Time for a Spring Detox

Now, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I get very cross when, in the first week of January, every newspaper, magazine, radio and TV station are talking about detoxing!  You've just had the most stressful Christmas (I think that applies to at least 50% of the population!), it's freezing cold outside and all you really want to do is eat comfort food and snuggle up in bed.
Which is why, when spring arrives, the sun comes out, you feel like exercising, all the great spring seasonal foods are abundant, NOW is the time to detox!  This also doesn't mean fasting and starving yourself for a couple of weeks.  What is does mean is, removing all the toxins from your diet and your life, and supporting your body to help it detoxify more efficiently, using great foods and supplements that are based on supporting detoxification.
And what I love about doing this, is that each time I do it I learn more about how my body reacts to certain foods.  For instance, I 've been on the detox now for 3 days and my eyes are clear and sparkly!  This just shows that you really don't know how healthy you are until you change something, and then you realise how unhealthy you were before!  And I am somebody that could not be called unhealthy - I don't drink tea, coffee or alcohol (one drink a fortnight), and only eat fish (no meat), I hardly eat gluten, but do love natural yoghurt and have found this very hard to give up.  But now I realise I should.
One thing I do love to do is to snack, so finding a snack that would satisfy my sweet tooth was hard - no sugar is allowed - but then I started to play, and came up with these delicious and very nutritious seed crispbreads with raspberry jam - great whether you are on a detox or not!

Seeded Crispbreads with Raspberry Jam

200 g flaked almonds
100 g sunflower seeds
100 g pine nuts
3 tbsp ground flax seeds
75 g cooked red quinoa
75 g coconut oil, melted
150 ml water
pinch of salt
200 g raspberries
1 tbsp chia seeds

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4.
Place the almonds, sunflower seeds and pine nuts into a food processor and blitz until broken down, but not too fine.
Tip into a bowl and mix with the flax seeds, quinoa, coconut oil and water and mix well.
Leave to stand for 10 minutes (this allows the flax seeds to thicken and hold the mixture together).
Spread the mixture over a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, pressing it to the edges and making it flat.
Cook for 30 minutes then remove from the oven and cut into squares or fingers.  Cook for a further 30 minutes, then place onto a cooling rack to cool.
While the crispbreads are cooking, blitz the raspberries in a blender and place in a bowl.  Stir in the chia seeds and leave to stand - the chia seeds will gradually thicken the mixture to give you a jam consistency.

More delicious detox recipes to follow over the next few days.

And if you would like more support while you detox, just get in touch.

Joy x