In my practice, I often recommend to my patients to be mindful about what they eat, specially in regards to food temperature, meaning there's an aspect of temperature in relation to the food itself, let's say cayenne pepper is hot and cucumber is cold, but also the temperature in which you prepare and eat it.

I'm also a big believer in eating what is in season, however, to be honest, it's really hard now a days to figure this one out, because even though there are amazing online references of what's in season in my location, what I see in the grocery store might not be local or harvested at that time of the year.

However there's one thing that is empirical to the health of your digestion during winter days, and that is super simple, eat warm, cooked foods! If you are a cold person in nature, add some heat to your foods too, by adding cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, cayenne pepper to your meals and beverages.

So, if like me, you have an occasion salad craving during the cold days, I have an amazing recipe to share with you! I swear, warm salad is yummy! Check out this recipe:

WARM KALE SALAD

**(this is a slight variation of a recipe I extracted from Standard Process 21-day Purification Diet)**

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons of coconut or olive oil

2 tablespoons of minced fresh ginger

2 or 3 minced garlic cloves

2 oranges, zested and cut into segments

10 cups of fresh kale, stemmed and chopped

4 beets, steamed or roasted ( I love roasted beets!), cut into wedges

1/4 cup of sunflower seeds, raw or roasted (I love anything roasted! :-)

DIRECTIONS:

Heat up a large skillet over medium heat. Add oil, ginger, garlic and orange zest and let it cook for a minute or two. (I like to see the garlic turn brown).

Add kale and let it cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring until kale wilts.

Transfer it to a platter, top it with the beets and orange wedges and sprinkle the sunflower seeds.

Serves 4

Hope you enjoy it!