Every food is important, even celery * Gwendolyn Kelly

I’m not hating on celery. Every food is important. That’s the single most important lesson I’ve learned about crafting a healthy lifestyle.

When you are trying to achieve and maintain a sustainable healthy lifestyle you’ll run into a lot of questions,
conflicting information, and decision points.

That’s because EVERYTHING actually is important.

Every meal.
Every cooking technique.
Every ingredient.
Every macronutrient.
Every activity you do to burn calories and tone.

I didn’t want to believe this for a long time. In fact, l actively ignored most of it under the
mistaken belief that eating should be simple and require little thought.

Imagine you’ve been eating something for as long as you can remember then suddenly eating it has negative consequences.
That happened to me with salt.

Truthfully, it was not “suddenly” that the negative consequences started. But the damage was slow enough that reaching the tipping point of being immediately noticeable was a surprise.

It’s no secret that salt/sodium causes bloating and increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.
So I’m on the hunt for foods that will help balance and/or flush out salt when I accidentally have too much. Sadly,
that seems to be anytime l eat at any restaurant. BTW: I love finding and going to new restaurants.

First line of defense is to stay hydrated! check.
Never add salt when cooking at home. Check.
Also be vigilant about checking salt content when out. check. But you never know what someone else put in the food.

Anyway, back to celery

I started putting it in my morning smoothie and eating it as a snack because I read that it helps to decrease bloating. I’m just starting to figure out how true this claim is or isn’t.
So far I’ve gathered that celery is a vegetable :-0 It’s low calorie and crunchy. It’s low on the glycemic index. It’s high in fiber.
There are lots of claims about its health benefits. Supposedly it …

improves digestion ?how – fiber?
fights chronic inflammation in the body ?research?
contains cancer-fighting: phthalides, flavonoids, polyacetylenes ? what the hell are those?
can cause sensitivity to the sun
might lower blood pressure ?might not?
helps reduce fat build-up in the liver – that sounds like a good thing

That’s a whole lot of possibility! I still need to gather specifics and read a bit about celery stalks versus juice versus seeds.