Nutritional Information
Beet: Ravishing Round Redness
During the cold season, root vegetables come in handy! I found a recipe featuring beets 0and modified it (the original fed an army!). Depending on the size of the portions, one can easily feed an average family with the recipe provided. The recipe can be warmed up in the dehydrator (1 hour) or on the stove on low heat checking that it doesn't get too hot (stick your finger in, it never fails!).
If you have a vegetable garden, you may vary the colour of your meals by including different coloured beets. From bright red to yellow all the way to a lovely shade of pink.
And you all know my love of nutritional information. I just love to know what I eat and how it contributes to my health and energy! And beets are not in lack of nutritional attributes. See for yourself!
The beet is an excellent source of folic acid; a very good source of manganese and potassium; a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin C, magnesium, tryptophan, iron, copper and phosphorus. Not to mention the fact that its leaves are even tastier than spinach, according to some!!!
What is more classical with marvelous beets than making a Raw Borscht Soup (click here to view the recipe).
Celery: Green, Leafy and Crunchy!
Celery is a biennial plant: it's life cycle is two years long. The first year you get what we know as celery (stalks and leafs) and the second year, you get flowers and eventually seeds at the end of the stalks. It belongs to the same family as carrots, fennel, parsley and dill.
Did you know that celery is an excellent source vitamin C and contains numerous other phytonutrients promoting health? Let's look at some of these.
Vitamin C containing foods, like celery, help reduce cold symptoms or at least their severity. It also prevents free radical damage triggering inflammatory responses. Therefore, it is helpful in conditions like asthma, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Vitamin C also prevent free radicals from oxidizing cholesterol, reducing plaques that may rupture causing heart disease. So we can see that vitamin C also helps in heart health.
What to do with that Winter Squash?
Do you have a squash looking at you funny? Yeah, the one in the cupboard, sitting there, waiting, waiting, waiting... Waiting for what exactly? How about waiting for one superbly delicious, oh-so-easy-to-make raw recipe? Raw recipe for squash coming up!
But before, have you thought about all the nutrition that humble squash contains? Winter squash is an excellent source of vitamin A (beta-carotene), a very good source of vitamin C, potassium, manganese and dietary fiber. It also is a good source of folate, vitamins B1 and B6, niacin and pantothenic acid, as well as copper and omega-3.
We know that beta-carotene is a powerful anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory. It inhibits, among other things, the oxidation of cholesterol which sticks to the wall of blood vessels creating cardiac problems. Beta-carotene is also useful in the prevention of problems relating to diabetes as it fights free radicals. Moreover, the carotenoids in winter squash would appear to be helpful in the regulation of blood sugar levels. Research shows that the more carotenoids are in a body, the less there is insulin resistance or problems with elevated blood sugar levels.
A raw organic apple a day...
Apples are such commonly-consumed fruits that we tend to overlook their unique and amazing health benefits. Even raw food enthousiasts can greatly benefit from apples. This member of the rose family (ever noticed how rose hips resemble mini apples?) combines certain nutrients in a way that sets it apart from all other fruits and makes it a food of choice for achieving several health goals. Let's examine what apples can contribute to our living foods lifestyle.
The humble apple contains quite a long list of phytonutrients that function as antioxidants and support our heart health: quercetin, catechin, phloridzin and chlorogenic acid. Include the skins when eating your raw apples: the skins are where most of the antioxidants are. But the skin is also most exposed to the outside world. Try to always purchase organically-grown apples to minimize the apple skin's exposure (and yours as well!) to unwanted pesticide sprays and other potential contaminants.
You'll get around 4 grams of dietary fiber in a medium-sized apple. This amount includes both insoluble fiber (cellulose) and soluble fiber (pectin). Studies have shown that both types of fiber can help keep your LDL cholesterol levels under control,and, if you have LDL cholesterol levels that are too high, can help lower them.
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