Vol. 3, Issue 46, March 19, 2009
From the Desk of the Diva
 This week I'm busting at the seams, and not because I can't fit my pants, but because I can't help feeling that if life gets any better, I'm going to burst! And the fact that Spring is only a day away most certainly has something to do with it. The snow is melting, the birds are chirping and loooove is in the air!
I had an amazing week, because I found the perfect new apartment and totally changed the way I see the world all in one week. When I started the 90-Day Detox, I wasn't expecting to detox my thoughts, my unfulfilling relationships and my apartment, but it looks like that's exactly what's been happening.
This week BIG congratulations to our Green Smoothie Challenge participants who are approaching the finish line of our lucky 7-day Green Smoothie Challenge. Of course, we have a pot of gold and some prizes organized for participants of this program and you can read all about it here. Technically contestants must submit their contributions before midnight on March 27th. Good luck, everyone!
The other people certainly in need of a pat on the back are those who have been playing along with our 90-day detox on the blog. We've officially reached 1/3 of the way through the program and now are stepping up the notch to avoid highly allergenic foods. You can jump in any time and to receive special notifications about teleseminars and other details, you just need to sign up here.
With the coming of Spring, we have the kick off of another session of the Body Enlightenment System! Registrations close SOON and this will be the last time we offer it for quite a while, so you do NOT want to miss your chance to be a part of this adventure.
Finally, my dear, tomorrow is the first day of Spring! Celebrate! Lie back and let the season's change stir within you bringing new life, adventure, love, and other unexpected surprises. Make a wish on your the first wild flower you see, buy yourself some tulips and enjoy this seasonal of renewal! It's LIFE in full color and it's yours, so PLUNGE INTO IT!
Wishing you a most extraordinary start of Spring!
*Smmmoooooch*
Tera
In this Issue:
Vital Vittle: Oranges! Mmmm.... by Maureen Lauder
10 Tips to Turn Your Kids Into Lean, Mean, GREEN Machines by Linda Hanson
The 5 Most Important Foods to Include In Your Diet by Tera Warner
Taste the Rainbow Juice Recipe by Sandee Hamrick
INNER Health Becomes OUTER Beauty.
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Registrations close March 20th at Midnight!
The Vital Vittle
Food of the Week: Oranges
By Maureen Lauder
 I've recently discovered the wonders of the citrus peeler, so in honor of my new-found easy access to all kinds of citrus, I'd thought I'd take a few minutes to discuss the marvelous orange!
For years I've been clawing the rind off oranges with my fingernails-but no more! With a 99¢ citrus peeler in hand, the rind practically falls away. I've even discovered that I can score the rind ahead of time and have easy access to orange-y goodness all day long. A-maz-ing.
And it turns out that that there are plenty of other reasons to love an orange as well. Here are just a few:
- Vitamin C. Well, we all know that orange is the juice of choice if you're fighting off a cold. But vitamin C is good for more than just your immune system. As the primary water-soluble antioxidant, vitamin C is vital to cell protection in aqueous areas of the body. Vitamin C prevents free radical damage that can trigger cancer growth and inflammatory conditions like arthritis and asthma.
- Other antioxidant protection. Oranges bring more than vitamin C to the table, though. They also contain a slew of other phytochemicals that prevent free radical damage to the DNA. Studies have shown that consuming fresh orange juice provides substantially more protection than vitamin C alone.
- Liminoids. Citrus fruits, including oranges, contain limonin, a compound that provides protection against mouth, skin, lung, stomach, colon, and breast cancers. Limonin is easily absorbed and remains active in the body for as long as 24 hours after consumption-providing 18 hours more protection than many other phytonutrients.
- Polymethoxylated flavones (PMFs). Poly-what now? PMFs are found in oranges and tangerine peels and have been shown to lower cholesterol as effectively as statin drugs. Juice a whole orange (organic, please) or grate some zest into your salad dressing or smoothie and watch that LDL plummet!
- Digestive health. Oranges are high in fiber, which can help regulate diarrhea or constipation, control blood sugar, and protect the colon against carcinogenic substances. Oranges may also help reduce the risk of kidney stones and stomach ulcers.
So pack a couple oranges for lunch (don't forget that citrus peeler!) or juice yourself a glass of breakfast orange juice.
If you don't care to deal with a mechanical juicer (and for a glass of orange juice, why would you?), you can pick up a juice reamer (the kind that fits over a bowl) for pretty cheap. (It's worth it, though, to spend a couple dollars extra on a sturdy one with a wide base.) It takes only a couple minutes to make yourself a delicious glass of fresh juice-and just think how your healthy body will thank you!
The Five Most Important Foods to Include in Your Diet
By Tera Warner
It's easy around here for us to talk about all the foods that should be avoided, but let's turn the tables now and talk about the foods we should focus on. It's really rather uncomplicated when you break it down into a few simple categories.  Regardless of what you're eating the important thing to remember, especially when discussing detoxification, is variety and rotation in the diet. We want to avoid eating the same thing every day and do a lot more rotation in order to avoid developing sensitivities to any particular food. This is a fundamental principle we're applying in our FREE 90-Day Detoxification program.
Sweet Fruits
Try to include sweet fruits in your meals throughout the day! If you're doing the Green Smoothie Challenge, this will be easy. Simple fruit smoothies, a fruit salad, or just fresh fruit as a snack when you're hungry will do the trick. Just think of all the gorgeous colors available in fruit! Now that spring is here, the fun is just beginning again! Remember to rotate the kinds of fruit you eat and don't forget that dried fruit can be used on occasion, too, sometimes!
Leafy Greens
The more the merrier! Eat a big bunch of dark, leafy, green vegetables every day in a salad, a smoothie or a green juice. If you're doing our Green Smoothie Challenge, then you win AGAIN! When getting used to an increased amount and variety of greens in your diet, try to keep things simple and if you need ideas, then you can find a lot of them here on the Green Smoothie Blog.
Remember the wild foods and snacks we can find in summer are the best foods you could possibly eat and I strongly encourage you to check out your free back alley snacking opportunities by doing a bit of research online about edible greens in your area.
As you get more adventurous, think outside of the box with your greens and include parsley, cilantro, red mustard, the chards (red, green, rainbow), the kales (green, red, black/dinosaur), rappini, kohlrabi, endive, radish greens, turnip and beet greens, collards, and wild greens like dandelion lambsquarters, clover, etc.
 Nuts and Seeds
They say that 2-4 Tablespoons per day is enough and that it is best to eat these foods with other fruit and veg at the same time. Sprinkle them on salads, smoothies, etc. but try to avoid eating things like train mix as it's very easy to overeat this kind of thing. Limit your variety during the day, but rotate them throughout the week/month.
Avoid buying nut butters that have already been ground as these have a much high possibility of becoming rancid. It's better if nuts are raw, organic and unprocessed.
Vegetables
Gotta get your veggies! These are the minerals in your diet and the most valuable ones to include (since we've already mentioned the benefits of greens) will be cruciferous veggies. Try and include some crucifers in your diet every day. These are things like cauliflower, , bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, mustard greens and collard. Kale, Brussel sprouts, and the greens of cabbage, turnips and rutabagas, too! You can steam them slightly or include them chopped in salads, used to make green juices, green smoothies, green soups, you name it!
They are known for their antin-cancer, anti-viral, anti-bacterial properties, so load up on them! You can read more about cruciferous vegetables and find a few recipes here.
Grains and Legumes
You can include things like rice, quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth, teff, millet and legumes like lentils and garbanzos in your diet a few times a week. They're a great source of carbohydrate without the sugar of fruits and without leading into the excess fat that sometimes happens when people try to avoid eating too much fruit. They are not as nutritionally dense as the other above mentioned foods, but they will not conflict or compromise the state of detox that we've trying to promote for the body in the weeks to come!
So that's it. Not too complicated, now is it? If you'd like a bit more help putting it all together, then check out this special offer:
How Does YOUR Garden Grow?
Sow the Seeds of HEALTH, Reap the BENEFITS!
All you have to do is encourage a few friends to sign up for our 7-day detox, and include us among your friends list (
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), and THEN we'll send you a brand new 7-day menu planner loaded with some of Angela Elliott's very best recipes for FREE!
Juice Recipe: Taste the Rainbow
By Sandee Hamrick
Ingredients:
1/4 inch piece of ginger root
5 stalks of celery
1 extra large rainbow chard
2 pieces of kale
2 pieces of curly kale
1 chunky handfull of parsley
1 cucumber
1 red pepper
1/4 of a beet
Directions: Run everything through juicer in the order listed. Take a moment to sit and slowly savor!
Wet your Whistle!
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10 Tips for Turning Your Kids Into Lean, Mean, GREEN Machines
By Linda Hansen and a Fifteen-Year-Old Who Knows
I have raised 5 children and two stepchildren. You can imagine it has been pretty busy at times over the years. Sometimes, I was just trying to get food and children to the table at the same time, and it wasn't always easy, believe me. I wonder still, why I was surprised to discover that I didn't know all there was to know about my children's eating habits.
My fifteen year old is a healthier eater, now, but a few years ago I realized that I had a very picky eater on my hands. He is a pleasant, quiet guy, who doesn't complain much; he just had been avoiding all kinds of foods without my notice. One big category he was leaving out was all greens. He has since reformed. In fact, he is in the kitchen right now, fixing himself lunch which is a big salad, so I asked him to help me put together a few ideas to share with other parents who want to help their reluctants and avoiders.
First, he says, Clean out the cabinets of everything not good for you. I would add, to clean out your own personal stockpiles of treats from under your own bed. They will find it, and after they clean you out, they will not be hungry for what you want them to eat later.
Second, Have lots of greens available. We used to only eat a couple of different kinds of greens, but now we have learned to like many kinds, and the more choices we have available, the more we eat them.
Third, Eat what you want your child to eat, and eat it with him. I admit, that I didn't always do this. I had a habit of eating something else, at another time, and that is probably when the problem developed. Pearls of wisdom from the mouths of babes.
Fourth, Talk with your children about the benefits of each kind of food. Inform them of what each food does for you, and why it is necessary. At least this is one thing I did right. I did talk a lot about food with my children.
Fifth, Be creative. Make soups and smoothies and things like that. Then it doesn't get boring as much. I do barely cook a soup sometimes (I am talking about crunchy, here), and lay greens in to wilt on top and we do make smoothies together.
Sixth, Go shopping together. Let your children choose two or three greens to take home. They are more likely to eat what they selected.
 Seventh, Let your children experiment in the kitchen. I just have to turn my head away at some of the smoothies my boys have made, but they drank them.
Eighth, Learn about wild edibles. This has made so much fun for us, I cannot tell you. We live in the country, and we enjoy so much making a smoothie or salad out of something we identified and gathered out of our own yard. The weeds taste amazing, and energize you like nothing you can find in the grocery store.
Ninth, We store our greens on the counter in plain sight. We cut the ends of the stems at an angle, and set them in jars of water to keep them crisp. We change the water daily to keep them fresh. They get eaten much better when we can see them, than when they were stored in the refrigerator.
Ten, Grow some of your own. We sprout indoors and we have a small area to grow food outside. Choose the seeds and plants you want to eat. The ones you always want. And do it as a family.
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