One of the most powerful things you can do on a daily basis for your long-term health and well-being is to cook most of your meals at home with whole food-based ingredients. The second step in taking control of your health and using food as medicine, is to remove the foods or food groups that are irritating your immune system.
The process of dietary change is often a winding road—full of forward movement mixed with setbacks into old habits. This contrast is part of the transformation. Over time, you begin to crave feeling good more than you crave the foods that once made you feel unwell. Rewiring takes time. Give yourself the compassion and the time to slowly change your diet. This is a journey, not a race. True, lasting change doesn’t happen overnight. There is a physical, emotional, and neurological process happening as you shift what you eat and how you nourish yourself. Food is powerful medicine. Everything you eat shifts the biochemistry of your body.
Today I am writing a post to share an incredible recipe with you (one of the most flavorful salad recipes I believe I have created thus far), and open up about some transformations in my life. Some of you have been part of this newsletter since I started it in 2004 and have watched as I have shared photos as our family grew and children went from babies to teenagers! In fact, my oldest daughter is now 21!
Elevated cortisol levels can greatly affect the ability fall asleep and stay asleep. Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands. It's a messenger that tells the body how to function. Cortisol is naturally highest beginning early in the morning, from around 6am to 8am. Then it slowly decreases throughout the day, getting to its lowest point around midnight. Acute stress, chronic stress, and trauma can all affect cortisol levels and cause this stress hormone to be higher late in the day when it shouldn't be.
Flaxseeds are a powerhouse of nutrients and fiber that help feed your beneficial gut microbes, reduce inflammation, regulate your digestive system, improve cardiovascular health, and help normalize blood sugar levels. This healthy muffin recipe uses 1 ½ cups of flaxseed meal, in addition to a small amount of oat flour and a cup of wild blueberries to pack in the nutrients! The soluble fiber found in plant-based foods is essential for increasing gut health and longevity. Serve muffins for breakfast with a cup of tea and hard boiled eggs, or pack a muffin in your child's lunchbox.
We all need very easy recipes to stay on track with dietary changes. I have found that the number one thing necessary to maintaining any healing diet is to be able to easily throw together nutrient-dense meals in minutes. Having easy recipes that contain a balance of vegetables, protein, and fat will help you maintain your diet and heal. It's easy to grab what's convenient when you are hungry, and that's why I recommend stocking your fridge with a snack to help curb those cravings, as well as a few soups or stews that you can reheat for lunch, and keep recipes like this one on hand that can be prepped and cooked in less than 30 minutes.
Happy Winter Solstice! Today is the darkest day and the longest night of the year in the Northern hemisphere. It is a time of pause and reflection; a time to clear space for a new year. What do you want to release? What do you want to create for yourself in the coming year? I recently had a conversation with a friend that reminded me of something so simple, yet so foundational to the work I do. With every bite of food, we are choosing how we want to create ourselves.
This immunity shot recipe can be easily whipped up in a blender—no juicer required! Ginger contains antiviral and antioxidant compounds that can help fight viruses; the citrus fruits provide vitamin C, which balances the inflammatory response, and bioflavonoids, which have antiviral and antioxidant functions. Curcumin, an active compound in turmeric, can inhibit viral replication, as well as reduce the oxidative stress caused by viruses. Make a double batch of these immunity shots, pour them into small mason jars, cover with a lid, and keep in your fridge for a few days and drink as needed to support your immune system during cold and flu season!
A "detoxification diet" is actually something you can do everyday by incorporating certain foods into your diet. Think of it as an inclusion diet where the focus is to bring in a variety of detoxification-supporting foods each day. Kohlrabi is an excellent food to support detoxification! It is a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli, cabbage, radishes, and kale, and it's part of the Brassicaceae family of vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables contain compounds that can upregulate biotransformation pathways in order to transform and excrete toxins.
An Instant Pot is an electric pressure cooker, and it's a lot easier and safer to use than a stovetop pressure cooker. Once you've started using one, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it! Many Nourishing Meals members have asked me to do a video demonstrating how to use an Instant Pot in order to utilize the hundreds of Instant Pot recipes I have tagged in our membership section.