Sunlight: Winter Fruits and Vegetables

One of the important necessity of healthy life is sunlight. Winters are devoid of sufficient sunlight due to numerous reasons, one of the prime reason is that Earth is farthest from Sun and about start the journey towards the Sun.

So how do we get the necessary radiations for healthy living. The one natural way is sunbathing and second is fruits and raw vegetables.

Fruits require sunlight for ripening and so do the vegetables. We must endeavor to eat more green leafy vegetables and fruits to get the sunlight radiations absorbed by them. This is the season of vegetables like spinach, fenugreek leaves, radish leaves, mustard leaves, carrot leaves, fresh coriander, turnip, beets, oranges, keenu, apples, etc.

Top 10 Winter Fruits and Vegetables

1. Carrots

This vegetable has the highest amount of carotene when compared to other fruits and vegetables. In addition it is an excellent source for vitamin B, C, D, E and K. You can eat them raw or cook them as you wish.


2. Oranges

This fruit is the best source of vitamin C and helps your body fight against germs and gives potassium, minerals, folate and fiber. Above all it is low in calories.


3. Apples

All of us know that “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Well, you can have this fruit at affordable price during winter and opt it as your midday snack and enjoy the benefits.


4. Turnips

This is a root vegetable in size of an apple. It has a sweet taste and starchy texture and contains fiber, folates, vitamins and minerals and the best turnips come in the market during winter.


5. Mustard Leaves
This is a winter crop which is highly nutritious. Several vital antioxidants, carotenes, vitamins and minerals are there in its fresh green leaves. Include the goodness of this food in your diet this winter and get the benefits.


6. Fenugreek Leaves

In India fenugreek leaves are known ‘Methi’ which is loaded with vitamins and minerals along with lots of fiber and phytonutrients. It helps in lowering cholesterol and blood sugar level along with many more and overall health benefits.


7. Spinach

Spinach leaves are one of the healthiest vegetables in the world. It contains flavonoids and carotenoids which are antioxidants along with lots of vitamins and minerals. It is rich in vitamin A, C and K and contains omega-3 fatty acids. If you want to get the complete nutrition, avoid boiling or cooking it too much.


8. Peas

This vegetable is rich in Vitamin – K and contains essential B – Complex vitamins. It has all necessary minerals along with folic acid and ascorbic acid. It is not just eaten after being cooked with other vegetables, but you can have it raw in salads and add it to soups. It provides you with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits.


9. Radishes

Radishes are available in abundance during winter season. They are pungent or sweet in taste and provide you with potassium, lots of roughage, folic acid and ascorbic acid. You can either cook it in your way or even eat raw.

10. Beets

Beets can be consumed throughout the year, but they are the best ones during winter season. It contains compound that help prevent heart and liver diseases and also helps enhance the blood flow to brain.

In winter the body metabolism is low and so it is advisable to take fruits and vegetables that are low in calories and have dense nutrients. Eating seasonal fruits and vegetables is healthier because the nutrient contents vary when grown in off-season.

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Preparation for October Challenge

Please finalise the menu for Tadka as per your palate and compile the shopping list. My recommendation for seven days-

1. Hara dhaniya - 7 small bunches.
2. Pudina - one bunch.
3. Ginger - 250gms.
4. Garlic - one pod.
5. Coconut (giri) - one and dry - one.
6. Lemon - 7.
7. Almond - 28.
8. Walnut - 14.
9. Dates - 21.
10. Magaj + pumpkin seeds - 100gms
11. Sesame seeds - 7 spoons required, 100gms as may be used for fruits and salads too.
12. Ground nut - 500gms.

(THESE ARE JUST A SUGGESTION)

Tadka for 7 Days

Dry Fruits - almonds -28, walnuts-14, raisins70, pumpkin seeds-70gms, flax-seeds70gms, groundnuts-100gms, sesame seeds-7 teaspoons, magaj-7 teaspoons, dry coconut grated-14 spoons.

Chutney - choose your day

Hara Dhaniya
Nariyal
Pudina
Palak/available local green
Red Chillies
Garlic
Ginger

These can be the base and add tomato, garlic, ginger, green chillies, fresh lime and blend it. These ingredients are always part of our weekly purchases.

Sprouts

Sprouts add a crunchy flavour to our salad. Best is moong beans sprouts.

So today and tomorrow is the day. If you have whole green moong dal at home do it today or even tomorrow will be fine.

Sprouting is very simple if you don't ask anyone.

1. Take a katori/bowl of moong dal. Roughly one handful is good for a week.
2. On first sight you may feel that one handful is less, this is natural. Don't increase the quantity.
3. Wash it thoroughly and soak it for 24 hours. Change water once after 12 hours.
4. After 24 hours strain the water and store it any container(if perforated available use it) and cover it with a wet cloth.
5. Keep rinsing and straining water as per your convenience every 6-7 hours.

That's it. Within 4-5 days you will have sprouts.

If you smell something odd, rinse and strain is the magic that works.

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How to Eat Green Vegetables

We all know that green leafy vegetables are a great source of iron.

1. Always mix lemon juice with green leafy vegetables, coriander fresh, mint, salad leaves to increase iron absorption.

2. When having them raw, cut small strips or into small pieces and let them rest for five minutes. This increases the nutrients absorption.

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Natural Living

I was reading an article and came across a beautiful reasoning of illness. The logic is what Nature Care teaches us.

All illness, symptoms and diseases are an intelligent manifestation of the super fine machinery called our body. They can never be corrected or cured by chemicals (medication) because it will only aggravate the root cause or functioning of our body.

The only cure is to change the input to this factory called body. The more we eat quality (Natural whole food) food there are more chances of faster recovery. This is so simple to understand. All those bad food cravings, bad habits and love for processed food is actually slow poisoning and suicidal.

The study in the article was about type 2 diabetes. It takes a normal body about 10-15 years of very bad lifestyle for type 2 diabetes to manifest. This sounds so logical because now parents with an average age of 40 years having teenage children are diabetic and their children are obese. Diabetes in such children is only a few months away to manifest.

So it's not about change of lifestyle of diabetic parents alone but the change must be for the whole family. Burgers, pizzas, momos, chips and cheese are not the sign of high standard of living but sign of one's inflated ego which has manifested due to the bad days in our childhood.

We still have time to correct it or we will be the generation who will be visiting hospitals daily to look upon our parents in old age and also our sick children.

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Five Myths about Tomatoes

Myth 1: Lycopene Is What Makes Tomato Healthy
Although lycopene is thought to be responsible for tomato benefits, recent research showed that lycopene supplements might not be so safe during pregnancy. Moreover, according to recent scientific studies lycopene can aggravate the symptoms of prostate cancer and it should be consumed cautiously in patients who suffer from this disease. Lycopene may also increase the risk of bleeding and should be avoided by people with bleeding disorders.

Myth 2: Tomato Is Good for Patients With Heart Disease
Dr. Naram highly recommends you to avoid acidic food like a tomato. Due to their highly acidic nature, tomatoes can make the stomach produce excessive gastric acid (mainly responsible for food breakdown). After increasing the volume of acid, it is forced to flow up the esophagus, causing the symptoms. Even cooked tomatoes are not very helpful.

Myth 3: Tomatoes Do Not Cause Allergies and Infections
According to recent Polish studies, tomatoes contain a compound called histamine that is responsible for certain allergic reactions. It is proved that tomato can be the main reason for various illnesses such as hives, skin rashes, eczema, coughing, sneezing and an itching sensation in the throat.

Myth 4: Tomatoes Help with Kidney Problems
A report made by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that individuals who suffer from advanced chronic kidney disease ought to limit their intake of potassium, a mineral tomatoes are very rich in. High level of potassium in the blood which is considered to be the leading cause of kidney disease should be reduced by avoiding tomatoes or anything made of tomatoes.

Myth 5: Diarrhea is Not Caused by Tomatoes
As per a report published by Longwood University, tomatoes are greasy, acidic vegetables, and you are strongly advised to avoid them during diarrhea. The report says tomatoes can also be a source of an organism called Salmonella that is the primary cause of diarrhea.

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Whole Plant Based Diet

A Simple Analogy

If there is no water in the overhead tank of your building, no amount of twisting and turning the tap of your kitchen will yield water. So if you don't eat sugar where will sugar come from in your blood. Insulin produced by pancreas in our body is responsible to control the sugar levels in our body. This mechanism has broken down due to some reason and thus Diabetes. Sugar is the primary source of energy for the body, consequently is the basic necessity for us. So why does the excess of sugar causes problems? The infrastructure of our body is unable to transport this excess sugar and a kind of logistics problem manifests in our body causing Diabetes.

I often meet diabetic patients to inspire them from my reversal story. The first thing they want to know is my Diet Plan. My answer to them in simple one line is - Whole Food Plant Based Diet. They are immediately dejected with my reply. However when I explain the diet in totality they reluctantly begin to show some sign of belief. Before I continue as to how I achieved my reversal I want to share my Whole Plant Based Diet plan.

What is Whole Plant Based Diet

A whole food plant based diet is one of the healthiest diets you can follow. Clinical research studies have shown that adopting a low-fat, plant-derived diet can aid in weight loss, improve insulin sensitivity, reduce blood sugar and cholesterol and reverse a Type II diabetes. Eating a whole plant based foods diet means maximizing your nutrient absorption and including foods from natural sources while avoiding the highly processed foods. Whole natural foods include fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes and whole grains. A whole food is a food that is as close to its natural state as possible, such as a stalk of broccoli, a raw almond, or a scoop of quinoa, as opposed to a bag of potato chips, packed fruit juices or a ready made snacks.

Advantages

• Less Sugar. Plants have natural sugar, this means that the sugar in your blood will be steady for long time. You will be satiated for a longer time as compared to other sources of refined carbohydrates.
• More Fiber. Vegetables are very rich in fiber.
• More Vitamins. Vegetables contain a lot of vitamins and antioxidants which we need to protect our cells from free radicals.
• Better Digestion. Our body is able to easily process plant based foods.
• Better Hydration. Fruits and vegetables have water as inherent component.
• Less Toxins. Since the plant based food contains vitamins and nutrients in natural absorbance form their absorption is easy with lesser byproducts as toxins.
• Increased Energy Levels. Lesser load on body in utilizing plant based diet  increases energy levels.
• Balanced Diet. Whole plants based diet provides a natural balanced nutrition to our body. 

I can actually go on and on, however the advantages for a diabetic patient have been mentioned above. One of the side effect of the plant based diet will be loss of extra weight. The body will consume the excess fat and a person will achieve ideal weight. I lost 10 kgs in four weeks. I would recommend you to watch this video. The most able and accomplished person in the world is The President of United States and he has this to reveal about Whole Plant Based Diet.

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