Now now, I know that just recently we were ragging on citrus fruits for hurting your teeth, but the truth is that, with the correct precautions, your teeth aren’t really in all that much danger, if any at all. Just remember to try and brush your teeth relatively soon after you eat a citrus fruit and you’ll be totally fine.
Today we’ll be looking at three of the many, many benefits of citrus fruits, which just piles on to an already extensive list of reasons to be eating citrus more.
Vitamin C
Ahh… Vitamin C… It’s one of the few things that almost EVERYONE can actually agree on the fact that it’s healthy for us. In fact, one of the main reasons citrus fruits seems to be so darn good at improving our mood and energy levels is Vitamin C. If you are deficient in this, well, let’s just say that that’s a big no no. Vitamin C has to be replenished in the body every day, without fail. If you don’t give your body the amount of Vitamin C that it needs, you’ll probably be irritable, depressed and sluggish, not a good combo. These citrus fruits help give you and instant boost of Vitamin C though, replenishing your stocks easily and super fast.
Natural sugars
Sugar gets a really, really bad rep because of how bad so much of it can be, however, the natural sugar content that’s inside of these luscious, delicious, sweet fruits provide your body with an instantaneous boost of energy. Try to eat the whole fruit, instead of just drinking the juice, this allows you to get all the extra nutrients that are inside of citrus. Such as the pulp, the fiber and many other vitamins. Of course, grapefruit is especially popular for containing these little things called blood stabilizers, which do exactly what you’d think they do. Stabilize the blood.
Studies have shown that people who consume a whole grapefruit or a small glass of grapefruit juice with meals showed more stabilized blood sugar levels hours beyond the meal.
Citrus fruits make your nose, mouth and other parts of your body get excited
This is an interesting that I don’t see being talked about as often as I think it should be. Simply tasting the bright, juicy and sweet flavor of a fresh clementine, orange or grapefruit will send pleasure signals to the brain. The instant pleasure of the natural sugars help boost serotonin levels in the brain, and the scent of the citrus oils are potent nervous system stimulators – in a good way.
Studies have shown that merely the scent of most citrus fruit oils, which are contained within the peel and the scent of the pulp and fruit itself, are very stimulating to certain receptors in our nervous system and brains.
One study showed that lemon oil vapors suppressed anxiety responses in mice and lowered the chemical and brain reactions typically associated with stress and depression, suggesting strongly that inhaling these vapors may have the same effect on the human brain and nervous system.
