Summer Citrus Salad

A fresh start. A brand-new year. A clean slate.

Happy 2015 dear friends! How have you started your year?

As I told you in my previous post, I want to enter 2015 with a heart of gratitude.

There are so many things in 2014 that I have to be thankful for, but the most important reason is this – my mum has been given a new lease of life.

After an unexpected heart attack on Christmas night due to extremely-clogged arteries (as a probable result of an unhealthy diet, lack of exercise and to a lesser extent, stress), my dear mum was admitted to the hospital for an immediate emergency operation to insert a stent into one of her arteries.

During the time that she was in the operating theatre, her heart stopped beating twice, and the doctors had to revive her heart with a dephilibrator. I cannot imagine losing my mum, and I am so thankful to God that she survived the operation and is now resting and recuperating well at home.

Thank you everyone who have prayed for her and sent her your well-wishes; I cannot thank you enough from the bottom of my heart (!!!!).

To be honest, I’d never come so close to losing someone I love, and the fact that her heart had stopped beating twice during the operation is a huge shock to me, and a timely reminder of how important it is for us to live well, especially in terms of how we treat our bodies – be it the food we eat, or the effort we make to exercise.

For the past few months, I’d been wanting to eat cleaner, and lead a real foods-based lifestyle (which basically means a diet that mainly consists of unprocessed foods, and relies heavily on organic, non-genetically modified produce). But between birthday celebrations and the year-end holiday season, I found myself struggling with sticking to a healthy diet.

However, my mum’s heart attack episode has brought me back to focus – and I want to start and finish this new year treating my body right – the way our bodies deserve to be treated.

And mostly, I want to help my mum ease into her new diet – and show people that eating well should not mean missing the heavily-processed foods we shouldn’t eat, but having a whole new world of flavorful, nutrient-dense foods options that will restore our health and give our bodies the food we really need.

I’m a person who eats first with my eyes, so for me to truly enjoy any meal, it has to be colorful and a pleasure to look at. Naturally, I tend to include as many colors and textures as possible in my dishes, and in doing so, widen the range of nutrients and vitamins that my meals contain.

It’s summer here in Argentina, and I’ve been craving salads of practically any kind – the brighter, lighter and fresher, the better.

I’ve been feasting on almost every kind of refreshing vegetable salads and fruit salads, but had never experimented with mixing fruits and vegetables both in one single salad.

Inspired by a recipe I saw in Revista Jengibre, I experimented and tested this summer citrus salad last week.

I loved the explosion of citrus flavors – tangy oranges, sweet mandarin oranges and slightly sour grapefruit – on a bed of fresh arugula leaves, dressed in lemon vinaigrette, and garnished with fresh mint and horseradish.

In fact, I liked the combination of fruits and veggies so much that I think I’m going to have to create many more vegetable-fruit salads…!

Here’s to a year of great health and nutritious, unprocessed food!

Let’s eat and live healthier together, shall we?

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