Showing posts with label pumpkin spice. Show all posts

This 5-Ingredient Autumn Juice Recipe Might Fix Everything


Step aside sugar-loaded pumpkin spice latte, this autumn juice recipe takes seasonal drinks to a whole new level. Unlike PSLs, this  juice is made with real food ingredients that perk up the immune system and fill your body with vital nutrients all while embodying the flavors of the season.

Juice, often best served green after a sweaty yoga or barre class, can also be filled with autumnal flavors and seasonal ingredients. Leave it to our favorite rooted and grounded fruits and vegetables to get you feeling balanced, brightened, and rejuvenated in these cool fall months.

Packed with sweet potato, apple, ginger, turmeric, and carrot, this autumn juice is filled with whole food superstars. We don’t mean to play favorites, but the sweet potato in this recipe is a total winner. More than just vegetable mash and fries, sweet potatoes are an easily juiced vegetable that deliver ample amounts of nutrients.

Sweet Potato Health Benefits

This orange-fleshed beauty is one of our favorite grounding vegetables. Along with providing nutrient support to the body, sweet potatoes are easily grown across the world and considered an environmentally stable crop.

Fun fact: NASA thinks these potatoes are pretty stellar too. The tubers were chosen as a candidate crop to be grown and incorporated into menus for astronauts on space missions due to their (crazy impressive) nutritional value.



Besides being astronaut-approved, sweet potatoes are a great source of easily digestible fiber, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants such as beta-carotene. Sweet potatoes also contain bioactive compounds such as phenolic acids and anthocyanins, which contribute to the bright orange color of their skin and flesh and boast health benefits as well.

Just one cup of sweet potato provides 214 percent daily value of vitamin A, 52 percent daily value of vitamin C, 50 percent daily value manganese, as well as impressive amounts of copper, vitamin B6, B3, B1, potassium, and biotin.

With their ample nutrients plus bioactive compounds, sweet potatoes have been widely studied for their abundant health benefits. Numerous studies have shown that sweet potato consumption is linked to anti-cancer properties, reduced inflammation, antimicrobial activity, hormone-balancing abilities, and extreme free-radical-scavenging powers.




This autumn juice recipe also boats other orange-skinned superfoods such as carrots and turmeric. These whole foods deliver impressive amounts of vitamins A and C along with a wide variety of other vital nutrients. Turmeric is especially nourishing and has been shown to reduce inflammation, be protective against certain cancers, and soothe stomach issues. Just a tip, always consume your turmeric with black pepper, which makes its beneficial compounds more bioactive.

Sip the flavors of fall with this seasonal and nutrient-rich autumn juice. We know it will be your new favorite festive drink. Buh-bye, PSLs.


Autumn Juice

Serves 1-2

Ingredients
1 large sweet potato
1 crisp apple, such as fuji or honeycrisp
1-inch nub ginger
1-inch nub turmeric
4 large carrots
Pinch of black pepper

Directions
Run all ingredients through a juicer and finish with a pinch of black pepper. Drink autumn juice immediately or store in the refrigerator in a sealed glass jar for one to two days.



Surprising Facts You Didn’t Know About Pumpkins

While you sip on that pumpkin spice latte, consider these unusual pumpkin facts about your favorite fall produce.

Maybe you want to know why pumpkins fit so effortlessly into sweet and savory dishes, like pumpkin ravioli and pumpkin pie. Perhaps you are curious about how early American settlers used this foreign gourd for cooking, or why we carve faces into pumpkins on Halloween.

Pumpkins haven’t always been as popular as they are today. In fact, pumpkins were hardly eaten by people for a considerable part of the 19th century. Hard to believe considering pumpkin spice seems take over our taste buds every fall season. No food is above a little help from pumpkin spice: Pumpkin flavored yogurt, coffee, candies, and even English muffins are cropping up on our supermarket shelves.

This fall season while you snack on your artisanal pumpkin [insert food here]; consider the facts about this versatile, tasty treat to discover how pumpkins went from the bottom to the food chain to the top of fall food trends over the past several hundred years

1.  45 Different Varieties of Pumpkins

While the round orange pumpkin is the most recognizable pumpkin, pumpkins come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of the cleverly named pumpkin varietals include, Halloween in Paris from France, Cinderella (the varietal cultivated by the Pilgrims), and Wee-Be-Little a miniature pumpkin varietal.

2. Irish Jack-O-Lanterns

The tradition of carving pumpkins originated in Ireland. The Irish would carve jack-o-lanterns out of turnips to scare away evil spirits during the Celtic holiday Samhain, the night when spirits of the dead would walk the earth.

3. October = Pumpkin Month

80 percent of the pumpkin crop in the U.S. is available during October. That is roughly 800 million pumpkins out of the 1 billion pumpkins grown in the U.S. each year.

4. “Pumpkin Capital” of the World

Morton, Illinois is the self-proclaimed pumpkin capital of the world. Illinois is one of the largest producers of pumpkin in the United States with 90 to 95 percent of its crop being used for processed pumpkin foods.

5. Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds contain more protein than peanuts and are a wonderful roasted with spices or salt. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top of salads or eat as a snack on their own.

6. Pumpkins are 90 Percent Water

Admittedly, this is less of a surprising fact when you consider that pumpkins come from the same family as the watermelon and cucumber.