Delicious Detox Salad with Dijon Maple Dressing

Happy New Year my joyous readers!

Every New Year it's hard not to turn on the television or open a newspaper without being bombarded with words like "detox", "weight-loss", "cleanses" and assaulted with starvation-esque like diets and diet pills. All of these promising to transform your body into a Victoria's Secret model or GQ magazine cover model. Instead of punishing your body with these tricks that are not only damaging but also, further emphasize our societies obsession with thinness and sabotage your self-esteem, why not just make it a lifestyle habit to eat clean delicious food? Hoorah for real food!

Yes, it really is that simple, if and only if you start out slowly. While some people thrive on dramatic change, unfortunately studies show that crash diets and severe detoxes may have an initial weight loss, but eventually you will be right back where you started. What makes it worse is that many end up gaining even more weight than where they started. This takes it's toll on your self-esteem, plus it's horrendous from a metabolic standpoint to do this type of yo-yo dieting.

Without further adieu, I want to share my amazing detox salad recipe I ate for dinner last night. I got home from a holiday vacation and since I've been gone for a while I had very little in my fridge. (I did buy some spinach from the corner store, but everything else was on hand). When I sat down to eat, I thought to myself, the majority of my ingredients contained detoxifying, cancer-preventative, immune-enhancing phytochemicals and I need to share this recipe with my readers!

Detox Salad with Dijon Maple Dressing

Ingredients:

Half a head of purple cabbage, finely chopped

3 carrots, cut into small pieces or shredded

Half a red onion, finely chopped

3 large handfuls of spinach

Method: Toss all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together.

Dressing:

2 tbsp sulfite-free dijon dressing (this will usually be in the organics section of your grocery store)

A few gluggs of real maple syrup or 5-6 drops of stevia (depends on how sweet you like it)

A few gluggs of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Squirt juice of half a lemon

3 tbsp filtered water

Method: Combine all these ingredients into a small bowl and whisk with a fork. Give it a little taste test! Pour the dressing over the salad and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Generously serves 2.

I also made bruschetta which provided immune-enhancing and cholesterol lowering abilities from the 2 garlic cloves I used. I used fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, evoo, sea salt and pepper.

By the way, this salad tasted like sunshine. The antioxidant boost you will get from it will give you a spring in your step. The health benefits are endless and here's what you need to know:

Megawatt dose of alkaline minerals: calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and iron. Most people are quite acidic from pharma, artificial sweeteners, dairy, sugar and processed foods. An acidic body is a magnet for disease and poor health.

Bone-building: Again due to the minerals this salad contains in all whole food based sources make it an extremely bone-building formula.

Detoxifying: Cabbage and leafy greens contain plant medicines such as indole 3 carbinol, chlorophyll, sulfur, vitamin C that aid the liver in detoxifying hormones, heavy metals, chemicals and clean the blood. And this just barely scratches the surface.

Cancer-prevention: Just look at the colour of this salad - HELLO antioxidants galore. Ever wonder what gives plant foods their beautiful colours? These chemical compounds create beauty from the inside out for you too, plus they do double duty by strengthening your cell to ward off disease and attack invaders to keep your immune system strong.

If you want to learn the tools to feeling and looking fab from the inside out for 2012, I'm teaching a workshop at 889 Yonge in January. Click here for details: http://www.889yoga.com/special_events_889_yonge-303.html Also, if you sign up for all 5 of my workshops (1 per month) at 889 Yonge, you get one seminar FREE!

Also, if you want a personalized meal plan and an in-person session (skype if you live in another country), then do check out my nutrition services page. I will also be offering a 2-week clean eating meal plan with a 20-minute Skype consult for those who cannot afford a custom meal plan - details are forthcoming!

Remember the key to feeling more joyous and healthy is taking baby steps. Start slowly with you changes you can actually maintain ie. lemon and water every morning, or start with one of these detox suggestions. You can do it! The feeling you will get from these positive changes keep you on track.

Be joyous,

Joy