HLife | Healthy Living Redefined

Winter Salad by Hlife Photography

People always say, “How can you eat a salad in cold weather?” I’ve got two things to say about that: 1) Not only does my body tell me, “feed me, Seymour..I mean Silvie…give us some raw nourishment aka salad!” and I listen to my inner voice and deliver the goods, but  2) As far as food goes, we are not just dealing with hot or cold foods, but also with individual veggies that in themselves have either warming or cooling energy, and how these affect our bodies internally.  Whether raw or cooked, foods (live foods) have their own energy, and this energy can generate heat in our body or cool energy.  Now, because of bio-individuality, each person is different (different energy needs) so it’s up to the individual to notice how the body reacts with the different types of foods. Personally, 80% of my daily meals are always raw salads.  They keep the body alkaline, which allows for an environment where bad bacteria will not proliferate (bacteria love acid environs.)  Raw salads are also filled with enzymes that help the body have a better digestion, enzymes that are heat-sensitive and often die when something is cooked.  Hearty and dense salads (the kind with lots of high quality veggies) are also loaded with tons of vitamins, minerals, fiber, complex carbohydrates and  quality amino acids.

My body emanates cool energy most of the time, so for the winter I like to have salads that generate heat within my body.

The following recipe is my fave winter salad.  It’s quick to make, super tasty – and nutritious.  One cup of cooked broccoli contains 74 mg of calcium and 123 mg of Vitamin C.  A cup of steamed kale contains over 300% of the daily requirement for Vitamins K and A, and contains 2.5 grams of well-balanced, almost complete protein, with only 36 calories, thankyouverymuch. It also provides over 9% of the daily requirement for Vitamins B6 and C, calcium, copper, and manganese, as well as dietary fiber. Kale and broccoli have warming energy and the red bell peppers have hot energy.  One cup of raw, chopped red peppers provides over 100% of the DV for Vitamin C (yes, more Vitamin C in a red bell pepper than in an orange any day) and Vitamin A. Red peppers are also an excellent source of Vitamin B6. Red onions are my fave, and essential touch in every salad. They are rich in chromium, which balances blood glucose levels, contains a number of flavonoids that promote gastrointestinal health, and reduces the risk of several types of cancer.  I can go on with all amazing benefits of all these ingredients but they will all be eventually featured individually in our weekly HFood section, so stay tuned.  Without further ado, allow me to introduce:

Cut the stem off the broccoli head and steam it for four minutes. Immediately take the broccoli out of the pot and set aside to cool off. Put the thoroughly rinsed kale leaves to steam for 30 seconds.  I used the chou vert frisé kale for this recipe, but if you have another type of kale, go ahead and use it.  We like to buy different types of kale in the same week, for variety.  Take out the kale immediately after the 30 seconds and set it aside to cool off, while you finely dice the red onion, red bell pepper, heirloom tomato, and raw almonds. Place all diced ingredients in a large salad bowl.  Take a dry paper towel and dry the excess water off the kale.  Stack the kale leaves on top of each other and cut them into strips, then cut the strips into medium-to-small squares.  Chopping salad vegetables into small pieces (finely diced) will aid digestion by helping you to chew and breakdown the food, as well as improve flavor by allowing the dressing to coat every bit and piece when tossing the salad. Chop the broccoli up into small chunks and add it to the salad bowl along with the raisins.  The bowl should look something like this:

Image by Jesse Wight

Add the sea salt and Udo’s oil and squeeze the juice of the lime all over the veggies, mixing very thoroughly. This is our staple dressing: sea salt, Udo’s and lime juice.  We don’t ever buy dressings in a bottle, we make them fresh, tasty, and nutritious at home. Udo’s oil contains Omega 3-6-9 oils for healthy eyes and efficient neuron-to-neuron communication.  Lime is extremely alkaline when it enters the body and it helps release gastric juices necessary for digestion.  Always use sea salt – as opposed to regular table salt, the minerals in sea salt are in angstronomic size, which is the only way for minerals to enter the cells (for more on this, please read the “Minerals – Part 1″ post.) Enjoy!