Superfoods are just regular foods that contain a higher than normal amount of vitamins and minerals. They are excellent foods to nourish your body, and can easily be added to meals for a well-balanced diet.
However, if you are relatively new to exploring your nutrition, you might not know when you need more superfoods. Let’s explore this!
How You Feel—Do You Need Superfoods?
The first thing you need to do is look at how you have been feeling lately. Here are some things to look out for:
Fatigue
A loss of energy is nothing new to most people. However, if that fatigue is chronic and ongoing you may be dealing with a sign that you need superfoods to boost your body and your system. Some of the superfoods that help with fatigue (that is not caused by another souce) are pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, watermelon, and bananas. All of these deliver key ingredients that the body can use to transfer into
energy making substances in the body and help with colon, intestine, and gut health.
Bloating
Bloating is one of the first signs that something may not be right with your body. It is also a clue to try superfoods as a first resort to help reduce the bloating and the pain that it may be causing. There could be any number of reasons for this issue like impaired digestion, food intolerances or SIBO, but at first you can try superfoods like yogurt, sauerkraut, and other fermented options. The fermentation of the foods acts as a probiotic that can feed the good bacteria to help break up bad bacteria and other issues in the gut and help reduce the bloat.
Ongoing Upset Stomach
When you have an upset stomach, it could be because of something you ate or drank. It could also be the start of becoming sick or some other obvious reason. The problem comes in when your body starts to give you signs that the ongoing upset stomach is a real issue that is not going away. One of the first things you can do is try a gut health superfood. Ginger is at the top of the list because it not only helps purge toxins from your system, it can also help repair issues in your stomach such as ulcers and also help you with digestion. Peppermint is also soothing for the stomach. If you don’t have a lactose intolerance, you can also try yogurt for the probiotics or enzymes as well to support digestion and absorption.
These are issues that may happen on occasion, but it is when they are ongoing and become painful that you need to pay attention. If you have ongoing digestive issues, working with a practitioner who can order food sensitivity, GI MAP or SIBO gut testing may help you find any hidden infections or food trigger that are contributing to your symptoms.
How Superfoods Help with a Body Detox
Detoxing your body is vital for any diet plan or life change. This is especially true, if you have been eating a poor diet and not exercising for some time. When you start the detox you may be looking at simply doing a juicing or something similar. The trick to this, if you choose to do it, is to stick to fruits and vegetables for your juicing that are based in superfoods. This will give you the biggest bang for your time and will help detox your body in many ways. Here are some of those superfoods.
Lemon
Lemon is a hands down must have if you are trying to detox your body with superfoods. Lemon is loaded with vitamins and can help deliver antioxidants to the body. When enjoyed as a warm tea in the morning, by mixing with water and a small amount of honey for taste, you can boost your metabolism which will help you drop weight. It can also be used as an appetite suppressant. It also gives a boost of natural energizer.
Green Tea
Green tea is something you can easily add to your juices and detox. It has multiple benefits as a superfood and is used commonly in weight loss and Asian based weight loss plans. You can choose to brew the green tea and add it, use it in a very pure form of matcha powder added to your juices or smoothies, and use it as a straight tea mixed with juice. Green tea also helps with liver function and cleansing which is essential in detoxing.
Beetroot
Beetroot can be easily added to both fruit and vegetable based juices. It has a slightly sweet flavor so it can mix easily. If you are making a vegetable based juice you can add not only the beetroot, you can also add the beet greens for an added boost. The beetroot can cleanse the liver and the colon. You can look at this superfood as a sort of all-purpose cleansing superfood that delivers your body vitamins and nutrients as well as flushing out the bad and built up toxins in your system.
Oranges
Oranges are known for their immune boosting properties and assistance as a superfood. It goes without saying that during a detox you will need to boost your immune system as much as possible. Though considered by some to be a superfood and others to simply be a vitamin packed fruit, it is still something to consider as part of your normal detox plan and juicing.
