Healthy Living: Fasting And Sprouts – Renewing Body And Spirit – Limerick Leader

WE TALK, read and care so much for our bodies – how we look, what we wear, what we put on our skin, what we feed our cells… There is another element of health, which is often pushed aside. Our mind and spirit need nurturing also. Can an angry, stressed, emotionally drained person be healthy?

The biochemical changes these emotions cause, can play havoc on our adrenal glands and through the stress hormones it produces, affect our entire system.

The beginning of spring is a great time to recharge our body and spirit. After the short grey days and long dark nights as nature renews itself it is a perfect time to encourage yourself and your family to do a type of lent – if you like. I hear many people give up chocolate or treats for lent – and while I wholeheartedly support reducing sweets it could make one feel just miserable. Try to make it more meaningful this time. Instead of just giving up rubbish food and bad habits why not take on a healthier diet and some good habits.

Some people fast this time of the year – whether for spiritual or health purposes, and it is not a bad idea since it takes a fast sometimes to support your immune system getting rid of faulty cells and debris, but also to enable the spirit to overcome the flesh. However, the prophet Isaiah pointed out that true fasting is not merely starving and feeling sorry for ourselves – rather it should be done as a renewal of our actions such as feeding the poor and helping the oppressed; “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear.”

Food wise, bone broths are wonderful and warming options along with vegetable juices and herb teas for fasting. Fifty one percent of our everyday diet should come from un-processed, raw foods to enable our immune system to work its best and prevent degenerative diseases.

Introducing some raw foods in the form of salads, fermented vegetables, fresh fruits, and sprouts on the side of our cooked meals for example is an easy and delicious way to enhance our cells with life giving nutrients so much needed after all the comfort foods of the winter.

Sprouts represent the renewing nature bursting to life. Cheap, fun to grow and bursting with nutrients and enzymes, these little sprouts are wonderful to recharge your tired body. You can use a great variety of seeds and beans.

Just soak them overnight in triple the amount of water, drain in the morning, place a sieve over the mouth of the soaking jar, and rinse them twice a day. Within 3 days they are ready to eat as sandwich and wrap fillers, salad toppings or on the side of any dish.

Their nutritional content and digestibility surpass the original seed / bean itself and changes the food source from acidifying to an alkalising superfood.