The Sal-smoo way
Waking up to half a watermelon drizzled with lime juice is one of the best ways to start your morning. Eating fruit for breakfast will not only make you think clearer, it will help you lose weight and stimulate the digestive tract to energize the body.
Eating a clean and light breakfast in the morning is a great way to transition the body from a fasting state to an eating state. Studies have found that consuming a heavy breakfast inhibits fat oxidation throughout the day – these heavy meals often include animal products like eggs and bacon or sausages.
An animal protein-heavy breakfast like eggs, bacon and toast will sit like a brick in your stomach and give you feelings of fatigue for the rest of the day. Switch your animal protein-based breakfasts for fruit, and you will notice immediate health improvements after just one week.
Therefore, here are 10 reasons why you should start eating fruit for breakfast:
- Enhance the Detoxification Phase
Between 7 and 11am, the body is going through the heaviest phase of detoxification. Eating fruit will help contribute healing energy to this detoxification process, instead of hampering it by filling your body with anti-detox foods like fatty animal products that are hard to digest.
- Perfect Way to Break Your Fast
Fruit is the best way to help “break the fast” as it is easy to digest and wakes up the metabolism with a steady influx of natural fruit sugars (all without the harsh adrenal-killing coffees and fatty meals).
- Stimulate the Digestive Tract
Eating fruit for breakfast infuses the body with beneficial enzymes, fiber and prebiotics that help stimulate digestive juices in the stomach and push out old waste matter from the day before. Fruit fiber cleans the colon like a broom, leaving you feeling light and refreshed.
- Wake up The Body
Natural fruit sugars are just the thing the body needs upon waking up. Instead of reaching for your coffee, trying making a coffee replacement smoothie that will help keep the brain sharp and energized. Remember, the brain runs off glucose, so if you want to stay focused throughout the day, then eat a nice big water-dense fruit meal for breakfast!
- Lose Weight
Fruit provides the body with quality nutrition and helps release excess toxins by pushing out old waste matter from the intestines. Eating plenty of fruit in the morning (and throughout the rest of the day) gets rid of excess toxicity and waste storage, which ultimately leads to weight loss in the end. Most people think that if they eat a heavy animal-protein rich meal in the morning that they will eat less later in the day – but this, in fact, has not been found to be true. People who consume a heavy meal in the morning also tend to eat heavier later in the day too, which contribute to inevitable weight gain.
- Boost the Immune System
A smoothie for breakfast compared to bacon and eggs is a lot better for your immune system and overall health. Fruit is high in vitamin C and antioxidants, which strengthen the immune system and ward off any invading bacteria and microbes. Ever since I have gone high-fruit, low-fat raw vegan, I rarely get sick (maybe once a year and usually due to stress or lack of sleep).
- Create an Alkaline Environment for The Body
The first thing people think when they eat fruit is that it is too acidic – this is in fact not true. Lemons are actually one of the most alkaline fruits on the planet! They may be acidic in form, but once they reach the stomach, the minerals (like potassium and sodium) disassociate to make it alkaline (via a variety of metabolic processes). All fruit is alkaline, so make sure you eat plenty of it in the morning if you normally eat a Standard American Diet.
- Feel Full and Satisfied
You might not think that fruit would make you full, but it really does! There is so much fiber in fruit, plus the vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients that tell the brain it is satisfied and to shut off the hunger signal to the stomach. Make sure you eat enough fruit to feel full. It might take a bit of practice to fit in a 6-mango breakfast but in the end, you will feel full, satisfied, and not bogged down by any excess energy used for digestion.
- Strengthen the Heart
Fruit is packed with beneficial vitamins, minerals, crucial phytonutrients and antioxidants that contribute to lower cholesterol levels and lower blood pressure – both of which contribute to a healthier, stronger heart and prevent against cardiovascular disease.
- Banish Belly Bloating
The fiber in fruit will push out old waste matter in the digestive tract and get rid of lower-belly bloating. In addition, eating water-dense fruits like watermelon (that also act as a natural diuretic) will help flush out excess sodium from the body by encouraging urination. The faster you get out the salt, the sooner you will stop holding onto so much excess water weight!
A well-made salad must have a certain uniformity; it should make perfect sense for those ingredients to share a bowl. -Yotam Ottolenghi