for you.

Par­tially boil, peel and bake, bast­ing with olive oil and lemon juice. Or sauté them in white wine and basil, then spread over pizza. Or roast them in sherry and serve over paste.

Pasta

The Ital­ians had it right all along. A cup of cooked paste (with­out a heavy sauce) has only 155 calo­ries and fits the descrip­tion of a per­fect starch-centered sta­ple. Analy­sis at the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Bak­ing shows pasta is rich in six min­er­als, includ­ing man­ganese, iron, phos­pho­rus, cop­per, mag­ne­sium and zinc. Also be sure to con­sider whole wheat pas­tas, which are even healthier.

Sweet Pota­toes

You can make a meal out of them and not worry about gain­ing a pound – and you sure won’t walk away from the table feel­ing hun­gry. Each sweet potato has about 103 calo­ries. Their creamy orange flesh is one of the best sources of vit­a­min A you can consume.

You can bake, steam or microwave them. Or add them to casseroles, soups and many other dishes. Fla­vor with lemon juice or veg­etable broth instead of butter.

Toma­toes

A medium tomato (2.5” diam­e­ter) has only about 25 calo­ries. These gar­den delights are low in fat and sodium, high in potas­sium and rich in fiber.

A sur­vey at Har­vard Med­ical School found that the chances of dying of can­cer are low­est among peo­ple who eat toma­toes (or straw­ber­ries) every week.

And don’t over­look canned crushed, peeled, whole or stewed toma­toes. They make sauces, casseroles and soups taste great while retain­ing their nutri­tional good­ness and low-calorie sta­tus. Even plain old spaghetti sauce is a fat-burning bar­gain when served over pasta, so think about intro­duc­ing toma­toes into your diet.

Turkey

Give thanks to those pil­grims for start­ing the won­der­ful tra­di­tion of Thanks­giv­ing turkey. It just so hap­pens that this health food dis­guised as meat is good year-round for weight control.

A four-ounce serv­ing of roasted white meat turkey has 177 calo­ries and dark meat has 211.

Sadly, many folks are still unaware of the ver­sa­til­ity and fla­vor of ground turkey. Any­thing ham­burger can do, ground turkey can do at least as well, from con­ven­tional burg­ers to spaghetti sauce to meat loaf.

Some ground turkey con­tains skin which slightly increases the fat con­tent. If you want to keep it really lean, opt for ground breast meat. But since this has no added fat, you’ll need to add filler to make burg­ers or meat loaf hold together.

Four ounces of ground turkey has approx­i­mately 170 calo­ries and nine grams of fat – about what you’d find in 2.5 tea­spoons of but­ter or mar­garine. Incred­i­bly, the same amount of reg­u­lar ground beef (21% fat) has 298 calo­ries and 23 grams of fat.

Buy­ing turkey has become easy. It’s no longer nec­es­sary to buy a whole bird unless you want to. Ground turkey is avail­able fresh or frozen, as are indi­vid­ual parts of the bird, includ­ing drum­sticks, thighs, breasts and cutlets.

Yogurt

The non-fat vari­ety of plain yogurt has 120 calo­ries per cup and low-fat, 144. It deliv­ers a lot of pro­tein and , like any dairy food, is rich in cal­cium and con­tains zinc and riboflavin.

Yogurt is handy as a break­fast food – cut a banana into it and add the cereal of your choice.

You can find ways to use it in other types of cook­ing, to – sauces, soups, dips, top­pings, stuff­ings and spreads. Many kitchen gad­get depart­ments even sell a sim­ple fun­nel for mak­ing yogurt cheese.

Yogurt can replace heavy creams and whole milk in a wide range of dishes, sav­ing scads of fat and calories.

You can sub­sti­tute half or all of the higher fat ingre­di­ents. Be cre­ative. For exam­ple, com­bine yogurt, gar­lic pow­der, lemon juice, a dash of pep­per and Worces­ter­shire sauce and use it to top a baked potato instead of pil­ing on fat-laden sour cream.

Super­mar­kets and health food stores sell a vari­ety of yogurts, many with added fruit and sugar. To con­trol calo­ries and fat con­tent, buy plain non-fat yogurt and add fruit your­self. Apple but­ter or fruit spreads with lit­tle or no added sugar are an excel­lent way to turn plain yogurt into a delec­table sweet treat.

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