Spinach Green Smoothie

We all know how good spinach is for us, but how many people actually eat it on a regular basis? It isn’t really the kind of vegetable that you would have on its own. It is more than likely that you would include a little of it within something else like a pie, soup or omelet.  The other thing about spinach is that by cooking it you destroy a lot of the valuable nutrients that you are trying to get. The best way to get the most out of your spinach is to have it raw. You could have a salad with spinach but how much of this healthy stuff could you eat? The truth is that most of us would only be able to eat a small amount of spinach this way.  You would soon get bored of it, especially if you had spinach salad meal after meal. One of the easiest ways to get all these nutrients in a tasty way is to make a spinach green smoothie.

 

spinach green smoothie
You can serve up a nice looking green smoothie

The thought of a spinach green smoothie might not sound that appetizing, but that is exactly what they can be. For a start of, a spinach green smoothie isn’t just made up of spinach. The reality is that green smoothies are made up mainly of fruit. The correct proportions for a green smoothie are 60% fruit and 40% green leaves. This means that it will mainly taste of fruit. This makes green smoothies a far more pleasant affair. Basically, the fruit of choice and the spinach is thrown into a blender and the whole thing whizzed up. Here is an example of a spinach green smoothie recipe.

 

1 handful spinach

1 pint strawberries

3 small peaches

2 cups water

 

This smoothie will taste of strawberries and peaches and will be very tasty indeed. However, as well as getting all of this fruit towards your five a day you will also be getting all of the nutrients from the raw spinach as well. It is thought that raw greens provide far more essential dietary elements such a raw amino acids, antioxidants and vitamins than even fruit. These will all go towards protecting your body against diseases such as cancer as well as providing valuable plant roughage as well. A spinach green smoothie can also be very helpful as part of a weight reducing diet. In fact green smoothies can even be used as complete meal substitutes when dieting.

 

spinach green smoothie after whizzing up
The spinach green smoothie after whizzing up

One sure thing is that, a spinach green smoothie is also healthy for the reason of the things that are left out of it. There are none of the artificial flavours, additives, trans-saturated fats, cholesterol and refined sugars that you find in modern processed foods. All of these things can cause havoc with your body, giving rise to conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. If you want to find out about over 200 more green smoothie recipes go to Green Smoothie Recipes.

Wheatgrass benefits

Wheatgrass refers the young green shoots of the wheat plant. From a health point of view there can be considerable wheatgrass benefits. This is the same wheat plant that is responsible for producing the wheat grain that is used to make bread. Usually wheat is grown as a mass crop on farms and it is left to grow from the seeds that are planted until it flowers and then produces the ears of grain that we are so familiar with. This grain is then harvested and used to make flour. The rest of the plant, which by this stage is very brown and dry, is simply used as bedding for animals in the form of hay.

What is not particularly well known is that, way before the grain has formed; the young shoots of wheat grass are so green and tender that they can be eaten. You can eat them like the green leaves of a salad and in fact this is exactly what some people do. They take the shoots and add them to their normal green salad. These shoots contain valuable health giving nutrients including antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. It also contains an unidentified factor which is believed to have very strong health giving properties. These Wheatgrass benefits are being recognised by more and more people across the world.

Wheat grass has been identified as being helpful for people having certain conditions. These health conditions include those relating to the skin, cancer, diabetes, anaemia and arthritis. People who eat wheat grass have found many health benefits. These wheatgrass benefits can also help people who have gastric problems, athlete’s foot fungal infections or are trying to lose weight. Most grain crops including rye and barley can be consumed as grass in a similar way and each has similar health benefits. However, wheatgrass itself seems to have the most active ingredients in the greatest proportions out of all the grass crops.

Wheatgrass benefits from grain
The wheat grain is used to grow the young wheatgrass sprouts

A lot of people have become so interested in wheatgrass as a dietary supplement that they will grow the wheatgrass from seed grain in small planter trays. Once the seedlings have grown into tender grass they harvest the wheatgrass and consume it. For some, this way of eating it seems to be wasteful because our digestive systems aren’t designed to extract the nutrients from grass in this form. In order to get the maximum amount of goodness out of the wheatgrass they juice it and consume it as a drink. This has become very popular amongst health enthusiasts. In fact you can even buy wheatgrass from some juice bars. There are also dried and powdered forms of wheatgrass juice as well as convenient wheatgrass capsules that you can buy. If you are interested in finding out more about wheatgrass and the health benefits that it can give than go to Growing wheatgrass

Cinnamon health benefits

Cinnamon is mainly known as a spice and has been extensively used in the preparation of food for thousands of years. It was one of the first spices that came along the Silk Road from the East to be traded in Europe. Cinnamon is actually the dried bark of the Cinnamon tree. This is a small evergreen tree which originated in Sri Lanka and is still grown there as a crop. What you may not realize is that this spice has been also used in medicines for thousands of years as well. It was soon recognized that cinnamon had antiseptic properties and could be used to help get rid of infections. In Egypt they even used cinnamon in their mummification processes, where it stopped fungal growth and also provided a pleasant aroma. As scientists search for new medicines they have are looking once again at cinnamon, in order to discover if any cinnamon health benefits have been missed or undervalued.

 

There are many Cinnamon health benefits. Cinnamon can be used to help in a whole range of conditions. The Romans first recognised that it could be used to help with digestive problems such as indigestion, but it has also been discovered that it can help prevent excessive wind and possibly in the prevention of the development of ulcers.

 

It is thought that cinnamon can help with diabetes. Addition of it to the diet seems to make cells of the body that have become intolerant to glucose more responsive to it. This means that it can possibly help blood sugar levels in diabetics to become more normal once again.

 

Cinnamon health benefits from this quill shaped bark
The Cinnamon bark is rolled up into the familiar quill shape

In the case of arthritis it has been found that cinnamon can act as an anti inflammatory agent. This doesn’t mean that it can cure arthritis, but it certainly can help to ease the pain that people suffer with this condition. As well as this it can also help in preventing the stiffness that people feel in their joints.

 

With its strong anti fungal nature, cinnamon has been used to treat such conditions as Candida which can affect the genital areas and the mouth causing painful redness and itching. Candida is notoriously difficult to get rid of.  Cinnamon is much gentler on the body when compared with the usual fungal treatments. After all, we eat cinnamon so it can’t be that bad for us.

 

These are just a few of the cinnamon health benefits that have been identified. There are many more including its ability to help with certain cancers, heart conditions menstruation, menopause and toothache to mention just a few. To find out more about this wonderful spice go to Cinnamon Blood Pressure

Virgin Coconut oil and the good saturated fats

Virgin coconut oil is full of saturated fats. That is a fact. An undisputed fact. So, having said this at the start, it should have you running for the hills in fear! But hang on, I haven’t finished yet, so come back and read some more. You might be pleasantly surprised!

When exactly was it, when we became terrified of saturated fats? I’m not really sure, but it certainly changed the way that we think about certain foods like butter and cheese. The trouble is, that in this sound byte age we only really hear one part of any message. However, it could also be that vested interests want us to believe that things have only 2 sides: one side good and one side bad. Saturated fats are bad and all other fats are good. On the basis of this we all ditched butter and headed for margarine, only to find out that there is actually another side to the story: the deadly trans fats found in margarine.

virgin coconut oil in coconut husks
Coconuts ready for extracting the virgin coconut oil

Sometimes we don’t know which way to turn or which things to believe. Some of it is science that is made up of half complete knowledge and at other times it is slick advertising. Where do we turn? One thing we do know, is that ‘Saturated fats are bad for us’. Wrong again! What it should say is that ‘most saturated fats are bad for us’. The thing that is missed out is that there are certain saturated fats that appear to be very good for us indeed. Where do we find these good saturated fats? Why, in virgin coconut oil of course!

To appreciate this we have to first understand why ordinary saturated fats are bad for us. It is not that the saturated fats themselves are bad; it is the fact that they get converted into bad cholesterol. This bad cholesterol causes heart and vascular disease. So, if there is bad cholesterol there must be good cholesterol. Right? Well in this case, it is right: the bad cholesterol and good cholesterol fight it out and the winner does what it wants. Yes this is true! When there is too much bad cholesterol you get heart disease and when good cholesterol is the winner you get less or no cardiovascular disease. Coconut contains a different kind of saturated fat. This particular fat does the opposite of ordinary saturated fat. It acts a little more like a polyunsaturated fat and in doing this it leads to an increase in good cholesterol which in turn reduces the amount of heart and cardiovascular disease in the body.

virgin coconut oil split husks
coconuts contain many other useful health giving substances

Hopefully you should now know one reason why coconuts are really good for us. The good saturated fats in virgin coconut oil can help us in many ways and there are also many other helpful substances in coconuts. To find out all of the other ways that coconuts are used to improve our health take a look at: How to use coconut cures for a healthy life