Daily Doses and This Summer’s “It” Drink
Our soil no longer holds enough nutrients to imbue our foods with the correct mixture of vitamins and nutritional components to sustain an optimally healthy human being. Unless you eat 100% organic from well managed farms, you’re probably deficient. When I turned 40 some years ago, I found odd things happening from a lifetime of improper eating that I wanted to correct: dry skin, creaky joints, fuzzy memory…the list went on.
I educated myself about proper diet for today, which includes such recent discoveries as essential fatty acids (EFA’s) the wonder oils that can help you lose weight, lube both muscle and bone tissue and give you baby-soft skin. Flax, evening primrose, borage and marine (fish derived) oils are examples of these. I make sure I get plenty in my daily diet and have at least two tablespoons of ground flaxseed a day, a few spoonsful of hazelnut-tasting flax oil in my food (raw, not cooked, it’s really good in salad dressings!) and supplement with Evening Primrose oil capsules, Borage oil capsules, twice the RDA of Vitamin E oil, a combination marine-derived Omega oil supplement. And just because I like it, every so often for a real treat, I take a few spoons of Barleans Woman combination oil. Barleans contains flax, rosemary and evening primrose oils plus flax lignans (solids) and soy isoflavones said to be good for women’s reproductive systems at midlife. Mmm, yummy.
I’ve also been taking a couple of quarts of cranberry water on a daily basis at the behest of nutritionist guru, Ann Louise Gittleman, to support the liver and flush toxins cleanly away. We’ve been alternating this with the yummiest drink ever - Cucumber Lemon Water. Refreshing in the summer and bracing in the winter, this mix both alkalinizes the body as well as tastes like it just came out of a spa. It did - I first had it at Preston Wynne in Saratoga. Try it, you’ll really like it. And if you’re coming off of a lifetime soda habit, Cucumber Lemon Water can help ease the need for "something different that just plain water".
Cucumber Lemon Water Culinary Category: Aromatic Hydrosol Infusion
Summer 2005’s "It drink" of the season is served in swanky spas worldwide for its medicinal benefits, and can be yours for a mere dollar or so a pitcher. Into two quarts of filtered or spring water slice 1 peeled and seeded cucumber and 1 lemon into half-moons. Best to use organic produce but failing that, scrub the skin of your lemon mercilessly to remove all waxes and presentation chemicals the grocery store might have sprayed it with. Squeeze each slice of lemon gently as you drop it in the water and give the skin a twist to release its essential oils. The water will take on the thin flavor of the lemon’s juice and a lush richness from the oil of its skin - an essential component of the taste and nutritional benefit you’re aiming for.
Why? Lemons are astringent, antibacterial, antisudorific, detoxifying and have many other fine medicinal properties. Cucumbers alkalinize the modern body, normalizing systems made acidic by stress and too many trips to the coffee shop, plus providing micronutrients to the skin - save a few of those cucumber rounds to pamper your tired eyes with!
Refrigerate the mixture 24 hours and remove cucumber and lemon slices. If you leave the slices in more than 48 hours, the infusion will turn bitter. Reserve a few slices of lemon and cucumber to garnish your glass, or serve as a non-alcoholic Pimms No. 1 Cup replacement, with a handful of diced cucumber and lemon sidecar.
Enjoy!
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