I love eating salads in the spring, summer, fall or winter. This is a surefire way to increase antioxidants, vitamins and minerals into your body because raw foods have no processing. It’s the simplest method to get nutrient-dense food from mama earth into your belly and into your cells.
Sure, I’m simplifying a little bit here, but that’s just because I’m so passionate about educating everyone on the healing power of food.
If you look at a plate of food and everything has been manufactured — come from a factory, cooked — then you are eating dead, lifeless food. You will notice it is dull and drab looking too — do you want to look like this?
Raw food is bursting with enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and a plethora of beautiful colours. These are the foods that you going to make you THRIVE, not just survive, inside and out.
I am not a raw foodist nor do I recommend a 100% raw food diet, especially not in the winter in Canada when it’s freezing cold. But what I do recommend is making sure you eat real live whole food every single day. Some of the benefits I have seen both with myself and my clients are: glowing skin, thicker shinier hair, better bowel movements, mental clarity, greater happiness, blood sugar balanced, lowered cholesterol, lowered blood pressure and more.
Whenever I write articles about the healing power of food, I often use an amazing book as my reference guide. I don’t mind sharing it with you — in fact, I would love it if you bought this book so you can transform your life and eat healing foods too: ‘The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods’ by Michael Murray, N.D.
There are certainly many healing foods in this yummy recipe; I paired it with some baked fish the other night.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup (or more) of quinoa
4 large handfuls of leafy greens (spinach, arugula or kale)
1 avocado chopped
3 celery stalks chopped
Half a cucumber sliced
Handful pumpkin seeds
Handful goji berries
Gluggs of extra-virgin olive oil
1 freshly squeezed lemon
Sea salt & black pepper
Method: Cook the quinoa ahead of time. I usually cook a big batch once a week so I have it on hand in my fridge. Quinoa cooks like rice, 1 part quinoa and 2 parts water for under minutes. Bring the water to a boil with the quinoa in it, reduce heat to low and let cook for 12-15 minutes.
Place your greens into a big bowl and toss in all the ingredients. Add the dressing last and don’t be shy with the EVOO and lemon, create the salad to match your tastebuds. Serves 2 with leftovers.
Joy McCarthy, Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Health Coach of Joyous Health, loves to inspire others to eat well, live well and be happy.
Joy has clients from all over the world and consults via phone and Skype. Contact Joy today and take the first step to achieving joyous health. REASONS TO HIRE A HOLISTIC NUTRITIONIST.
