If I had to choose...🥬

🥬 Choices.
Our life is a concatenation of choices. From the tiny and insignificant ones to those keeping us awake and sweating during the long nights.
I found that being able to listen to my intuition, living from the heart, always leads to me making the best choice available.
By following my feeling I’ve been able to keep changing my life for the better.
This wasn’t always my way. Like many others, perhaps most of us, I used to make choices based on opinions of my surroundings, based on fears, based on impatience.
Then somewhere somehow I’ve decided that my Soul knows better and I stopped listening to others and took control of my wants and needs.

🥬 So here we are, part of this amazing community, and once again we are being presented with a choice: What would be your only food if you had just one choice for the rest of your life?

🥬 For someone who loves variety in food, this is a very tough choice. Honestly, I was sitting here and thinking what would I choose, because I really wanted to write and make my entry into this community. But I couldn't think of any meal I would like forever. Everything would become boring after not too long time, of that I am sure.
I will be completely honest with you ladies (and gentlemen who might be reading as well).
I asked my daughter this question and her immediate reply was: a salad. And I was like: of course!
This is the perfect solution to the dilemma. Because I was thinking especially about all kinds of fruits, but then every meal would be always just that one fruit.
But salad, oh my, that means endless variations!
So yes, that would be my choice for every day of my life. I love veggies and as a vegan, I eat them mostly. It is actually my wish to eat only raw foods, but to get there is for me somewhat difficult.
Why?
I guess because of too many choices we have available in the present day in the wealthy parts of the world.

🥬 For almost a year now I am living in Mexico and I can tell you, the food here is super delicious.
I was very much surprised by the Mexican cuisine when I found out there is much more to it than just tacos and beans. ( Please excuse my ignorance, my Mexican amigos ☺️)
But a lot of Mexican dishes are prepared with veggies, herbs, and spices. The original diet of Mexican tribes was mostly vegan. In the Mexican kitchen people also include flowers like Hibiscus or Pumpkin flowers. These are surprisingly delicious and can be prepared in various styles. I would surely add these to my salads, especially if you bake the Hibiscus, flores de Jamaica, and spice them up, they are a delicious meat replacement for those who are addicted to chewing like me.

🥬 Another advantage of eating salad every day is the leafy greens. I just love all kinds of leaves from baby spinach to rocket, the crispy Romain lettuce hearts, or the purple oak lettuce.
These are loaded with chlorophyll, vitamins, and distilled water.
Therefore eating salads with various kinds of lettuce can help us improve our health.
Lettuces can add to better sleep, lower cholesterol, reduce inflammation and even anxiety.
Eating only salads all kinds of raw veggies would help me tremendously not only to improve my health but also to lose some extra weight. There is not much “bad stuff” in it, especially not if we can eat mostly organic greens.
Although some vegetables are not as suitable for us as they would seem due to the high content of anti-nutrients or starch. We should avoid eating raw eggplants and we should always heat our kale a bit to make it digestible.

🥬 My ideal salad is in first place big. I love to make really a big salad bowl, of course, we are with three people, but sometimes I could eat it all by myself.
I always use the base of lettuces and add whatever is available. Sometimes I like a bit spicy salad with red onion, capers, and pickles.
Sometimes I love a simple version with potato, black pepper, and vegan mayo.
Other times I enjoy making Buddha bowls with self-made dressing from avocado and garlic, rasped carrots, cucumber, bell peppers, tomato, leak, seeds, nuts, and a bit of quinoa.
From time to time I prepare a liter of dressing from lemon juice, honey, dill, and water and keep it in a closed bottle in my fridge. This makes it easier and much faster to prepare your salads in hurry.

🥬 Before I moved to Mexico I was living in a forest in the mountains of the Czech Republic.
We moved there from the Netherlands in 2014 to flee the disaster coming to the “free country”
and bought an old house in the magical and abundant nature where we were planning to grow our food and live off-grid and prepare for...well, we all know now.
Our garden, if we didn’t take care of it properly, was like a wild jungle full of herbs and edible plants.
I enjoyed picking some of these herbs into my basket and making pesto. Usually, I used young nettles, dandelion leaves, ground elder, pumpkin seeds which are loaded with zinc, and a bit of Celtic salt. One of my friends measured the Bovis value of my pesto and it was super high.
No wonder at such a place, our garden was full of oversized dandelion flowers and various wild herbs. The soil in the forest is always a bit moist and still full of important minerals. This pesto perhaps didn't seem very appealing but I guarantee you, the taste was de-li-ci-ous.
I would use it to accompany my salad or just to dip in the carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, and sweet potato. Yum Yum.

🥬 Although it is much better for our body to not combine raw and cooked food, I still like to enjoy my salads with my cooked meals or to add grilled veggies like zucchini and mushrooms to my salads. It makes it a more satisfying meal when we are moving away from our food addictions but are still too hooked on the regular diet. Or too weak to make an abrupt change. Which is my case.
So as I see it, if I had to make this choice today, it would change my life for the better.

I think salads are the most variable foods we can prepare and make sure we enjoy every meal while our body gets nourished, energized, and cleaned. Almost as if it was planned by the nature. 😉

🥬 It was such a pleasure to write this article, I didn't even expect it would be fun to write about food but I truly hope you had fun reading it. I do however enjoy taking pics of my creations and gladly share them with other food lovers. Maybe I can inspire you today to choose a healthier meal in case you too like to change your lifestyle.

As I am new to this platform I only have one friend whom I would love to invite to this community. Come and join the ladies @misslasvegas You are such an inspiration 🥰