Lower Your Blood Pressure and Cholesterol With Soba Noodles

A long time favorite in Japanese cuisine, soba noodles are a delicious and easy way to improve your health and shed a few extra pounds in the process.  Here are just a few of the great health benefits that you can enjoy simply by adding soba noodles to your diet or replacing traditional pasta with this healthier alternative:

Lower blood pressure
Bring down cholesterol levels
Help to reduce the accumulation of fat in the body
Promote a healthy metabolism
Strengthen the blood capillaries
Helps to fight free radicals in the body (free radicals can often lead to cancer)
Aid healthy liver function
Decrease blood sugar levels

So, what makes soba noodles such a healthy addition to your diet?  Soba are noodles made from buckwheat flour (which despite the name, contains no wheat).  This buckwheat flour contains a wide variety of healthy nutrients including vitamin B1 and vitamin B2 along with an important array of minerals including iron, and contains 12-17% protein; that is nearly double the amount of healthy proteins found in rice.  In addition to these essential vitamins and nutrients, soba noodles also contain antioxidant power and other benefits from a bioflavonoid called rutin.

Rutin is known for its antioxidant properties and its ability to help prevent heart disease.  This important element for your health is unique among buckwheat as compared to other grains which is why substituting these healthier noodles for your traditional pasta can have such a great effect on your health.  Also, unlike some other grain products, soba noodles are gluten free.

There are other healthy ingredients to soba noodles as well.  For example, choline, which is an important element  that can help your body regulate its metabolism and promotes healthy functions of the liver.   Choline is one of the key elements that help to reduce blood pressure and aids the liver.   The little known vitamin P, commonly known as flavanoids, contains a variety of health benefits and increase the soba noodles' usefulness in lowering blood pressure and preventing heart disease and although it can be found in some small amounts in a handful of other foods, its content is the highest in these healthy little buckwheat noodles giving health conscious people yet another reason to make soba a regular part of their diet.  Additionally studies have indicated that daily servings of soba  can help to reduce blood sugar levels which is important in the prevention of diabetes and living a healthy lifestyle.

Because of the important health benefits found in buckwheat, soba noodles made with the higher buckwheat content have the highest levels of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that you need for a healthy body.  Most soba noodles come in a range of 40-100% buckwheat so try shopping around for those choices with the highest content.  These great noodles, which have a width similar to that of spaghetti, can be served in both hot and cold dishes and included in a wide range of recipes.  They, of course, go great with Asian dishes such as stir fry and sesame chicken but also have lots of potential for other recipes as well.  Italian dishes can easily incorporate soba noodles (and give you a chance to add the health benefits of garlic at the same time), as well as noodle salad and soup recipes.