Hey there Mary Sheila here from BioYouth Labs and I am just sitting outside on a fall day. I planted my garlic the other day, which was very exciting.
This is one of the bulbs that I did not plant, but I grew last year. I save some of the good bulbs each year and replant them.
Today I want to talk a little bit about garlic and just flavoring our foods in general because sometimes I hear from people who say, “Healthy eating is so boring”.
That is not quite true, and does not have to be your story. Healthy eating does not have to be boring and things like garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, and scallions, can all really enhance and add so much amazing flavor to the foods that we're eating.
A lot of times if we're choosing to do things for our health. Maybe we have high blood pressure or high cholesterol or just we want to shed some pounds.
It’s important to look at all the things that are added to our foods and the best way to enhance our health is to clean up our diet and eat as whole and naturally as possible without the presence of processed foods.
And I know that sounds so simple, and I also know cooking your own food does require more work and time and energy we don't always have it. I realize it can be exhausting. We have to eat every day. I totally get it, and I get into those ruts myself.
But I'm here to inspire you and to remind you how important it is because of how important YOU ARE and how important nourishing your body is.
Our physiology, is more used to be eating whole, unprocessed foods. Our modern day foods are very new. For us to be able to buy pre-made things that can sit on the shelf for a long time and are highly processed so that they can be sitting on the shelf for a long time, requires more work for our body to break down.
This means there's different fats that are used that can be more shelf stable, but this also means they're damaging to the body internally. I’m talking about seed oils and preservatives that our body has to detoxify and process. Not everybody can detox and process them the same way. So for some people they can cause detoxification pathway issues and symptoms.
There’s more salt added to processed foods because salt is a preservative and that can raise our blood pressure and not necessarily be beneficial to our own health goals. Or maybe there's more sugar added because if they take fat out of something, they add more sugar or salt. It can become a vicious circle.
An easier way to avoid those potential problems, is to eat more unprocessed foods, and to make sure your homemade food tastes delicious! You can do that by using things like garlic and spices and herbs.
Herbs like parsley, cilantro, rosemary, and oregano. There’s curry powders, and mint, lemon grass, the list goes on, use your favorite herbs and spices that you have right now in your spice cupboard. How often are you utilizing what you have on hand?
Do you know our first form of medicine came from spices and herbs? They have a very long lineage and we can utilize them on a daily basis. When we add spices and herbs we are activating our food to make it more digestive. When foods are more digestive, that means we're going to excrete more digestive juices, we’ll get more out of our food, including more of the vitamins and minerals.
Our bodies will be less reactive to ourfood and ultimately that food is going to even maybe be more anti-inflammatory.
Garlic and ginger are both anti-inflammatory, as well as almost all herbs and spices, which is so great when we think of them that way.
You can simply throw rosemary into your soup and be adding medicine to your soup.
You can add medicine on top of your salad, your stir fry, your oatmeal.
Use herbs and spices to flavor your foods. Find your favorites, explore new ones, and enjoy yourself as you go!
