Julia wrote a very useful article for Mindful Beauty about what detoxification is at home, why it is important for us and for our loved ones, and most importantly, what rules we need to follow in our daily life in order to properly get rid of toxins.

« How to Optimize Your Detoxification System

As residents of a large city with many sources of toxic pollution and a country that does not have a reliable certification system for organic products, we are all at risk in terms of the effectiveness of our detoxification system.

In addition to external ones, there are also internal toxic substances that must also be eliminated without fail: used hormones, such as estrogen, neurotransmitters, obsolete cells, as well as (very important!) All substances to which a given person is allergic reaction or sensitivity. That is, allergens that the body perceives as a source of danger are eliminated by it in the same way as additives from potato chips.

Given these characteristics of the detoxification process, here's how we can optimize it for every day and maybe even avoid the need for strict detox diets.

To the maximum« "cleanse" food and everyday life in order to reduce the overall toxic load:

• Try to buy products of renowned origin and responsible manufacture. This is especially true in the case of animal products. As in the case of humans, toxic substances that remained outside the capacity of the animal's detox system are likely to be deposited in their adipose tissues.
• Avoid household plastic, water from plastic bottles, storing food in it, or heating it. Plastic is a source of what I call endocrine disruptors. These substances act on the same receptors in the cell as our hormones and often lead to hormonal imbalances. As experts have found out as a result of a number of recent studies, even products made from high-quality plastic release these substances during use.
• Use a minimum of medications - they not only put a lot of stress on the liver, but also lead to a number of important nutrient deficiencies. For example, the use of hormonal contraceptives leads to a deficiency of folate (folic acid), which is necessary, among other things, for detoxification processes.
• Remove from your home detergents with black crosses on the packaging, cosmetics that you could not literally eat without the threat of poisoning.
• Supply good water and air filters;
• Avoid teflon coatings, copper utensils (these can lead to excess copper in the body).
• Choose non-toxic furniture and renovation products, avoid PVC products.

Identify allergies and sensitivities

An exclusion diet is often used to identify food allergies and latent sensitivities that may be delayed. During this diet, all suspected foods are excluded from the diet for about 3 weeks, as well as in general highly allergenic foods, which include soy, eggs, nuts, seafood, corn, dairy and gluten-containing products.

After 3 weeks, these products are introduced back into the diet one at a time - in the morning on an empty stomach. Before this, the pulse is measured, and then it is compared with the pulse one hour and two after the consumption of a suspicious product. With a significant increase in heart rate, the product should be checked again, and if the reaction is confirmed, remove it from the diet for a while.

Optimize bowel function

The intestines and its inhabitants - numerous bacteria (of which there are more feces in 30 grams than stars in the Universe :)), have a huge impact on almost all processes in the body, including detoxification processes.

In fact, toxic substances secreted by pathogenic bacteria, which exist even in a healthy intestine, are first "filtered" by the intestine itself and only then enter the liver. That is, on the one hand, it is some kind of additional resource that should be protected, and on the other hand, it is a potential source of additional toxic substances in the event that the number of pathogenic bacteria increases.

To maintain gut health, regularly eat sources of probiotics - pickled vegetables, fermented foods, drink homemade kvass, and a drink made from kombucha. For bacteria to have something to eat, don't forget about soluble fiber. Particularly good sources are asparagus, the onion family, Jerusalem artichoke, green banana, cooked and chilled rice, and potatoes.

Optimize the work of other organs of excretion and sleep

The skin, kidneys, lungs in the second stage are also felt in the detoxification processes, so it is important that they work effectively as well. For skin health, sweat more often: regularly go to the bath and sauna, move (by the way, exercise also increases the synthesis of the antioxidant and "tail" - glutathione), drink clean filtered water, practice breathing exercises.

Sleep also detoxifies the brain! The system responsible for detoxifying the brain is called the glymphatic system. For optimal detoxification, the brain needs at least 7 hours, and preferably 8 for quality sleep. "

Thank you, Julia, huge!

All Radiance, Beauty and Health!

). Simple, affordable and useful recipes that everyone can repeat.

In winter, something fermented is invariably present on my table every day. I start the winter-autumn season with sauerkraut, and by the spring, in search of variety, I begin to ferment almost everything that catches my eye.

My love for fermented foods can be explained simply - in winter they are excellent sources of vitamins, the deficiency of which we experience in this infertile time of the year, as well as miraculous bacteria that help support and strengthen the immune system.

Did you know that more than 70% of our immunity is in the intestines in the form of a special lymphoid tissue? And numerous friendly bacteria - intestinal microflora protect and maintain the health of the lymphoid tissue, as well as the intestines itself.

Pickled vegetables, prepared in this case by the lacto-fermentation method, contain friendly bacteria that, when consumed, help maintain the balance of microflora, as well as the soluble fiber that these bacteria feed on. It turns out an excellent alternative to commercial probiotics, the quality and condition of which (whether the bacteria are alive) is not guaranteed.

For a greater effect, you need to reduce the use of refined carbohydrates (white bread, sugar), which feed on pathogenic bacteria that compete with friendly ones for a place in our intestines.

Pickled winter vegetables

Ingredients:

• 2 - 2.5 kg. seasonal vegetables to taste: carrots, turnips, kohlrabi, onions.
• About 1.5 liters of water is enough for the vegetables to be covered with brine.
• 3 tablespoons of rock salt.
• 10 black peppercorns.
• 5 buds of cloves and other spices as desired.
• 1 small bunch of herbs to taste - dill, parsley, cilantro.
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1-2 pods of hot pepper, to taste.
• 1 onion.
• Optional 2-3 cm ginger root

Process:

1. Wash, peel and cut the vegetables into pieces of approximately the same size. Place in a three-liter jar with herbs and spices.

2. Mix water with salt until it (salt) dissolves.

3. Separate 1 cup of brine, add garlic, onion, hot pepper, ginger, if used, and grind in a blender until smooth. Return to the main brine, mix.

4. Pour the vegetables with brine, cover with gauze or a towel and leave at room temperature in a sunless place for 3-5 days.

5. Every day vegetables need to be moved with a spoon or fork to release the carbon dioxide that will form during the fermentation process.

6. After 3 days, you can start tasting the vegetables. You can tell about readiness by the characteristic sour taste that characterizes sauerkraut and cucumbers.

7. When ready, cover the vegetables with a lid and put in the refrigerator. Fermentation will continue to a small extent in the refrigerator.

8. Such vegetables will be stored in the refrigerator for six months or more, but over time they will become more and more acidic due to the continued multiplication of lactobacilli, which release lactic acid in the process.

Bon appetit and be healthy!

Today I decided to announce to you a new rubric, where in the format of three opinions we will talk about healthy and mindful eating. We will try to give you answers to questions about what we eat, how it was obtained, how the products of factory production differ from products grown in natural conditions, how useful and safe it is for our body, and we will dispel more than a dozen myths.

Since most of our audience is young mothers who want to create a competent diet for their family, we will pay special attention to the issues of proper nutrition for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children. We will also talk about products, the benefits of the consumption of which are equally beneficial for both men and women. We will try to provide excerpts from the history of Russian cuisine in order to return to the pedestal products that were undeservedly overthrown from it.
So, I am pleased to present to you my partners Olga Schenkerman @pracooking and Yulia Bogdanova (her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/buckwheatandspinach/). Olga is a popular culinary blogger, the founder of the Prakuking community, an absolutely crazy foodie, the author of a book about meat "The Book of a Beginner Deli. MEAT", a host of various master classes and the author of numerous culinary articles in the Gastronom magazine. Julia is a Coming Soon Certified Nutritionist (or Nutritional Consultant) and author of the Spinach & Buckwheat blog, where she writes about maintaining health and wellness through nutrition and lifestyle changes. In addition, a happy mother of three children, and a very curious person in life, stubbornly researches current topics, including in the field of nutrition, in search of her own reasonable explanations and answers. Olga and Yulia together lead the online course RIGHT Choice about the choice of products and the preparation of their individual diet. The first topic will be devoted to the most popular product among us - chicken! Topical topic!

Olga Shenkerman:

The other day, one nice girl was very upset that, according to my advice, you need to buy a farm bird, since it is more expensive. It seemed to me very important to explain why it is better not to eat poultry at all than to eat store-bought poultry, regardless of the price. By the way, in Europe a good bird is much more expensive than in Russia. This text is part of the outline for our online course with Yulia Bogdanova The Right Choice.
Now for the details. When I first found out about this about 5 years ago, I forever forgot what a shop chicken is. Reading will not be enjoyable, sorry.
Not their living conditions, not their food, not their growth rate, not their behavior and habits cannot be called healthy, or even minimally close to what nature intended. Broilers live in one large hangar containing 10,000 to 40,000 birds. Moreover, there are 36-38 kg of live birds per square meter. This means that about 1 A4 sheet of area is put on 1 bird. When animals are massively reared, they behave extremely abnormally. For example, birds start to fight, often to the point of death. That is why chickens are cut off their beaks. But this does not stop them from other strange behavior, for example, they can unexpectedly stray in thousands into one living mountain, where they suffocate. Essentially, massive suicide. At the same time, even a 50% mortality rate does not prevent the masses from earning good money. For example, in England about 50 million chickens do not live to be slaughtered.
Most often, such a bird is raised for 6 weeks. In comparison, poultry is grown for three times longer. A bird that is raised in this way is genetically prone to obesity. Specially used breeds are capable of gaining weight quickly. Broiler chickens will never see their mother, therefore, their intestinal microflora is improperly seeded, they become more susceptible to diseases, and that is why they receive large amounts of antibiotics.
Living in such a concentration camp, birds, which are rapidly gaining weight and at the same time limited in movement, suffer from poor muscle and skeletal development, their paws especially suffer. Many birds literally spend their last weeks on their knees. In the industry there is such a thing as a burn of the knee joint - a discolored area in the knee area. These are burns with ammonia, which is contained in large quantities in the feces on the floor under the birds, which are cleaned out only after the poultry is slaughtered. And such a bird gets to our table.
I will save your nerves and will not talk about the horrors of transportation and slaughter, but I think it becomes quite clear why such a bird should be boycotted. Growing conditions for other poultry and livestock differ little from those described above. Even if we omit the moral aspects, can such meat benefit us?

Yulia Bogdanova:

Olya very clearly presented the ethical side of the issue of eating industrial animals. I want to add a more selfish aspect - the benefits of chicken that are raised in different conditions for those who eat meat. It's very simple - when we eat chicken or any other animal (to a lesser extent a plant) we eat not only them, we eat everything that they ate, partly the air they breathed, the water they drank and, of course, everything supplements and medications they were fed. All this leaves a tangible and concrete mark in their body, and then ours. For example, it is a known fact that the largest consumers of antibiotics in many countries are livestock companies. Most often, they are not used to stop a bacterial infection, but to help animals gain weight faster. This effect of antibiotics is explained by their effect on the intestinal microflora, among the many functions of which is the regulation of metabolism and weight. Small doses of antibiotics do not completely kill the bacterial flora, but change the ratio of different types of bacteria, lead to the growth of pathogenic flora, as well as the evolution of pathogenic organisms and antibiotic resistance. Returning to us, as consumers of chickens, together with them we receive low doses of antibiotics (albeit lower than in the case of chickens themselves), hormones, if they are added, as well as a lot of grain, which is the main feed for industrially raised poultry. Grain is important here, as it changes the ratio of essential fatty acids in meat (that is, those that we should get from food). In short, grains lead to high levels of Omega 6 with a general inflammatory effect, which is already too much in our today's food life. Feeding grass, hay at least partially increases the content of Omega 3, which we have a general deficit, the adequate content of which is absolutely critical for health, including mental health, since the gray matter of our brain consists mainly of Omega 3. And this story can be continued further. And then, together with industrially grown chickens, you feel sorry for yourself ... And the modern epidemic of chronic diseases becomes even more explainable.

Olga Karpova:

A little about how we grow poultry on our farm. From the beginning, we raised only layers, this is due to the fact that they are best suited for making broth, and it is very useful for our children. At that time, there was a sharply negative attitude towards broilers, like many townspeople who do not know much about agriculture. Only over time, we realized that a broiler is just a breed of poultry that quickly gains weight, has a sufficient amount of fat so that when frying or baking, the meat becomes soft and juicy.
Our chickens live in spacious and clean poultry houses, therefore they are not susceptible to diseases. They walk along the street all year round, if there is no severe frost. Chickens always have access to clean water and food in the form of a mixture of grains (wheat, corn, oats, etc.). Every day, the diet of our poultry includes vegetables and herbs that we pick up in vegetable stores. They are happy to give them to us for free as waste. And also, as we have already said, all waste from the table of our family and the families of our loved ones goes to feed our animals, including chickens. We do not use any growth stimulants, since we ourselves eat, everything that we do, and we ourselves are the strictest clients. We constantly compare the taste of our poultry with poultry from other farmers. We will find out their secrets and, if necessary, make adjustments.

A person who keeps up with the times does not stop monitoring his health. He not only tries to play sports, but also eats right. Today it is not difficult to find beautiful, easy-to-use recipes. Every year, a huge number of books are published with the best dishes. The Internet is replete with sites about a healthy lifestyle. But no virtual pages can compare with author blogs, where real people share their successes, stories, difficulties and, of course, recipes for delicious, healthy and such beautiful dishes that it is simply impossible to tear yourself away from these images. Today, the site will share with you its list of the best blogs about healthy eating. In these blogs you will find recipes for both vegetarians and those who are not used to food restrictions. In addition, authors very often talk about healthy foods, sports, yoga, travel and much more. Read more about each of them below.

Arina Lisetskaya's blog:

We will start with a Belarusian blogger - a renowned culinary expert and restaurant critic - Arina Lisetskaya. Arina has been fond of cooking for almost ten years. In 2014, she released her first cookbook, "Holiday Recipes", and since this year has starred in the culinary show "Matter of Taste" on NTV-Belarus. She is a regular contributor to the culinary column in the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" in Belarus, works with glossy magazines such as "Women's Journal", "City of Women", "Yo Life".

In her blog, Arina is happy to share the best recipes for children, for the holidays and just dishes for every day. Here you can find fast daily meals, the best recipes for the holiday, lean dishes, multicooker dishes, meat dishes and much, much more.

Victoria Filbert is a lifestyle blogger and main contributor to Eat and jog. In her blog, the girl talks about proper nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, self-development and how to stay vigorous and active. There is a lot of information on how to choose products, how to replace the usual "harmful" products, Ayurvedic recommendations, as well as useful fitness tips.

Community

The community writes about itself as follows: "This community is for those who love to live cheerfully and cheerfully, make a choice every day in favor of healthy and tasty food, but only want to look gorgeous and do not agree at all for less." As part of the group, administrators talk about simple, healthy and tasty recipes, about yoga, about moving into joy, about healthy products and little tricks that make our life brighter, and we ourselves are more cheerful and happier.

Blog

One of the funniest vegetarian food blogs on runet. Two people are working on the blog - Natalya Singareeva and her husband Oleg Singareev, a professional photographer. Natalia has been a vegetarian since 2008. At one time, the author was faced with the problem of finding delicious recipes for himself. Thus began a long learning curve that culminated in the creation of a delicious, fun, life-affirming culinary blog.

Blog

In her daily life, Julia adheres to a healthy lifestyle, in particular with regard to nutrition. And in her blog, the girl shows that proper nutrition is not only tasty, but also very diverse. Even for those who want to lose weight. However, Julia is also interested in other recipes. She enjoys exploring different cuisines, culinary traditions and recipes. In addition, the blogger is fond of food photography, which means that in addition to culinary ecstasy, the aesthetic one awaits guests.

Blog

Two Peas is a blog about recipes for food and drinks that make us better: healthy, joyful, addicted. This is a blog for those who love delicious and healthy food, please family and friends, and even just read the recipe "for inspiration." And there is something to be inspired by - all the recipes are illustrated with beautiful photographs with step-by-step cooking instructions.

Blog

Author Anastasia Goloborodko constantly updates her blog and is happy to answer all questions in the comments. There is something to ask about. The girl not only publishes interesting and simple recipes, but also announces master classes from chefs, gastronomic exhibitions and festivals. In addition, the blog contains a lot of useful articles about individual products, travel, yoga.

Blog

How to be cheerful and healthy in a big city? This question was asked by the blog author Olya Malysheva. In her posts, the girl shares the secrets of nutrition, detox, ease and movement for joy. Here you will find simple vegetarian recipes that are free of sugar and flour, but lots of greens, fruits and vegetables. In addition, the blog is full of book reviews, helpful advice on choosing products, and reviews of natural cosmetics.

Site

The name of the site speaks for itself. Everything about vegetarianism is here: recipes, news, interviews, articles, columns. The portal writes about itself as follows: "The portal unites like-minded people - not only those who have already become a vegetarian, vegan, raw foodist or even a prano-eater, but, first of all, those who strive to consciously approach their life, to every choice and every action." ... The site also includes the only printed magazine about vegetarianism in Russia - Vegetarian.

Blog

Yulia Bogdanova is a slender mother of three active children, a student at a small California college, where she is studying a vegetable cooking course, a blogger, and a master class leader. The main difference between Julia and other blogs is her love for seasonal products, mainly plant-based, simple recipes, the exclusion of refined products and ingredients of animal origin. On the blog, you will also find the author's thoughts on health and nutrition-related issues.

Review prepared by Anna Kopach

All photos were taken from the specified blogs.

* Reprinting of materials from the site is possible only with the written permission of the publisher.