Eating In Seasons: Spring Diet Plan

Make your own spring diet plan

When spring comes we finally start enjoying all those great food that comes with this season.

When that happens, we become more aware of nature’s awakening. New life is being born and everything is regenerating. This doesn’t happen only in nature; it happens all around us, even inside us. That’s why spring is the best time for taking foods high in antioxidants.

In spring, we become more active and we want to start doing new things. We tend to sleep less and we wake up earlier in the morning.

In order to keep the energy, we need to change our diet and start eating antioxidant foods. The healthiest way of eating is following seasons and consuming food that grows in your area. So, now is the good time to make own healthy diet plan!

Some food should be left with winter and some should be introduced during spring months. It’s pretty easy to reorganize the daily menu to fit the spring rules. Food should be cooked for a very short time, which means you will spend less time preparing the meal and at the same time be getting more nutrients from your diet.

But, whatever you eat, avoid refined, processed food, especially white sugar. It will take your energy away and make you feel tired and slow.

Here are some suggestions for daily menu you can easily apply in order to make your own spring healthy diet plan.

Breakfast

If you haven’t tried any kind of cereal breakfast, spring is the best time to do it. Great spring breakfast is barley porridge with dry apricots. You will be surprised how good it tastes.

Lunch

Replace very long cooking with short one. Best antioxidant foods are green vegetables and they should be eaten every day if possible.

Include cereals and legumes in your weekly menu. Barley is a great spring cereal and it can easily be combined with wholegrain rice or any other cereal. Lentils are main legumes in spring and they could be prepared as soup, side dish or stew.

Try to eat a soup as often as you can, even if you’re not fond of it, because it’s healthy. Spring soups are lighter and less spicy then winter ones.

Dinner

Dinner is a great time of the day to take some foods high in antioxidants and to give your day the last touch of health. Dinner food should be light, prepared easily and quickly.

Best choice is a salad and all variations you can think of. Mix endive, radicchio, rocket and add some high quality oil to season the salad. But, pay attention to the oil you use. Unrefined cold-pressed oil is the healthiest choice. Best spring oil is olive oil.

You can add all sorts of food you want to the salad, to make it more filling. Eggs, tuna, olives, all kinds of cheese are well combined with salad.

Include sprouts in your meals. They go well with salad, but could also be combined with cottage cheese, sandwich made of whole grain bread or soup.

 

Green vegetables – foods high in antioxidants

The best antioxidant foods are green vegetables. You can eat broccoli, spinach, cabbage, chicory, kale and so on. They are all rich in folic acid, beta carotene, vitamin C, calcium and iron. Like most vegetables, green vegetables are also good for maintaining and controlling the body weight because they contain few calories and are full of fibers. They could be eaten raw as part of the salad. Green vegetables could be cooked in several ways – they could be steamed, boiled, roasted or added into soups.

Green vegetables contain chlorophyll, which gives them wonderful green color and make them great antioxidant food. Chlorophyll is strong antioxidant and has incredible bodycleansing effect. If eaten quite often, green vegetables will cause us to be thinner and our skin will look more beautiful.

The rule number one for cooking green vegetables is not to be overcooked!

Careful preparation is worth while because dark green vegetables are excellent sources of vitamins and they are lost during long cooking.

The best way to ensure flavor, color and food value is to cook vegetables only until they are tender. The lesser time you cook them, the more nutrients are retained. It is important to always check the texture of the vegetables while cooking.

Here are some suggestions for cooking green vegetables:

1. Wash the vegetables through lots of water or soak them in water and leave for a few minutes before rinsing.
2. Pour water in a pot and let it boil for a few minutes. The amount of water depends on the amount of vegetables you're cooking. It should be enough to cover the vegetables.
3. Place the green vegetables in the boiling water and add a pinch of salt. Let it boil for a couple of minutes without covering the pot.

At the end, serve as main or side dish, with olive oil and flax seeds.

 

Sprouts – important part of your spring diet plan

Sprouts are another spring food rich in chlorophyll, which is activated by sprouting. Sprouts contain enzymes, plant proteins, trace elements, minerals and vitamins.

Foods high in antioxidants are fresh, rich in vitamins and minerals, but they also contain a vital energy. Sprouts are alive and for that matter considered to be extremely healthy. The life energy in fresh sprouts stimulates the body’s self-cleansing and self-healing abilities.

There are three kinds of sprouts.

Seeds

Seeds include alfalfa, celery, clover, oats, radish, fenugreek, and sunflower. Alfalfa sprouts are the most popular and they contain much chlorophyll, as well as vitamins A, B complex, C, D, E, and so on. Alfalfa sprouts are also full of iron, calcium, phosphorous, and sulphur.

Grains

Most popular grains are wheat, buckwheat, barley, millet, and rice.

Legumes

Legumes include lentils, mung beans, and soy beans.

Sprouts are best when eaten raw, because cooking always destroys a large part of the nutritional content. The entire sprout could be eaten, including leaves and roots. You can eat sprouts as a separate dish, but you can also add them to salads, sandwiches, or soups.