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Spring is here! And not a moment too soon.
The early blooming plants are showing signs of life, the
bite in the air is gone, woohoooo! If that's not enough
to shake you out of your Winter slump, I don't know what
is. As Spring fully takes over, there are, of course, a
few things to think about for your health. And there are
other things that have to do with your overall well-being,
so let's get to it.
One thing to think about is that you will naturally start
to have more energy and move around more. If you gained
5 pounds over the Winter: that's normal! Back in the day
we used to put on extra padding to get through the winter,
live off our fat stores, etc. So, the good news is, those
extra 5 pounds should fairly simply just fall back off by
you naturally becoming more active. Don't stress about it!
Another thing is that you might consider
doing a Spring Cleanse. Now, I don't mean eat nothing but
brown rice and steamed veggies for a month. It can be something
as simple as 2-3 days where you eat mellow foods, cut out
caffeine & alcohol, drink lots of water and get a ton
of sleep. Whatever a "cleanse" means for you, now is a good
time to do it to flush out all of the stagnant energy of
Winter.
Foods-wise, there's about to be a TON of
great foods coming into season, most of them green. Greens
like arugula and spinach, peas (!!!I missed you, peas!!!),
asparagus, artichokes, broccoli and sprouts start off the
season, giving way to berries of all kinds. My mouth is
watering just thinking about it! For a full list of Spring
Foods, click here.
And politically, this is THE time of year to start eating
"off the grid" as Farmer's Markets and CSAs start up again.
These are two ways you put money DIRECTLY into a food producers
hands, cutting out the middle men and "Big Food" in the
process. Farmer's Markets, for those not familiar, are exactly
what you'd think: it's where local farmers (usually within
250 miles) come to sell you what's fresh from their fields.
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture,
and this is where a group of people in an urban area form
a collective and pair with a farmer by giving them $x for
an ENTIRE season's worth of food, delivered weekly. In the
Astoria CSAs case it's 27 weeks of worth organic, local,
tasty produce for less than $20 a week (less than $10/week
if you split a share, and there's MORE than enough to split
a share).
Both of these ways to "shop" being you
fresher, local, tastier foods, and it's a good way to meet
other people wherever you live who are also taking their
food into their own hands. These are two things I feel SUPER
passionate about, as you can tell, so if you'd like to find
a Farmer's Market or CSA in YOUR area, click here.
My last tip for Spring is to plant something, be it in your
yard, in your windowsill, wherever you have some space and
sunlight. Having greens things growing in your home (or
outside of it) is always a good thing and they will help
you shake off the Winter blues even faster by helping improve
the air quality in and around your home. So, get your green
thumb on and click here
to order seeds and seedlings. OR go to your Farmers Market,
there's usually a few heirloom (aka old school varieties
of flowers and veggies) greenhouses that come and peddle
their wares. You'll be glad you did.
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