Everything natural we eat, has health benefits, but the green stuff has even more! The green in the picture came straight from the farm-land, inclusive the little fellow, who I gave a nice new living environment.
In my former blog ‘the greener the better‘ I wrote about the mayor benefits of chlorophyll, iron and the life-giving energy prana in greens. Here I will highlight the health benefits of three specific green leaves of this winter season: turnip-tops, spinach and endive.
Endive is very good for detoxing the body. When you detox your body, you detox your mind as well. Our food influences our thoughts and thoughts are the base for our emotions and those determine actions. And our actions provoke reactions. Everything starts with the energy of food. And of course endive has a lot of iron, vitamin K and A, but it has other deeper spiritual benefits: it is such a light green veggie, that our thoughts become light as well. Try not to overcook it, raw is the best way to eat endive or maybe cooked for just 2 minutes, not more.
Spinach has a stronger leave. It also has a darker green color, that means it has more chlorophyll in it. Endive is lighter of color. They each contain a lot of prana. Spinach is light compared to other veggies, but compared to endive it is heavier. The taste is also stronger. But this heaviness is good, it gives us strength. The stronger the leave, the more strength it gives us. The green leaves of paksoi are comparable with spinach, and those have also dark green, strong leaves. These dark green leaves help us to get discipline to controle our thoughts: we need inner strength for that.
Turnip-tops are surprisingly healthy; they contain a lot of sulphur and therefor they have a detoxifying effect on the liver. This is very important for our physical bodie, but also for the mind: it helps to drain negative thinking and emotions (which are mostly accumulated in the liver). When someone is angry or has a lot of fear, eating raw turnip-tops can really help to let all the negative energy flow off. It has a deeper detox effect than endive, which has soft taste. The turnip leave is stronger than endive, but not as strong as spinach. It is different: it has a spicy taste. This is the factor that can detox us strongly from toxics that enter our body with food and the air (those toxics give ‘toxic thoughts’ too!).
Turnip-tops are also antibacterial and can help us heal from any bacterial infection. Mostly those infections come from our ‘toxic’ thoughts: the body isn’t separate from the mind. Every symptom is connected with our energy of thoughts, emotions and experiences. But with a physical detox, we can clean the energy of our inner energetic world too. Especially with prana-rich food, which is the pure Divine Energy; the same as our soul. Green cleans us: body, mind & soul! That means that detoxing the body can help our inner process to Moksha, in which we clean our inner energy with the art of yoga.
If you have trouble concentrating during meditation, or if you want to support your yoga practice, it would be worth trying to detox with greens for a couple of days to feel the difference. Try to feel with your own intuition what’s best for you, not everybody is the same. Some people love to detox with only raw foods, and others really need some stronger food to be able to function in daily life. It is recommendable not to diet. You have to change your whole lifestyle into Sattvic, otherwise it is never going to work. Diet means yoyo: up and down. Detoxing is different from dieting: it is a small cleaning operation. This helps to become strong to be able to hold on to your indefinite renewed lifestyle. You only help with a physical instrument to control the energy. Compare it to a great spring-clean of your house, so that the rest of the year you only have to maintain it clean and austere with little effort.
What could help is the following detox program for just 3 days:
- Eat only vegan raw food these 3 days
- Start your day with hot water and lime, drink this also in the afternoon and evening
- After the water and lime drink one green smoothie from the slow juicer or a glass of fresh wheatgrass juice
- Eat fruits in the morning, a filled green smoothie in the afternoon and a green salad in the evening
- During the day drink at least 6 glasses of water
- For other drinks besides the water and smoothies, only use herbal tea, for example with fresh ginger and cinnamon (which also helps the detoxing process)
Of course this is just to inspire you: by reading this your intuition will fine tune your own personal detox program. It is better not to do this when you are very busy from work or school, or when you have to do a lot of physical work, then it would be better to eat more carbohydrates. You will feel yourself what to do. After 3 days you might feel the detoxing process working in your body: that is not always comfortable, but the following days you will notice the light feeling which will also give you light thoughts: those are easier to put aside and to become in between thoughts in a state of Samadhi during meditation.
YOGA LIFESTYLE 