Tumeric Tonic
Good things happen in threes, or so they say. Bad things happen in…what? Dozens? That’s what it feels like. Two weeks ago I got hit with the most incredible cold I have had since one kicked my knees out from under me during a trip to NYC in 2006. Back then I had the luxury of spending two days under the duvet in the Soho Grand Hotel, watching a Law & Order marathon and ordering mushy foods from room service. This time around there was no room service, no Law & Order marathon and no respite from three children. It was my own fault — I felt the cold coming on and did nothing and I paid for that later. This was the whole Magilla: Sore throat, aches and pains, sore chest, headache…that thing where you can feel every single place on your body your clothes care to touch your skin.
Truthfully this wasn’t a huge surprise. Stress has been high at our house. We will be moving soon and Nick has had a lot on his plate. Every task at the moment is like sticking a square peg into a round hole. Then Nick goes away for a week and I come down with The Plague. Perfect. With nowhere to turn and no one to turn me I decided on a three-pronged course of action. Number one: daily pho delivery from our local vietnamese restaurant. Number two: lots of Advil Cold & Sinus (not sponsored but I wish it was). Lastly: superfoods.
One and two were pretty simple but it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I do anymore than follow superfood trends and hope they make me look like Gwyneth Paltrow. My pantry will back me up on this: Bee Pollen ✓ Spirulina ✓ Goji berries ✓✓✓ They were all in there. I had no idea what to do with any of them.
I did, however, have a bucketload of Real Health Manuka Honey courtesy of a recent partnership with Real Health (and if you read my story of surviving the lurgies of a ski town in my last post you’ll see that Manuka Honey is a superfood I’ll swear by). I also knew that even the renowned Mayo Clinic says that upping your Vitamin C intake at the start of a cold will help to get it out of your body sooner. All I needed to do was put it all together and see what happened. So somewhere along the line I opted for tumeric, an ingredient praised for centuries for its antioxidant and an anti inflammatory characteristics, and my juicer and this is what happened.
I don’t know if it was magic or the tumeric or the Manuka honey or the vitamin C but I had one of these puppies in the morning and another in the afternoon and all of a sudden I felt like a million bucks. Or Euros. Whatever. I was hooked.
Basically the recipe is this: Make a super concentrated citrus, tumeric and ginger juice. To serve add a teaspoon of Manuka honey to a glass, then fill halfway with the citrus mixture and then dilute it with either coconut water or sparkling water. Play with it a bit, try some different combinations and when you take a big sip and it feels like it is swooshing through you and knocking out all of the bad guys in your system…then you’ve got it all right.
And, for both of us, climb under the blanket and catch up on your Law & Order if you can. I miss those days.
- Handful of fresh tumeric
- 2-inch piece of ginger
- 3 apples
- 4 oranges, peel removed
- Real Manuka Honey
- Coconut Water (or sparkling water)
- Juicer
- Juice the tumeric,ginger, apples and oranges in the order listed. It is important to juice the tumeric first because not much juice comes out of it and the subsequent fruits will help to clear the tumeric from the blades of the juicer and move it into the juice.
- In a tall glass add 1 teaspoon of Real Manuka honey. Fill halfway with the tumeric + citrus juice and stir until the honey has dissolved. Then fill to the top with either coconut water or sparkling water.
- Drink immediately but any of the citrus mixture that you don't use right away can be stored in an airtight container for up to 24 hours.
- Makes 3-4 drinks.
and of course their own website.
No Comments