HAPPY 2017!
The New Year has arrived and comes in (as always) on a flurry of resolutions and commitments for healthy eating, time at the gym, and lists of promises. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t.
What if healthy eating wasn’t so hard? What if incorporating super foods into your regular diet becomes a habit that you maintain all year round? Now that sounds like a great year!
Let’s make a pact to truly nourish our bodies. Feeling well in your body extends to our brains! Our mantra for the New Year can be, as Hippocrates once said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.
To keep your vital organs well-fed and optimally functional, bring on the super foods: go heavy on veggies and fruits, especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and kale. Cruciferous vegetables amp up antioxidants and strengthen the body’s ability to handle inflammations from stress or injury. They help with detoxification, digestion, heart health, and so much more! See the included Best Kale Chopped Salad with Pomegranates that will make you love kale! Also, Organic Parmesan Polenta with Curly Kale and Roasted Tomatoes is a wonderfully nourishing winter bowl.
Garlic is a good inner security guard, fighting off bacteria, viruses and even some fungi! Ginger is said to clear the sinuses and the lungs. Load up on your garlic with this Lechon Asado – Cuban Roast Pork with Chimichurri!
Check out health-inducing spices such as turmeric, which is touted as a natural antiseptic. Spice up your life and take advantage of not only the flavor but the all natural health benefits of these other spices and herbs as well:
- Chile peppers – increases metabolism
- Ginger – fights inflammation and helps with nausea
- Cinnamon – can help stabilize blood sugar
- Holy Basil (the Indian Holy Basil, not Italian Basil) – Super Immune Booster and infection fighter. Drink a cup of Tulsi Tea, tulsi is also Holy basil.
For those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or winter blues, foods that naturally boost serotonin: turkey, bean sprouts, asparagus, sunflower seeds, lobster, cottage cheese, pineapple, tofu, spinach and bananas. Saffron also has mood boosting benefits!
Super Foods have a bevy of benefits from being powerful antioxidants and cancer-fighters to being just what your immune system needs to get through winter. Adding these super foods to your regular meal rotation is a great boost for immunity and wellness!
Some winter super foods: beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, dark chocolate (this can be all year of course!), fennel, kale, natural yogurt, pomegranates, probiotic foods (think sauerkraut and kimchi), quinoa, sweet potatoes, winter squash, wild salmon (has more benefits than farm-raised), wheat germ.
Don’t forget a hot cuppa. Black, green, white, and oolong teas all have huge antioxidant properties.
Dear Beets, I love you. I started a love affair with beets several years ago and have not looked back since. Beets purify the blood and cleanse the liver and are rich in folate, manganese, potassium, vitamin C and a potent anti-inflammatory compound called betaine. Bring on the beets with some of these delicious AND healthy recipes:
This is pure nourishment and wellness – Beet and Fennel Soup
Beet chips for super intelligent snacking! And you can also add Homemade Beet Hummus with Pepitas to that snack tray.
I love to spiralize my veggies and beets really hold up well to this process. Two spiralized beet salads that make me swoon all year round:
Spiralized Beet and Zucchini Salad with Sumac Roasted Chickpeas and Feta
Keep it sweet with Sweet Potatoes! Sweet potatoes are a good source of beta-carotene and other carotenoids which all help to support a healthy immune system. The purple-fleshed sweet potato contains anthocyanins, peonidins and cyanidins, all having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
Quinoa Khichuri with Purple Sweet Potatoes (or regular) is a great system reset and gentle detox for your body.
Orange and Purple Roasted Curry Sweet Potato Soup is a great recipe for comfort food in Fall and Winter.
Winter snacking made easy – Purple Sweet Potato Chips with Thyme.
Eat your broccoli! Broccoli packs a powerful punch for immunity. Full of Vitamins A, C and glutathione, it is great for keeping you healthy and makes a convenient snack.
My Garlic Lemon Broccoli Bites will have you reaching into the refrigerator at every chance to snack – make them at the beginning of your week.
Use the Creamy Roasted Broccoli Soup recipe for winter super comfort food.
I have always loved carrots, but they have moved up my personal favorite list, especially with the availability of the rainbow carrots. Seriously. Rainbow food makes me happy.
Carrots as a superfood is great for vision with the high beta-carotene levels and they also have some magnificent antioxidant properties:
According to the George Mateljan Foundation:
“The many different kinds of carrot antioxidants are most likely to work together and provide us with cardiovascular benefits that we could not obtain from any of these antioxidants alone if they were split apart and consumed individually, in isolation from each other. The synergistic effect of carrot antioxidants is a great example of a whole food and its uniqueness as a source of nourishment.”
Carrots also contain phytonutrients and cardiovascular disease fighting agents.
Roasted Carrots and Parsnips with Kale Walnut Pesto (this recipe will change how you eat carrots!)
Eating healthy can be scrumptious and takes just a bit of planning and recipe searching. Invite superfoods into your New Year and enjoy a Nourished YEAR!
Cheers to a happy and healthy New Year!
This article was created for my new, FREE online course, Nourished Winter, through my Shakti Womyn site.
Welcome to Nourished Winter!
You are invited to step mindfully, joyfully into the winter season. Wrap yourself in the cozy, the warm, the wholistic practices offered. Allow the prompts to guide and inspire you. Channel your inner hungry goddess to create recipes that nourish and sustain. Embrace the act of consciously creating a life that nourishes you. The hearth fires are lit and we gather in community to invoke light and laughter as the depths of winter surround us!
Nourished Winter is a series of prompts, practices, and recipes to embrace winter, chase away the seasonal blues, and commit to sacred self care in the deepest, darkest season. Sync mind, body, and spirit as we explore the inner and outer delights of winter. Bring your journal and a commitment to experiencing a winter of wellness!
Sign up for Nourished Winter!
This is a free online offering and the first in a seasonal series being offered to enhance your own practices for the year.
Nourished Winter is 22 days long and you will receive something new each day. Work through the daily lessons or explore it at your own pace. Nourished Winter will remain open until February 15 and then Nourished Spring will be released.
NEW YEAR BONUS – included with Nourished Winter is Visioning 2017, six additional activities to sync/sink into planning a New Year of power and purpose that will be received on sign up.
**Please note, participants in Nourished Winter will also be added to the Shakti Womyn email list.
Do you have any recipes you like with Turmeric. I know its good for you but it has such a strong taste.
good ideas about the spiralized beets.
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