Since ancient times, tea has been used not only as a pleasant beverage, but medicine too. Green or black tea with a piece of lemon and honey is number one healthy beverage in my daily menu. I love especially green tea with a delicate scent of jasmine. It is one of the great foods that fight cancer. Here is my glass pitcher with green tea, lemon and honey that I make fresh every day. Hot or cold, but one glass of green tea is a must-to-have in the morning or afternoon. Do you know why?

Both green and black teas possess numerous active ingredients, including flavonoids and polyphenols. Flavonoids and polyphenols are potent antioxidants.One widespread study has recently noted that one class of flavonoids called catechins has anti-cancer potential. Conclusion: tea is the best source of catechins in our diet. If you compare both teas, scientists say that green tea contains about three times more of catechins than black tea.

In laboratory studies, green tea dispayed amazing results. It has been shown to slow or even completely prevent development of colon, liver, breast and prostate cancer. Other studies that involved green tea have shown similar protective eggects in tissues of the digestive system, lung and skin.

Studies conducted in Asia where green tea consumption is common have also associated regular usage of green tea with lower risk for colon, stomach, bladder, pancreatic and esophageal cancers.

Do you want to brew a fresh cuppa of tea and do it right? Watch this video.

Drink only freshly brewed green or black tea, one-two cups a day. Don’t store it in refrigerator for the next day.

CAUTION: Very high amounts of green tea usually associated with overdosage of green tea supplements have been shown to interact with drugs that affect blood clotting such as aspirin and change the way the body metabolizes certain medications.

Source: AICR’s second expert report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective

Text and Photo Submitted by Svetlana Konnikova

Now I am experimenting with zucchini which are the best loved of all squashes. They are versitile, easy to cook and easy to prepare as raw dishes, too. It doesn’t matter if you are vegetarian or a raw food dieter. Everybody should eat healthy and make it a number one priority. Zucchini are available all year through, but in summer time these vegetables are especially tender with a delicate flavor. The zucchini, cucurbita pepo is classified as a summer squash, so take advantage of it and bring it on to your dinner table.

Do you know that any vegetables taste best when eaten immediately after they have been peeked? Freshness is very important for zucchini. These veggies have relatively long season and are easy to grow in your home garden. We had them in our home garden as a must-have vegetable. My Grandma cut them very often to bring new, young baby zucchini. The more you cut, the more this plant will produce. If you leave zucchini unchecked, it will turn into marrows.

Zuchini with its deep green skin and firm pale flesh, sometimes called courgettes (pretty name, isn’t it?), and they are basically immature marrows. The name comes from Italian zucca, and courgette means miniature courge, which is French for marrow.
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If you are expecting a miracle for treating fatigue or unhappiness, watch this video. There’s is no miracle, but just one simple, green recipe for that. The second is the recipe I adapted from my Grandma and tested it a million times. Just kidding! Not exactly a million times, but many times. You’ll be surprised, it works.

Chef Keith Snow makes absolutely fabulous green salad that can adorn any dinner table. What I like about this salad that he makes it with fresh greens gathered from his home herb garden. Imagine, fresh and delicate arugula, lettuce, rosemary, parsley that are not ‘abused’ while stored in the refrigerated containers on a long way from farm to the supermarket. These homegrown greens keep all vitamins and other nutrients in place, in addition to its tantalizing, earthy scent.

You see this salad comes with Pomegranate Dressing. Pomegranate is a great fruit. You can use it not only in salad dressing, but you can squeeze fresh pomegranate  juice and drink it. Here is the recipe:

— If you feel unhappy or fatigued, make fresh pomegranate juice, add one teaspoon honey to eight ounces, and drink it.

Submitted by Svetlana Konnikova

Source: Pomegranate juice recipe comes from the multiple awards-winning book, Mama’s Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Life and the Pleasure of Natural Living, p. 209, Aurora Publishers, 2008

In my recent post “Keep Yourself Slim and Healthy with Versatile Spinach,” I did not mention another popular delicatessen, Spinach Pie. Spinach Pie is a great choice if you have some family members or guests at your home party that are meat eaters and vegetarians. How can you please these people with different approach to eating? Make this tasty dish and you’ll please both, vegetarians and meat eaters.

Usually these pies are made with ricotta, feta, Gruyere or Emmenthal cheeses that are grated or cut into small cubes. Then the mixture of cheeses, cooked spinach, fresh chopped marjoram and chervil, salt and pepper is wrapped in large or small sheets of filo pastry. I don’t like filo dough and never use it because it tastes like a parchment paper. Especially, the one produced commercially, “Ready-to-Use” that is offered by supermarkets. I prefer to make my own. It is different type of dough that is used traditionally in Greek and Russian cuisine.

So, now watch this video and try to make the same delicious Spanakopita that contains yummy feta cheese and fresh spinach in traditional Greek style. Bon appetite!

Submitted by Svetlana Konnikova.

Ever thought about starting raw diet? I was always interested in raw foods, but never made a “jump” into eating only raw foods. I am still devoted to my healthy, delicious and nutritious meals with time-tested recipes from my Mom and Grandma, and other recipes I gathered while traveling around the world. Maybe should I try, and so are you? If you are curious about how to make raw foods that are healthy for you, here is video “The Value of Eating Raw Foods” where the healthy lifestyle expert and Green Mom Beth Aldrich explains how to start eating healthy.

Submitted by Svetlana Konnikova.

For many people the word ’spinach’ is associated with Popeye, the cartoon character (if you remember) who used to eat huge amounts of spinach. Popeye was smart, but we are smarter. We can make hundreds of dishes using this versatile vegetable that offers us so many nutritious benefits, so who’ll refuse this opportunity?!

Let’s continue to explore my Green Recipes.  What about a fresh spinach salad? It is really tasteful because the leaves of spinach  have sharp, but not overpowering  flavor that is just in the right balance. Fresh greens are so good for you that you really should eat lots of them, so there’s no excuse if you don’t!

 Fresh Baby Spinach Salad (4-6 servings) 

Ingredients:

2 cups organic baby spinach, washed and chopped

1 avocado, diced

 2 cucumbers, sliced

  green onions, chopped

  10-12 walnut-halves, chopped

   1/3 cup olive oil

   1 small organic lemon

    A pinch of sea salt and paprika

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a large glass bowl. Carefully mix spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, and walnuts. Sprinkle sea salt and paprika. Squeeze one lemon and combine  fresh lemon juice with olive oil in a small glass bowl. Pour this simple and flavorful dressing over the salad. Voila! You have a fresh, healthy and nutritions salad.

Sometimes I chop two organic hard boiled eggs and add to enrich this salad. It turns my spinach salad into  a main dish that is light, nutritious, and can fully satisfy your healthy appetite.
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Back to my post “Prevent Cancer By Including Dark Leafy Vegetables in Your Daily Menu” with green spinach recipes.

 Spinach can be used in so many ways. You can chop it and serve with butter. I prefer to use organic, cold press olive oil mixed with freshly squeezed lemon juice because it’s healthier. You can also serve spinach with baby carrots, beets or small white or young  fava beans. You can also make one of my favorite meals, green spinach omelette.

Once in a restaurant in Paris I ordered an omelette with spinach. It was so delicious! So from that time, I started making the same for my family breakfast or weekend lunch. I asked the French chef in this restaurant to share his recipe with me, and he kindly told me his secrets of making this puffy and airy nutritious meal. Now you can make the same,

GREEN SPINACH OMELETTE

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Our post “Dark Green Leafy Vegetables Can Prevent Cancer” got replies from 93 blogs that asked for permission to reprint it. Due to your interest in this topic, I start series of articles/posts about several of these green superfoods and how you can use them in your healthy cooking.

In any season there are so many options when it comes to greens. Especially now, in summer, we have spinach, kale, cauliflowers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts that are all members of the cabbage family, and like the cabbage itself are proven to be the most nutritious of all vegetables.

 Let’s start with spinach, a healthy vegetable. Wheather eaten raw or cooked, it  is full of vitamins and minerals. Spinach with its green and lively leaves is

• an excellent source of vitamin C if eaten raw;
• full of vitamins A and B;
• provides calcium, potassium, and iron.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

As an amazingly versatile vegetable, spinach is popular worldwide with nearly every cuisine around the globe. The Italians make hundreds of dishes using spinach. If you see in any restaurant’s menu the words a la florentine, it means the dish contains spinach. The Italians created a huge range of recipes mixing spinach with with their favorite  ricotta or Parmesan cheese. The French invented delicious quiche with spinach.

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   In summer we have an abundance of dark green leafy vegetables. Do you know that Romane lettuce, spinach, kale, collard greens, mustard greens, Swiss chard chicory and leaf lettuce are invaluable sources of fiber, folate and carotenoids such as lutein and zeaxanthin, along with flavonioids and saponins?  You can do so much with these dark leafy veggies. Salads, garnish, juices and this is only beginning of the list of healthy meals.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective, foods containing carotenoids can protect against cancers of the mouth (smokers be aware!), pharynx and larynx. Scientists also noted that foods containing folate may decrease risk of pancreatic cancer and foods rich in dietary fiber reduce a chance of developing colorectal cancer.  Sounds very complicated, isn’t it? But this information is good to know, if you want to keep yourself healthy.

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Black and green teas have been used as beverage and natural medicine for centuries. Both teas contain numerous active ingredients, including antioxidants, which are flavonoids and polyphenols.

One class of flavonoids called catechins became the focus of many studies analysing them for its anticancer potential. Studies have shown that tea is the best source of catechins in the human diet. Green tea contains about three times more cathechins than black tea. Other laboratory studies found, green tea can slow or prevent cancer development in breast, liver, colon and prostate cells. In addition, some researchers say that consumption of green tea may have protective effects in tissues of the lung, skin and digestive tract.

In Asia green tea consumption is common, especially in countries as China, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. Asian scientists’ studies associated with observation of participants who regularly consumed green tea have shown that these people had lower risk for colon, bladder, stomach and pancreatic cancers.

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