| NEWSLETTER | March 2015 |
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” – Hall Borland
Today is the first day of Spring, the season of greens. When you hear ?leafy green vegetables,? you may think of iceberg lettuce, but the ordinary, pale?lettuce in restaurant salads doesn?t always have the nutrient-dense goodness of other greens such as kale, spinach, and Swiss chard. Spring is the ideal time to introduce more?power-packed vegetables into your diet. It?s nature?s time of rebirth, and the greens that grow during spring?are designed to rejuvenate and cleanse your body.
This season?is also my absolute favorite time to cleanse and detoxify, and I invite you to join me in my whole-food, 14-Day Transformation focusing on spring’s naturally detoxyifing?greens this season offers us. Find out more here!
Leafy green health benefits?include?everything from improving circulation and liver function to strengthening the immune system, clearing congestion, and promoting healthy gut flora. Greens provide a whole host of valuable nutrients, micronutrients, and phytonutrients.
Chlorophyll (found in all green vegetables) is a powerful blood builder akin to liquid oxygen! If you need to increase your calcium intake, leafy greens are a great alternative to?milk because they?don?t promote?an acidic state in the body. Greens with significant amounts of calcium include: cooked beet greens, kale, dandelion greens, collards, parsley, and watercress.
Prepare your greens steaming, boiling, saut?ing in water or oil, waterless cooking or lightly pickling, as in a pressed salad. Boiling makes greens plump and relaxed. Boil for less than a minute so that the nutrients in the greens do not get lost in the water. If you?re using organic greens, you can also drink the?water from cooking as a healthy broth or tea.
Get into the habit of adding the following leafy green veggies to your daily diet, and notice what happens to your energy levels, your complexion, and your waistline!
KALE -?Growing Tips:
- Direct seed or put in transplants
- Varieties include curly, lacinato (dinosaur), and red russian
- Rich soil promotes a faster-growing, more tender crop
- Harvest outer leaves or lower leaves?and the plant will continue to grow
Eating Tips:
- Strip leaves from stems by pulling your hand down the rib
- Kale chips are a delicious?highly nutritious?alternative to potato chips
- Retain bright color by cooking in boiling water for 4 minutes; drizzle with lemon-tahini dressing
- For raw kale salad, massage chopped kale with lemon juice and sea salt to break it down
FOR MORE GROWING-EATING TIPS, SUBSCRIBE TO KAREN’S NEWSLETTER
ARE YOU READY FOR A TRANSFORMATION THIS SPRING?
As I mentioned befor, in my upcoming 14-Day Transformation, you?ll shrug off the winter blues and emerge feeling as bright and fresh as the spring season itself. We?ll incorporate lots?of cleansing greens discussed above, as well as lifestyle tips to?jump start metabolism for the upcoming summer season.
We kick off on April 13th! Will you join us? Register now, here!
Have questions??Email support@karenmalkin.com
To your good health,
Karen
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