Looking to Better Your Health? The Most Nutrient-Rich Foods You Should Add to Your Diet

Natural Pain Remedy Cukes are crammed with salicylic acid, which soothes aching muscle strains and prevents spring headache flare-ups. Toss some in your salad or other dishes and let the stuff soak into your immune cells and block pain-triggering hormones.

Fluid Buildup Valves: The tasty guacamole ingredient and toast spread is packed with oleic acid, a healing nutrient that triggers the liver into breaking down and releasing pain-inducing fluids before they build up in tissues, making you more limber and flexible in less than a week.

Boosts Muscle Repair: That first hike, bike ride or swim may make you sore from the micro-tears in muscles. But three 4-ounce servings of beef will boost your muscle growth and repair capabilities by a whopping 47 percent because beef is packed with muscle-healing protein, iron and zinc.

Bloat Busters: The digestive tract becomes less efficient at breaking down food as we age, causing that uncomfortable bloated feeling. But eating a banana a day will help ease the bloat as the fruit is low in the type of sugars that trigger digestive distress.

Nerve Pain Eliminator: Whether it’s fresh or frozen, a cup of mango a day can reduce throbbing or shooting nerve pain. The sweet fruit is loaded with beta-cryptoxanthin, a pigment in mangoes that the digestive tract uses to make vitamin A to heal your nerves.

Cartilage Repair Techs: Nuts not only make a great snack during a munchies attack, they’re filled with magnesium, selenium, vitamin E and other nutrients — tools that can help build and repair joint cartilage. A handful a day keeps joint pain and swelling away — or slashes it by 50 percent.

Inflammation Tamers: Lycopene, the substance that gives tomatoes their red color, blocks the release of inflammation-triggering enzymes in the body — making it 60 percent less likely you’ll get those spring aches and pains. Cooked tomatoes release a lot more lycopene than fresh.