This month's tip
Raw and green, before anything cooked
Every month I share one topic worth your attention, one raw recipe you can make in minutes, and a short quiz so the lesson sticks. This month it is the greens habit that takes sixty seconds.
The topic: greens go first
Most of us mean to eat more greens and then never quite get there. The salad sits beside the plate, the cooked food gets eaten, and the greens go back in the refrigerator to wilt. The fix is not more willpower. It is a change of order.
Eat something raw and green before your first cooked meal of the day. Not a whole salad — a handful. Spinach blended into your shake, cucumber slices with lemon, a few sprigs of parsley chewed slowly, romaine leaves eaten out of hand like chips.
Living food arrives with its enzymes and its water still intact, and that is exactly what long cooking takes away. Put greens first and they get eaten while you are hungry, not offered when you are already full.
Add a little healthy fat — avocado, olive oil, a few raw seeds — so the fat-soluble vitamins can actually be absorbed. Then watch what changes over thirty days: steadier energy, easier digestion, and less appetite for the heavy food that used to come first.
The recipe: lemon parsley crunch salad
No cooking, no chopping board needed. Sixty seconds, one bowl, serves one.
- 2 big handfuls of romaine or spinach, torn by hand
- A small handful of flat-leaf parsley, torn
- Half a cucumber, snapped into pieces
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, or a quarter of an avocado
- A pinch of sea salt and a grind of black pepper
- A spoonful of raw sunflower or pumpkin seeds for crunch
Drop everything in a bowl, squeeze the lemon over, add the oil and salt, and toss with your hands until every leaf shines. Eat it standing up if you must — it still counts.
Make it a meal by adding chopped tomato, sliced avocado and a handful of soaked walnuts.
The quiz: how well do you know your greens?
Five quick questions. No wrong answers, only new ones.
1. What does eating something raw and green first do best?
2. Cooking greens for a long time mainly costs you what?
3. Which of these is a green worth eating raw every week?
4. What helps your body absorb the vitamins in a raw salad?
5. You need a big salad for greens to count.
Answer all five to see your score.
Keep going
Want the deeper version of this month's topic? The Eating Raw page walks through the full protocol, and the 12 Week Health Challenge gives you a group to do it with. If you would rather have someone walk beside you, book a free 15-minute call on the Counseling page.