“Beets, Kale and a lot more stuff” Salad

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I found a recipe online called “Kale Detox” and as always, I couldn’t help myself, but modify it.

I don’t always have all the ingredients a recipe is asking for, or I think some substitutions are going to get me a better final product. In this case, I substituted walnuts with hemp seeds. I took out the garlic and used green onion and I made my own dressing with no mustard. So, I made a few changes to the original…and I came out with a new recipe, (if you want to see the original recipe, you’ll have to get inside my Free Private Facebook Group and that’s where you’ll find it).

My version of the salad is called: “Beets, Kale, and a lot more stuff” because it does have a lot of stuff in it. ***

Ingredients:

• 1 head dino kale, leaves thinly sliced, stem removed
• 1 head Russian red kale, leaves finely chopped, stems removed
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut in matches
• 6 small radishes, cut in matches
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and grated
• 1/2 small cucumber, peeled and cut in matches
• 1 large ripe avocado, peeled and diced
• 9 oz. steamed beets, diced (you can roast them too, but in the interest of time I steamed them)
• 3 Tbsp hemp seeds
• 3 green onions
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley

Dressing Ingredients:

• olive oil about 1/4 cup
• lemon juice of 1 lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Prep Instructions:

• Step 1. In a large salad bowl, massage the 2 kale together with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper
• Step 2. Chop radishes, cucumber, bell pepper, avocado and beets
• Step 3. Peel and shred the carrot
• Step 4. Add all the other ingredients to the kale and toss together

Hint:

• This salad is great served immediately, as well as, 1 or 2 days later, as it just gets better with time (all the ingredients marinate and the flavors blend together nicely). This is the reason I substituted garlic with the green onion. I don’t like when garlic gets “old and marinates” past 24 hours.

The good news about this salad is, if you are looking for low net carb recipes, this is a good one. As you can see on the nutrition facts on the left, although it has 11 g of carbs per serving, 5g is in the form of fiber, which leaves only 6g as net carbs.

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Health transformation is complex and multidimensional!

Now, of course, if you are here, you know that I’m all about healing with foods (movement, mindset, sleep, etc.)-as it takes lifestyle transformation to turn your health around, not an isolated superfood or supplement. Those are awesome additions to a strong healing lifestyle.

My focus is on healing silent inflammation and addressing the state of gut health as it is the gate-keeper of your health. It’s no news anymore that “all diseases begin in the gut”, that the health and balance of the microbes living inside our gut is crucial to achieving optimal health and reversing dis-ease processes.

Although health transformation is complex and multidimensional I feel confident to say that

“your health transformation begins in your kitchen!”

Let’s see how.

There are 3 steps I take my clients through when we meet and talk about health transformation:

#1. REMOVE-get rid of what doesn’t support your healing:

• FOOD For more insight on how to start the food removal process, you can read a past blog post here. I review the criteria to go by when cleaning your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer of processed foods.
• Emotions/thoughts, like anger, frustration, fear, disappointment, guilt, sorrow, and
• Habits, like smoking, drinking, not sleeping enough, being sedentary, etc.

#2. REBUILD-support your body to heal itself with

• FOOD. Make a conscious decision every day, every meal, every bite, to eat one nourishing food, one nutrient dense food that will heal the gut, feed the mitochondria and support your liver to detox. Examples are meat and bone stock, organ meats, good fats like grass-fed butter, coconut oil, avocado, nuts and seeds and plenty of rainbow-like colored vegetables and some fruits.
• Emotions/thoughts like appreciation, hope, gratitude, thankfulness, joy, elation, triumph, jubilation, patience
• Habits, like exercise, good sleep ritual, self-care time, family and friends time, nature time, etc.

#3. REINOCULATE-make friends again with the microorganisms that make 90% of who you really are

• Eat fermented foods,
• Take a good probiotic supplement and
• Change habits, like, spend more time in nature, sunbathe and
• Think differently about you and your environment. You are part of the earth and only by living in a symbiotic relationship with all the various microbes, parasites and viruses that share the earth with us, you will stay healthy. That’s a powerful mindset shift for the 21st century “cyberman” or “cyberwoman”.

As you can see all of these 3 steps include the same elements or a variation of it.

Today I invite you to begin with the FOOD component, I invite you to jump-start your health journey from the kitchen.

How?

1. Clean up your kitchen,
2. Get the kitchen tools you need to start cooking health-supporting foods and
3. Go try today’s recipe!

To help you with step #2 I created a resource guide listing that must have kitchen tools for “healing cooking”. Get the resource guide below.
“My top 7 resources for cooking foods that heal” (HINT: I use #2. every day and it’s not a blender).