The Fastest Way To Improve Your Diet
The Fastest Way To Improve Your Diet
Eat them or drink them, but just get them into your body every day – that’s my leafy green mantra, and I hope you'll make it yours.
Why Leafys?
It’s
incredibly simple: they improve health, benefitting virtually every
cell in your body! What’s so amazing about the leafys is that calorie
for calorie, they deliver more nutrients than just about any other food
on the planet. Loaded with fiber,
vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, leafy greens give your body the
artillery it needs to fight off potential killers like heart disease
and cancer.
Meet The Leafys
My favorite leafy greens, from both a nutritional and taste standpoint, are kale,
spinach, Swiss chard, mustard and dandelion greens. You can toss them
into virtually anything, as long as you give them a good washing first!
Eaten raw or cooked, my favorite leafys (as well as many others in the
leafy green family) add just-right doses of vitamin A, C, K, folate,
potassium and calcium to every meal.
Coddle Your Leafys
As
most leafy greens come straight out of the soil, the majority, if not
all your leafys, should be organic. If price is a concern, combine
organic with conventionally grown leafys, to reduce costs as well as the
toxic load. Once you’ve gotten your leafys home from the market, don’t
let them sit around in the crisper too long or they’ll start to loose
some of their nutrients. To minimize nutrient loss when cooking your
leafys, be gentle and don’t overcook – do your steaming and sautéing as
quickly as possible.
Leafys: Morning, Noon and Night
One
way to boost your leafy green intake is to add them to your breakfast.
Recently, during a stay on the West Coast, I was very pleasantly
surprised by a room service veggie omelet that was stuffed with lightly
steamed greens, and accompanied by a spinach side salad. It was a good
reminder, even to a greens fanatic like me, that salad shouldn’t be
limited to just lunch and dinner.
Sneak Them In, or Drink Them In
OK,
so you’re not a huge salad eater? Not nuts for greens? Then try upping
your intake by basically tricking yourself into eating leafys. Start by
dropping a few fistfuls into soups and tomato sauce or tucking a pile of
greens under fish, chicken or grass-fed meat.
You can also cut to the chase and just drink your greens by blending a few fist-fulls into your morning fruit smoothie. Short on time? Traveling without a blender? Then try my pre-measured powdered “greens-to-go” for the perfect caffeine-free, crash-proof way to start the day.
Go green!
Comments
Post a Comment