SALADE NICOISE — CREATING HEALTHY TIMES

The Mediterranean diet is known as one of the healthiest ways to eat. I totally agree: what’s better than sun-ripened fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables combined with high-quality fish, meat, and eggs? Unfortunately, a lot of today’s produce and meats come from large farms that deprive the soil, push growth with fertilizers and then need to protect weak plants with pesticides. And even if it’s labeled as organic, long-distance transportation diminishes the nutritional value.
Whenever I can, I try to buy meat, dairy, and eggs that come from smaller, local farms as well as fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables from the area. This produce is naturally packed with nutrients and tastes so much better than anything you can buy at your standard supermarket. High-quality nutrients are crucial for nourishing the body and deliver the tools for cell renewal, growth, and repair. An abundance of minerals, amino acids, vitamins, and other essential nutrients naturally aid the detoxification process and restore the immune system.
Absolutely anything that goes into the body needs to be processed - nutrients need to be extracted and waste has to be expelled. This process takes energy. Consuming large amounts of low-quality food takes up more energy for the clean-up process, and eventually liver and kidneys get overwhelmed. This results in low energy and fatigue, as well as other symptoms and diseases caused by toxic waste accumulation such as migraines, low immune system function, allergies, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, and many more.

The good news is that the opposite is true as well; keeping the intake of toxins and waste low, not feeding chronic inflammation and aiding the detoxification process will eventually result in more energy, less fatigue, a stronger immune system, and an over-all healthier, functional body. This is why it is important to keep up the positive balance of expelling more toxins from the body than can enter it. The following steps can help shifting this process into the right direction:

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) to stop feeding chronic gut inflammation. Chronic inflammation in the gut produces significant amounts of toxic substances that are absorbed into the bloodstream, causing a great number of symptoms. Once we stop feeding gut inflammation by cutting out grains, gluten, lactose, starch, and refined sugar, the inflammation starts subsiding and with it, the amounts of toxic waste they produce.
Natural, high-quality food from the best sources possible or affordable, meaning as little processed foods as possible. Seasonal, fresh, and possibly organic produce, pastured (not free-range) chicken for meat and eggs, grass-fed beef for meat and dairy, wild-caught fish, and game meat provide more nutrients and minerals that aid in detoxification of the body, restoration of the immune system, and proper functioning on the cellular level.
Extra minerals to aid detoxification of already accumulated toxins on a cellular level. Juicing and soups to give the body plenty of easily absorbable minerals that do not require digestion, but enter the bloodstream right away. Natural minerals from fruit and vegetables are very small and can pass through cell walls easily and aid in cleaning out toxins on a cellular level. Over time, bodily functions will be restored and the body gets more and more efficient, resulting in higher energy.
Eliminating toxic cleaning products, skin products, detergent, dryer sheets, plastic food containers, dishes, bottles, etc. to keep the amount of toxins that enter the body through skin, digestion, or inhalation as low as possible.

Changing your lifestyle and starting a cleaning process like this can be tricky depending on your health status and at times cause die-off reactions (also called Herxheimer reactions) with unpleasant symptoms. But these are only temporary and part of the journey towards health. I am following this lifestyle for over ten years now, following these rules I have gotten rid of my severe gut inflammation, chronic fatigue, SIBO, IBS, dyspepsia, anxiety as well as severe allergies.

I spend more time buying healthy groceries and cooking, but after two years of this way of life, I spent less and less time being sick and sitting in hospitals and doctors waiting rooms hoping for a cure that never came.

SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS
2 fresh tuna steaks, grilled (you can also use 1 can tuna drained and flaked instead)
2 eggs, hard boiled and cut into wedges
1 head Boston lettuce, rinsed and patted dry with a clean kitchen towel or paper towel
1/2 lbs green beans, steamed
6 cocktail tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 bell pepper
1/2 English cucumber
1 scallion, sliced
1/4 cup kalamata olives, drained

for garnish:
1/8 cup parsley, minced
1 scallion, chopped

for the dressing:
basic vinaigrette

INSTRUCTIONS
On a large plate, arrange the Boston lettuce as a base. Top with the green beans, tomatoes, onions, kalamata olives, bell pepper, eggs, and tuna.

Drizzle with vinaigrette. Sprinkle with minced parsley and scallions.

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