Welcome to Spring!

Spring is a time of awakening and renewal. Traditionally, for most cultures, spring was seen as a signal to detoxify and replenish the body after a winter diet of preserved foods, grains, nuts, seeds, dairy and meat. With the advent of refrigeration and a wide variety of imported foods, we now have year round access to fresh fruit and vegetables. However, winter’s departure is still an ideal time to use herbs that tone, revitalise and detoxify our bodies after months of comfort food.

Leafy greens are exceptionally good for our health and their benefits are still being discovered. They are a quick, convenient way of boosting your daily servings of vegetables and unlike juices, they are a complete food, full of fibre. The blending process makes the greens easy to digest, making it a much simpler way for our bodies to access the valuable nutrients they contain. They also have alkalising properties that counter the many foods we eat that make our bodies too acidic.

Green smoothies contain loads of anti-oxidants and phytonutrients to promote good health and beauty. There are also claims they help with weight loss. Some researchers believe they aid by decreasing a person’s appetite through the action of a compound called thylakoid. This might also be the reason many fans of these delicious drinks claim they help to reduce sugar and junk food cravings.

The flow on effect from increasing our greens and decreasing the junk food and sugar is that we are more likely to have a lovely balance of the correct bacteria in our digestive tract. Cutting edge research shows that there is a definite connection between the type of bacteria in our digestive tract and whether or not we find it easy to lose weight.