So, you want to feel healthy, vibrant and energised so you can catch all the waves and live your life to the full? If you start from the inside out, feed yourself the cleanest and most vibrant foods nature has to offer, your health and energy will thrive! But you don’t need to live off nothing but limp lettuce leaves, carrot sticks and rice cakes. In fact the opposite is true; healthy food can be delicious, full of flavour and you will feel so much better for eating it! All of the foods you love can be still be eaten, and most importantly, enjoyed if you just tweak a few of the ingredients. Instead of your depriving your body of the nutrients and vitality that it needs, it will actually make your body thrive!
Think of all the foods that you may love which are not that healthy: pizza, curry, cakes, puddings, ice cream and chocolate. Abandoning these foods as you know them doesn’t mean you have to abandon all enjoyment of food.
Do you enjoy pizza but feel bloated afterwards? Then make your own base using gluten free flour or cauliflower (very popular at the moment!) and top it with roasted vegetables and little or no cheese. Curry is one of the easiest dishes to make healthier; use corn flour to thicken the sauce and it will still taste creamy. Use coconut oil when frying or baking; with its high smoke point and many known health benefits it’s a much healthier alternative to vegetable oils.
Puddings and cakes are when the fun really begins! ‘Raw’ puddings (made out of fruits and nuts) are simple to make, good for you and taste DIVINE! Raw food simply means eating foods which haven’t been heated over 42 C (the threshold after which nutrients in food will start depleting because of the heat), therefore keeping the enzymes and antioxidants intact so they are much better for your body than their cooked counterpart!
Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are loaded with vitamins, antioxidants and free-radicals which are known to strengthen your immunity and thus prevent and fight off disease. Rarely a week goes by without some new research emerging about how a specific food and how constituents in it may reduce the risk of cancer and other serious illnesses.
So you want to eat raw food, but don’t have time to make a large salad?
Then chuck them all in the blender and make a delicious smoothie or soup!
Smoothies are loaded with raw goodness, are delicious and energy sustaining all at the same time. There really are no rules or recipes when it comes to making a smoothie. As long as you have a piece of fresh or dried fruit to sweeten it then it will taste delicious!
You can also make a delicious raw soup by blending very lightly steamed vegetables in water, then warming slightly before serving.
Green smoothies are becoming more and more popular-for good reason! Don’t fancy chowing down on a plate of spinach or kale for lunch? Then consume all of the goodness in a sweet-tasting smoothie instead!
I don’t think I’ve ever made the same green smoothie twice (and we drink a lot of green smoothies!), so that just goes to show how many variations you can make! Simply chuck a good handful of greens in a blender, add a banana or piece of fruit in a liquid base i.e. water/coconut milk/almond milk and blend! To make your smoothie more filling you can add chia seeds, flax seeds, soaked nuts, oats or rice or hemp protein powder. Then for the days when you wake up craving CHOCOLATE, there’s only one thing for it – a rich, chocolate-chip smoothie for breakfast! Add a spoonful of raw carob powder and raw cacao powder to a simple banana smoothie then crumble in some raw chocolate. Raw cacao is loaded with antioxidants and naturally stimulating so this will really get you going in the morning and give you tonnes of energy for your day ahead, as well as tasting great!
Above all, have fun making, creating and eating your food!
Next time….A recipe for an amazingly delicious, vegan, sugar free ice cream!
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