#HeartTuesday: BERRY

Our Tuesdays are for pampering the heart to make it feel good and green. Even if not for anything else, let’s keep the heart healthy enough to withstand all these heartbreaks. For this hearty Tuesday, the magician for the day is BERRY.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, eating a cup full of mixed berries for eight weeks can be associated with increased levels of HDL cholesterol and lowered blood pressure.

Berries contain Polyphenols, a broad class of heart promoting plant compound that includes anthocyanin and ellagic acid.

Polyphenols may increase the level of nitric oxide, a molecule that produced some heart-healthy effects. One of these includes helping to relax the blood vessels, which subsequently results in lowered blood pressure.

Berries do not only satisfy the mouth, but they also satisfy the heart.

Give your body a green treat today.

Follow @thegreenfoodshop on Instagram for more recipes and tips.

Olubunmi Ayodele

#LiverCleansingMonday: WALNUT

Welcome back from the short weekend, I wish it could be longer and I’m sure a lot of people will back me up on this one. Today is another Monday and I have come again with my ‘give the liver some attention’ sermon.

The week is about to get busy again, filled up with activities that will make us adopt cultures that will kill the liver slowly if we don’t take precautions.

Work is so busy the best option we have is the junk meals on the go and in the evenings we drown ourselves in alcohol as per YOLO or to get over the nasty boy-girl issues.

So, I’m here with my bells ringing, screaming loud in my microphone and saying its Liver Cleansing Monday again and the Liver magician of the day is WALNUT.

Walnuts contain a high level of l-arginine, an amino acid, glutathione and omega-3 fatty acids. They help detoxify the body of disease-causing ammonia.

Walnuts also help oxygenates the blood and extracts from their hulls. They are often used in liver-cleansing formulas.

Apart from its ability to cleanse the liver, walnuts contain a compound called melatonin, responsible for conveying messages regarding the cycle of light and dark to the body. Since melatonin is already synthesized by the body, consumption of walnuts increases the blood levels of melatonin, thereby inducing sleep. That’s why eating walnuts can be an excellent way to improve sleep.

Walnut is a good ‘hair food’ too. This is because it contains biotin (vitamin B7) that helps strengthen hair, reduce hair fall and improve hair growth to certain extent.

Walnuts are great multi-taskers, they will heal your liver and support various body parts altogether.

Give your body a green treat today.

Follow @thegreenfoodshop on Instagram for more recipes and tips.

Olubunmi Ayodele

#BodyDetoxFriday: BLUEBERRY

This is more like a general interior clean-up. We live in a world filled with chemicals. They are in the water, in the air, in our food and nearly everything we touch. When we take in these chemical by breathing or feeding they tax our body’s resources and interfere with optimum health.

Body detox programmes clean up the gut, stored fat, all body organs, the blood and lymph. Regular body detoxification boosts energy, rids the body of excess waste, helps weight loss and strengthens the body’s immune system.

Let’s give some credit to the gut today. If the gut is not functioning properly we do not assimilate vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates or proteins.

Cleaning out the gut involves moving out debris while giving the body maximum nutrition that does not requires the digestive system to do a lot of work. My advice is to reduce or better still stay completely off animal proteins when you are on a body detox programme. Animal proteins are hard to digest, thus gives a lot more work to the digestive system and we don’t want that.

Meals and drinks made strictly with vegetables and fruits are an excellent means to flood the body with nutrients while allowing the digestive tract to rest.

I will unlock a secret body detox magician every Friday for this purpose and you can make whatever dish, salad, smoothie or juice out of it. The body detox magician for today is BLUEBERRY.

Blueberries contain natural aspirin that helps lessen the pains and tissue damaging effects of chronic inflammation. They act as antibiotics by inhibiting bacteria growth in the gut and urinary tract ultimately preventing infections. Blueberries have antiviral properties and are excellent digestive tract clean-up agents.

Snack up a cup full of blueberries today.

Follow @thegreenfoodshop on instagram for more recipes and tips.

Give your body a green treat today.

Olubunmi

#SkinnyThursday-Spinach

The skin is the outer covering of the human body, it protects us from microbes and the elements, helps regulate body temperature, and permits the sensations of touch, heat, and cold. I would rather look at this one from the looking damn too beautiful point of view. So, the skin is an instrument for catching fishes and the quality of care you give to it may determine the quality of fish it catches. LOL.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell the consequences of not pampering your skin because I have said it all and with a loud mouth for that matter. To simply put, the greener the skin the bigger the fish.

As usual, I will unlock a secret skinny magician every Thursday and you can make whatever dish, salad, smoothie or juice out of it. The Skinny magician for today is SPINACH.

This vegetable is awesome and does a great job at treating the skin. Spinach is loaded with antioxidants; it helps to reduce the onset of wrinkles. It strengthens the skin tissues and possesses anti-inflammatory properties which flush toxins giving a clear and glowing skin.

Give your body a green treat today.

Follow @thegreenfoodshop on instagram for more recipes and tips.

Olubunmi