Foods and Recipes to Lighten Up Your Springtime and Revitalize Your Body © Jane Quincannon Stanchich
Do you feel that your “Cabin Fever” has been increased by Covid and isolation? Do you feel dragged down, hot, heavy, and edgy? Eating lightly cooked foods and some raw salads can help both your total health and moods! During the past winter, when it was darker and colder outside, you may not have had adequate fresh, raw, or lightly cooked vegetables.
All-weather salads provide our bodies essential vitamins, enzymes, and lively energy. Lightly prepared vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, turnips, lettuce, arugula, and dark leafy greens balance and help us digest our rich, hearty grains, tempuras, and stews. We need to have the yin with the yang. So lighten your veggie table and bring balance to your meals and your life… to feel and look better! Fresh, lightly cooked vegetables are perfect for all weather.
We need salads all year round. During these still chilly weeks, people often tend to eat only longer cooked vegetables and thus may deplete nutrients, enzymes, and energy from their bodies. Lightly cooked vegetables impart a more yin and cooling energy. Therefore, if you live in a heated house, drive a heated car, and work in heated buildings, you are living in warm, dry air like the desert. Fresh salads add balance and enliven our meals, bodies, and moods during all seasons.
Lightly prepared vegetables provide essential vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that may be reduced or eliminated during longer cooking. For example, vitamin C, abundant in many raw vegetables, is essential for the absorption of iron. That is one reason why macrobiotic cooking includes the daily use of raw garnishes. Every day throughout the year, I prepare fresh greens that I serve with other organic vegetables in marinated, pressed, wilted, boiled salads and light dishes. For salt, I love to use umeboshi vinegar (sparingly,) as it is tart and salty - great for salads and greens.
Along with warm and strengthening dishes, prepare these wonderful year-round vegetable recipes to refresh as small side dishes or even condiments and accompaniments to a balanced macrobiotic meal. There are endless combinations of ingredients and dressings, so be creative and make up some of your own. Balance is key, so tune in to your needs, your activities… and freshen up your life…all year through! • Scrumptious Vegan Caesar Salad * Orangy Colorful Root Salad ... and many more RECIPES HERE >
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