It’s October, which means the Season is shifting from summer to fall or winter to spring, depending on which hemisphere you are in! If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the mornings are crisp and cool and I am wearing a sweatshirt or jacket to walk my dog.
A big shift in the seasons is the perfect time to make some changes in your life – in your physical body, in your mental body and relationships and in your home. Channel this energy of change that is occurring all around you and focus it on what will improve your life.
Most of us here in the West have too much. Too many belongings which we maintain and manage, massive overwhelm in our minds which makes it hard to sleep, to be present for the beautiful moments, and too much in our bodies – so many of us consume foods such as sugar that ultimately slow us down, create cravings and negatively impact how we function.
This week I will describe how to Cleanse Your Body, next week, how to Cleanse Your Mind & Relationships & the third week, how to Cleanse Your Home. These three weeks will be put together on a blog, that you can read here <<HYPERLINK>>.
I encourage you to try all three – once you start to generate that kind of energy in one sphere of your life, it’s much easier to just spread it across all aspects of your life. However, if you have never cleansed, pick the area of your life that feels most pressing, most overwhelming and start there. You can do each cleanse, one/week if that feels most doable!
Cleanse Your Body
The goal is to cut out all animal products, caffeine, alcohol, sugar etc and eat just plants for at least a week. If you consume a lot of coffee, start to wean yourself off for a few days, otherwise you will get headaches! If you live with people, see if they will do this with you – it makes it much easier. Also – I suggest bulk cooking the soups and prepping the salads, so you have them in your fridge ready to go when it’s meal time.
Consume a lot of water and herbal tea. You can make your own teas, e.g. raw ginger root, fennel seeds, cinnamon stick. Hydrate!
Basic Green Smoothie
- 2 c water
- handful greens (spinach, kale, parsley etc)
- 1 banana
- 1 apple or pear or 1 c apple sauce
optional handful of dried fruit (raisins, goji berries, cranberries etc)
optional handful of nuts (eating nuts 7 days/week reduces chance of death by 20% from heart disease & cancer!)
optional tablespoon of seeds (chia or flax)
At bedtime I put the nuts, seeds and dried fruit in 3 cups of water in my blender. Don’t worry if you don’t get to this – it just makes them easier to break down in the blender.
Simple Vegetable soup
- Leek
- Garlic clove
- Ginger knob (1″ cube)
- Zucchini or squash
- Peeled sweet potato, cubed into 1″
- 2 Handfuls of greens (spinach, kale, chard – do more spinach since it reduces down)
- 1 stock cube
- 4 c water
- bay leaf
- Spices, e.g. 1/2 teaspoon of each cumin, coriander, turmeric, hing/ asoefetida and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne. Or you can add 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder to keep it simple!
Fry leek, garlic, ginger, zucchini in ghee until they soften (using a little water, so they don’t stick to pan). Add spices. Add water, stock cube, sweet potatoes and bay leaf and cook until the sweet potatoes are softened. Add greens until wilted. Blend and garnish with sprouts or toasted nuts.
I mix this up, by using onions or green onions or shallots. I use white potatoes or corn, cut off the cob if I don’t have sweet potatoes (white potatoes are not as nutritious).
Kitchari: Mono-diet cleanse.
This dish you can make in bulk and eat three times a day as an alternative style of cleanse.
- 2½c white rice
- 1 c mung daal
- 6 c water or 5 c water, 1 c coconut milk
- 1 inch ginger, chopped
- 2 pinches salt
- 2 tsp ghee
- 1/2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 pinch of hing/asoefetida (optional)
- 2 tbs chopped green onions
- 2 c chopped veggies – sweet potato, zucchini, carrots
- handful of pumpkin or sunflower seeds (optional)
Remove stones from daal and rice – wash well! cook rice & daal in water, with salt, covered until soft, about 10 minutes.
Chop veggies and add to rice/daal mix and cook for 10 mins more.
sauté the spices & add to the veg/rice/daal mix. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve!
Don’t worry if you can’t find Hing (I bought mine on Amazon). You can add cinnamon too if you like the sweeter flavor or even use coconut milk as the liquid. Ghee is clarified butter – use oil if you can’t get your hands on it!
Eat this food every day, three times a day for at least 3 days, or up to two weeks. Vary the vegetables and spices.
Marinated Kale Salad
- handful of chopped leafy green (e.g. kale, turnip greens, mustard greens).
- ½ tsp salt
Salad dressing
- ½ lemon
- equal amount of oil (as produced by the lemon)
- 1 tsp finely chopped garlic
- 1 tsp finely chopped ginger
Any mix of the following:
- ¼ c seeds (e.g. pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia, hemp)
- ¼ c dried berries (e.g. cranberries, blueberries) or raisins
- ½ grated carrot
- ½ c grated raw beetroot
- ½ avocado
- chopped tomatoes
- chopped green onions, cilantro, parsley – as you wish
Mix greens with salt to start the breaking down process. Add carrot and beetroot if using and toss with salad dressing. Leave for at least 30 mins.
Add any of the other ingredients and eat (softer ingredients don’t want to sit because then it becomes soggy!)
Let me know your intentions: post them here.