My kids and I went to a famous amusement park last week. One thing I knew from eating healthy on the road is sometimes you have no choice but to make due with what you have. I knew we wouldn’t eat at the park food for 5 days, so I went to the grocery store since we had a full kitchen. Keep in mind we were dealing with 90 degree weather. I bought eggs, sausage, cereal, milk for breakfast. Hotdogs & buns, pb & j, whole grain bread, fresh fruit for lunch. For dinner we ate hamburgers, frozen pizza, fries, hamburger helper………basically everything I tell people not to eat normally. These foods will slow your digestive system down a great deal and the nutritional value is about as close to zero as you can get. My secret weapon to keep our systems regular and and add a healthy kick is raw spinach and plenty of water. I put it on pizza. I line the bun of the hotdog with spinach before I put the mustard & ketchup on. I make salad using only spinach, no lettuce. Fortunately my children are healthy eaters. I raised them to love veggies. They’ll actually eat plain raw spinach so I don’t have to hide it from them. Also the water will help keep you hydrated and aid in digestion. So why raw spinach?
Raw spinach is a healthy way to improve your digestive system. It contains certain essential nutrients, such as thiamine and fiber, that are used by your digestive system. There are also enzymes located in raw spinach that will help break down your food and improve digestion even further. By eating spinach on a daily basis, you will improve the efficiency of your digestive system without adding any unnecessary calories or fat into your diet.
Thiamine
A single cup of raw spinach has 2 percent of the recommended daily value. Thiamine is essential to digestion because it is used in the creation of ATP. ATP is the body’s energy storage system. ATP powers digestion and without enough ATP you would find it impossible to digest your food.
Fiber
Raw spinach is good for your digestive system because it has 3 percent of the dietary fiber that you need every day. Dietary fiber works in several different ways to improve the function of your digestive system. Fiber may reduce symptoms of constipation because it improves the bulk of your waste which makes it easier for the large intestine to push it out. Since waste is being removed from the large intestine faster, constipation symptoms are alleviated. Fiber also alleviates diarrhea by absorbing excess water in the large intestine.
Ok now don’t go making up some hair brained diet that states you can eat whatever you want as long as you put spinach on it! This is a dire situation where we needed food that would travel well, and let’s face it, my kids aren’t going to eat kale veggie wraps 24/7 on vacation while others are eating hamburgers, nachos and ice cream sandwiches in their faces. Sometimes you have to bend a little and just make the best of the situation. Its not normal life, that’s why its called a treat.
~ it’s about what YOU see in the mirror~
[twitter style=”vertical” float=”left”]
[twitter_follow language=”en”]
[tweetmeme]
[digg float=”left”]
[fblike style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial”]
[fbshare type=”button”]
[linkedin_share style=”none”]
[google_plusone size=”standard”]
www.livestrong.com