Keeping abreast of online health food trends can be exhausting. One week, diet gurus will claim that a berry found on an abandoned island in Indonesia is the answer to ultimate health, the next they will be all aflutter about the bark of a tree in Bangladesh. Good news – there is no need to be worried. Most of what you need to stay healthy is already in your kitchen, or at least it should be.

Here is a list of ordinary fruit and veg to have on your list next time you head down to your neighbourhood health store:

• Apples. The old saying ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ seems to have more than a grain of truth in it. If the humble apple were a movie it would be a shoo-in for the Oscars – it has such a star studded cast. Give a great big health shop welcome to Antioxidants, Vitamin C and Pectin! (Pectin is a super cool form of soluble fibre that regulates blood cholesterol levels and keeps the digestive system happy.)Plus, it is low GI to boot, which means it keeps your blood sugar stable, aiding in weight control.

• Baked beans. Cheap, convenient and tasty, the baked bean deserves more credit than playing second fiddle to bacon and eggs in the traditional English breakfast. Dish this nutritional powerhouse up with some whole wheat toast or a portion of brown rice and you’ll be well on your way to fulfilling your daily protein-, fibre-, iron- and calcium requirements. Plus the tomato sauce it comes in has a magic ingredient called lycopene that helps to prevent prostate cancer and keeps the old ticker healthy. And you don’t even go to the health store to get it, just rummage around in your tinned goods cabinet.

• Broccoli. You used to hate it as a child, but now that you’re all grown up, you should learn to love these pretty little trees. Boiling them to death and covering them with white sauce and cheese will not do you any good, but just two florets of lightly steamed broccoli counts as one vegetable portion. It contains vitamin C (a natural antioxidant) and folate (a very important kind of folic acid) that prevents heart disease as part of a healthy diet and also gives you a good measure of sulphoraphane, a phytochemical that has various anti-cancer properties.

• Tea. A character in one of my favourite movies once said, "Tea is a good drink, it will keep you going", and it seems that medical science tends to agree. Whether you prefer black or green tea is up to you, either way you’ll be getting a hearty helping of catechins – an antioxidant that protects artery walls against damage and prevents the forming of blood clots.

Quite nifty for a simple cup of tea, right? Furthermore, the caffeine in tea will keep you alert plus the liquid counts towards the recommended eight glasses of water you need per day to stay hydrated. It is best not to take milk and sugar with your tea, as this will add unnecessary calories to your daily intake. Health food stores normally have a whole range of interesting teas that you can try if you don’t like green or black. Why not try ‘Rooibos’, a type of tea that is grown in South Africa and has incredible anti-inflammatory properties. (Tip: Try putting a couple of rooibos tea bags in your bath after sunburn; it will reduce swelling and sooth the skin.)

• Yogurt. If you spent any time paying attention in grade school biology, you will know that calcium is important for strong teeth and bones and that you get calcium from milk. The only problem is, the older we get the more sensitive our systems get to lactose (milk sugar), which means nice big glasses of cold milk are no longer an option. A good alternative is yogurt.

An easily absorbed source of calcium, it also contains friendly bacteria that move to the digestive system to help out the other friendly bacteria living there. As gross as it may seem to ingest live bacteria, the fact of the matter is that you are already host to billions of them. Instead of being grossed out, you should be focussing on helping out the good guys.

And there you have it – five super foods to keep on your health food store grocery list. Turn your pantry into your very own health store and keep yourself and your family fighting fit.