Spring has sprung! Wow-what an amazing number of sunny days we have had in March. It makes everyone feel alive again after the dark winter months and it’s just what we need to give us the incentive to start moving away from the higher carb comfort eating and start introducing more detox and energising foods that can create beautiful skin, manage weight and give you that well needed va-va-voom. This is the best time of year to spring clean your body, and its far simpler than you may think! So, if you have been feeling tired a lot of the time, get bloated, have a few extra belly pounds to shed, and feel like you could really do with a better night’s sleep and some balanced hormones then read on!
There are so many ways you can gently detox the body, but one of my favourite things to do when I feel like I need a kick start is RAW TIL’ FOUR! When I say Raw, I don’t mean meat or fish! I mean fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds and sprouted grains. It’s a sure way to get the whites of your eyes sparkling, your skin glowing, and your energy bouncing off the ceiling! Basically, you wake up and eat nothing but fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouted seeds and vegetables. Plus, you can drink water and herbal teas all day long! The idea is to eat your raw foods until 4 o’clock that afternoon, and in the evening, you can eat a good home-made healthy meal. Preferably ditch the alcohol whilst eating raw (because you’ve been eating so clean all day, and you don’t really want to spoil the amazing effects of your days cleansing) and start all over again the next day. Some people do it for five days, some two weeks, or some for the entire month. It just depends how good you want to feel. Why? Because it really makes you become conscious of exactly what you’re eating, and limits your choices of foods, so you have to get creative. You can spiralise spaghetti with courgette, make ice cream with bananas and cacao, and have the most delicious smoothies with spinach, cucumber, mango and pineapple. The recipes are endless and surprisingly scrummy!
Why Raw? Foods raw are better quality, therefore you eat less to satisfy your nutritional needs. The heat of cooking depletes vitamins, damages proteins and fats, and destroys enzymes which benefit digestion. They provide you with more energy as they have the best balance of water, nutrients, and fibre to meet your body’s needs. They have much more flavour so there is no need to add salt, sugar, spices, or other condiments that can irritate your digestion system or over stimulate your nervous system. Even a child of 7 or 8 can prepare most items for breakfast, lunch or dinner if you give them raw foods, which elevates their sense of self- accomplishment. Plus clearing up is so easy. No messy pans and just a full compost instead.
Benefits -
The benefits of eating raw have a profound effect on your health as they can reverse or stop the advance of many chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Remember, cooking creates free radicals, which are the major cause of cancer. When you lower the number of free radicals your cells are bombarded with, you lower your risk of cancer. It can also protect you from acute diseases such as colds, flu, etc as it gives a welcome boost to your immune system. If you have a raw food diet you can also wave goodbye to acid reflux, gas, constipation and indigestion.
It’s also far better for the environment. If everyone ate a diet of raw foods, the food industry would be forced to make changes for the better. This would save us enormous amounts of natural resources used to produce power for these industries. Nuclear power would be clearly unnecessary, and many trees and oil reserves could be saved without the need for the paper and plastics used in packaging our processed foods. There would also be less pollutants released into the atmosphere when all the cooking stopped and more oxygen is being produced from the new fresh planting, helping to slow global warming. Long term it can also save you money on meats, vitamins, pots and pans, appliances, doctor bills, medication, and health insurance. Simply put, fresh and raw foods are brimming with life and have the ability to transmit their life force directly to you.
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