Detox Smoothies!
Detoxing is about supporting what your body already does naturally. A detox smoothie is a great way to start the day because it reduces the amount of digestive effort required in order to absorb your vitamins and minerals while assisting your body during the detoxification process.
Main aspects of building a detox smoothie are:
Hydrators: Vitamin C and B complex, electrolytes and loads of water. This will help promote healthy skin, hair and connective tissue while helping to reverse the damaging effects of stress on the body. Some common fruits and vegetables used are cucumber, coconut water and lemon.
Detoxifiers: The goal of any cleanse or detoxification process is to provide our bodies with a helping hand at removing toxins (chemicals, heavy metals, etc.) in an efficient manner, that does not encourage additional stress. Foods such as cilantro, dark leafy greens, chlorophyll do a great job.
Builders and Purifiers: These help to keep our energy levels up, so including some vegetables and fruits such as beets, carrots, apples, grapefruit and ginger. Pectin found in some of these fruits binds to heavy metals and cholesterol helping to remove them from our bodies.
pH Balancing: Living the lives we do our bodies tend to run on the acidic side which means our body will naturally leech minerals like calcium from our bones to help find that balance. To combat this we add mineral rich foods like dark leafy greens, sea vegetables, celery and broccoli.
Transporters: People often forget that healthy fats are very important to any detox. Yes, they are more challenging to digest but fat is what our bodies use to trap and transport toxins. Without it we are just releasing a bunch of garbage back into our bodies to reek havoc.
3 Detox Smoothies
Pink Lady
Ingredients
1 medium roasted beet and chilled
1 fresh squeezed orange
½ fresh squeezed lemon
Enough water to top all liquid to 1 to 1 ½ cups (so probably about a ½ cup)
½ thumb-sized knob fresh ginger
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees, wash beet, remove steam and slice off ends. Rub the beet with a few drops of olive oil, wrap in foil and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 50 minutes, remove from foil and place in fridge to cool. You can do this for several beets so you don’t have to roast them every time you want to make this smoothie.
Add all ingredients to high powered blender until well combined and smooth. Serve as is or pour over ice and enjoy.
Mojito Smoothie
Ingredients
1 Pear
1 cups coconut water or water
3-5 sprigs of fresh mint (so about 15 leaves more if you like it very minty)
1 handful spinach
¼ avocado, diced
Juice from ½ lime, freshly squeezed
1 inch chunk of ginger, chopped
Directions
Blend together until smooth.
Popeye
Ingredients
2 cups coconut water (sugar free)
2 medium handfuls of spinach, washed
Juice from ½ lemon and ½ lime
1 organic apple, washed and diced (leave the peel on)
1 tsp flax seeds
Directions
Blend together until smooth. Enjoy!]
Catch the segment here: http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=793291&binId=1.1164511&playlistPageNum=1
