Metabolism Boosters.

What foods are metabolism boosters? Or it is a lot of hype? Let’s see what our choices are to add foods to the diet that will help to burn fat faster. Here’s a rundown of foods — quite tasty ones in fact!

Apple Cider Vinegar. You may have heard of the “apple cider vinegar diet” as well as the pills, tablets and capsules. Unfortunately it is one of those over-hyped supplements about which wild claims are made, especially that it helps the body to not absorb the dietary fat that you eat. However, that said, there are some valid and effective uses, and it earns a place among our metabolism booster foods.

Firstly it is great for the digestive system and, importantly for the dieter, research studies indicate that it helps to blunt the effect of the meal on your blood insulin levels. The key is to consume it before your meal — perhaps adding it to your salad as a dressing.

Yes, to some degree it does assist in giving your diet a boost as it breaks down fats in the diet — but not in the sense of whisking them out! You will still need to limit fat consumption to lose weight.

Rather than taking it as a supplement, it’s great to add for sheer flavor alone. It’s virtually calorie free. Find organic versions “with the mother” — the cloudiness you see in the bottle, which is the apple pectin fiber — when possible.

Green Tea. Long heralded for its thermogenic properties, it’s a winner again as much for the numerous health benefits — including reducing cholesterol, helping to prevent and/or fight cancer, as well as heart disease. What makes green tea — and the supplement green tea extract — so special? It’s got an extremely high amount of EGCG polyphenols, a type of antioxidant. All this and it’s also a metabolism booster, by increasing thermogenesis, which is a subtle raising of rate that your body expends energy, which is to say burn calories.

Again, not a miracle in a bottle, but very useful in your weight loss tactics.

You can drink green tea throughout the day — try it plain or with lemon or with a zero calorie natural sweetener such as Stevia. You may also want to consider the green tea extract supplement. Rather than buying the versions in the drug store you will have equal success with purchasing the extract at a competitive price from such online retailers as Vitacost.com or Vitaminshoppe.com.

Cayenne Pepper. This pungent, tasty herb used in various cooking cuisines around the world, has many health benefits and properties including fighting inflammation and lowering cholesterol. 

It is the capsaicin that gives it its distinctively hot flavor as well as its rightful place as a metabolism booster. An easy way to ingest it is in capsule form, as you can get several hundred milligrams easily. 

You can also break open the capsules and sprinkle it in your food. But beware if you are not used to it, it’s quite spicy and hot!

Ginger. Another wonderful herb awarding you with an array of health benefits — great for digestion, helps reduce inflammation — and working by raising your metabolic rate, in a similar fashion as cayenne pepper. You can take ginger root extract as a supplement but

again, why not enjoy the wonderful flavor of grated fresh ginger root in your foods or, if you prefer, powdered ginger.

That’s just a short list of some of the superfoods that can get your fat burning in higher gear. Other herbs and spices that taste great and work well to boost metabolism include garlic, thyme, basil, mustard, and parsley.