In winter time, salads are not my daily choice of food, like they are in summer. I tend to go for the warm and comforting foods I grew up with in The Netherlands where it is always cold and rainy.

Now living in Australia where the weather is so different, I have found that my diet has changed according to the climate. Although winter here in Sydney can be rather cold as well, during the day we often have beautiful clear skies with full sunshine. Some days you can still wear short sleeves even. So nice. During the winter season I do enjoy a salad every now and again and in particular I like to enjoy a pressed salad. 

A pressed salad is more a vegetable salad, than a lettuce salad. it is packed full with nutrient dense and low calorie vegetables from all colours of the rainbow. What I love most about this salad is the fact that all the vegetables in it can be eaten raw, to give you an extra boost of precious enzymes that otherwise would have been destroyed in the cooking process. Because of the way the salad is prepared, the raw vegetable fibers become soft and thus easily digestible. The salad also goes through a slight fermentation process providing you with beneficial bacteria. You can use any vegetable you like, but I like to stick with cruciferous vegetables mainly as they give you the added benefit of immune boosting and cancer fighting activity through the release of powerful ITC’s (isothiocyanates) a compound found only in cruciferous vegetables. 

INGREDIENTS

• celery stalk

• kale

• bok choy

• carrot

• red radish

• cabbage red and green

• spring onion

• pear

Grate, shred, cut or slice all vegetables and put them in a bowl. Per 3 cups of vegetables add 1/2 a teaspoon of sea salt or rock salt. Take the vegetables in your hand and gently massage them. You will notice that water gets released and the vegetables will reduce in size. Once you have massaged the vegetables for a minute or so, put a plate on top of the salad and a heavy jar filled with water to continue the pressing process. You can press the salad for up to 5 hours or just 30 min. This is up to you. Once you are ready to stop pressing, drain of the liquid. If it is to salty, give it a bit of a rinse. Dress the salad with some apple cider vinegar, a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of honey and enjoy. 

Vegetables and fruits come in several different colours, which I am sure you all have noticed!

If you eat at least (and I do recommend you eat more) the 5 recommended servings of vegetables daily, you can almost eat a rainbow of colours. Colours who each serve a special purpose to your health. How cool is that!

All vegetables apart from having vitamins and minerals, also contain several disease fighting PHYTONUTRIENTS. Each colour made up of different phytonutrients and each phytonutrient serves a different purpose. But all phytonutrients have anti oxidant promoting activities. Anti oxidants help to neutralise free radicals therefore preventing cell damage and damage to our DNA. DNA methylation when accumulated results in cancer. More reason to eat several rainbows every day!

Let’s have a look at each colour and it’s super powers:

Phytonutrients can often be identified by the colour of the vegetable.

• Blue & purple foods like berries, eggplant, red cabbage are rich in flavanoids
• Yellow & orange foods like carrots, squash, pumpkin, papaya and melon are rich in beta carotene, hesperidin, lutein/zeaxanthin.
• Red & pink food like tomatoes, guava, cherries, watermelon are rich in lycopene.
• Green foods like kale, spinach, collard greens are rich in indoles.
• White foods like garlic, onion, leek are rich in powerful sulphur containing phytonutrients

BLUE/PURPLE

THINK: Heart, Brain, Bone, Arteries & Cognitive health. Also fights cancer and supports healthy ageing

YELLOW/ORANGE

THINK: Eye health, Healthy immune function, Healthy growth and development

RED/PINK

THINK: Prostate, Urinary tract and DNA health. Protects against Cancer and Heart disease.

GREEN

THINK: Eye health, Arterial function, Lung health, Liver function and Cell health. Also helps Wound healing and Gum health.

WHITE

THINK: Healthy bones, Circulatory system, Fights Heart disease and Cancer

This is 1 serve of vegetables. 75gr, 1/2 a cup. We are advised as adults to eat at least 5 of these serves every day and our children to have at least 2 serves, but from research we know that many struggle to reach this number of serves.

I want to give you a few ideas to help you reach your daily quota. In the morning most of us reach for the cereal, after all it is so quick and easy. But by doing so you miss out on an awesome opportunity to start of your day with a serve or 2.

Let’s us start with a satisfying breakfast;

• How about  some eggs with a side of sauteed spinach, mushrooms and baked beans next time? 1 cup of raw spinach is 1 serve, but by the time you saute that not much is left over, add 1/2 a cup of mushrooms and 1/2 a cup of baked beans and you are well over half way of your daily quota! And who doesn’t love a full breakfast first thing in the morning?

If you have a sandwich for lunch or a wrap;

• why not pack it with a cup of salad greens or sprouts, some cucumber and tomato. Add some chicken, cheese or beef and you will be sweet for the rest of the afternoon plus you got another serve out of the way!

If you are a salad person;

• 2 cups of leafy salad greens make up 2 serves, add some carrot, tomato, cucumber, red onion and you are well on your way to the nirvana of ultimate health 😉
• Coleslaw (homemade!) is another awesome salad full of natures cancer fighting goodness. The small green cup in the picture above is exactly 1 serve of rainbow coleslaw. I bet you can easily devour 3 serves in one sitting!

How about an afternoon snack, I hear you ask,

• Some raw carrots, celery sticks, cucumber and cherry tomatoes served with hommus is delicious way to get those life giving phytonutrients into your cells. And this is a great snack for morning tea or afternoon tea instead of the office donuts that get passed around! Just have those donuts after the healthy stuff, okay? 😉

Now that you are already 4 serves in, dinner will be easy.

• Just pick your favourite vegetable and have 75 grams of it. But if you had cereal for breakfast, well, you will need to have 300 grams of you favourite vegetables. How about some delicious roasted broccoli or cauliflower, topped with some grated cheese? Another favourite of mine are green beans and carrots, covered in butter and a little bit of garlic.

Please share with us on Facebook your favourite way to get your veggies in? Do you know how many serves you get each day?

Try to reach the 5 serves a day goal and observe how you feel.

For this and more tips to balance your health and wellbeing join me for my FREE 6 week nutrition course in The Ponds from April 23rd. For more info contact me at annemarie@honestpantry.com.au ‪