Wednesday, June 04, 2014

A Recipe for Health -- Dig Deep














If you want to stay healthy dig deep down into the roots of your being- circulation.  A sedentary lifestyle is detrimental to our health. Everyone knows we need to move the body to insure proper circulation, maintain strength and stay flexible but did you know that many food s can also help insure proper circulation? What’s so important about circulation?

Blood circulates throughout the body carrying nutrients to the organs, muscles and bones. This fresh blood is needed by the body to maintain health. When circulation is compromised parts of the body suffer. That’s why it is good to dig deep into your body and keeps the blood throughout the body moving. But this blood moving around the body also needs to be supplied with nutrients.
Some foods that we eat enhance circulation and some foods like heavy fatty foods inhibit circulation. One simple food that is good for circulation is full of nutrients and is very cheap to buy, is radishes. Yes, those little bunches of red roots (and sometimes black) you see in the grocery store or are so easy to grow in your garden, are packed full of nutrients.

I am one of those people, who love a fresh radish. Its peppery clean taste seems to excite the taste buds while cleansing the palette. Bite into a radish and you can feel the slight jolt of heat. That’s the radish going to work to create circulation throughout your body.

The radish is a root vegetable. It’s very low in calories; about 16 calories per 100g. However, they are a great source of anti-oxidants, minerals, vitamins and dietary fiber. Radishes are low in saturated fat and cholesterol. They are an excellent source of fiber. Radishes are an excellent source of copper, manganese and potassium as well as calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc and sodium.

They also provide a very good supply of vitamin B6 and vitamin C. Vitamin C is a water soluble antioxidant required by the body for the synthesis of collagen and collagen is needed for healthy glowing skin.
B6 is an essential vitamin that has been found to help with carpel tunnel, skin problems, nervous disorders and mucus membranes. It also has been shown to help improve depression.

Folate is another important nutrient is found in radishes. A 2010 opinion article in the New York Times states that folate may be helpful in treating Alzheimer’s disease

In one of the earliest of myths, the hero Gilgamesh goes out in search of a plant that promises to give him immortality. It is the radish that he finds. Buddhism also references the radish as a food that has deep roots. The roots of the radish are like the feeling you get when you are inspired from some deep place within to make a move within your life or to create an object of beauty.


Perhaps may-be the meaning of life lies hidden within the vegetable section of the grocery store where little radishes await to bring forth nutrients that will fire up your salad and bring goodness to the body, the mind and the soul. 

Doctor Lynn



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