Lemons!
Bonjour!
Do you like lemons as much as I do?
I buy them by the kilo so I always have them in the kitchen. I wanted to know why I feel so attracted to lemons, beyond the classic information that you can find. Well I was in for a surprise. Read the article till the end to get the astonishing information.
The next time you come to France and go to a ‘café’, hail the waiter and ask: “Garçon! Un citron pressé s’il vous plait!" It’s a classic bistrot drink. You will do yourself a world of good.
Thanks to a recent DNA analysis, we now know that lemons are a cross between a cedrate (a citrus fruit) and a bitter orange. So much for it’s heredity.
Soooo good for your health
Lemons are used for their taste and also for their amazing health benefits. They are often recommended in detox programs or as a first morning drink in warm water to start the day. Why? Lemons have many beneficial substances one of which is quite surprising. I am leaving it for the end!
The first one that comes to mind is vitamin C. These citrus fruits saved the great navigators of the 18th century from scurvy, a deficiency disease that killed many sailors before knowing that they merely lacked one essential vitamin.
Without any vitamin C coming from your food you can die of hemorrhage . Lemons have enough of this nutrient to protect you from this deficiency disease.
Lemons are rich in flavanoids and can improve your digestion. They act like a digestive tonic. If you feel indigestion coming up or if your meal was bigger than usual, have a glass of lemon juice, grate the zest and add some warm water. It ‘s a very simple and efficient remedy that you usually have on hand.
The acidic taste of lemons isn’t a sign that it is acidic in the body. Lemons are actually alkalizing.
Taken immediately after getting out of bed in the morning, this mixture can wake up and condition your digestive system and get it ready for a nice breakfast. It also continues the detoxing that took place during the night.
Adding the zest containing D-limonene, a component of lemon oil, will increase your liver’s capacity to detoxify. Hesperidin is a flavonoid in lemons that protects your liver from damage caused by environmental toxins. Lemons help liquefy and evacuate bile, the substance produced by the liver that eliminates toxins.
It's diuretic effect is also greatly appreciated by your kidneys.
A study in which the animals consumed a high fat diet, showed that polyphenols extracted from lemon skin, reduced their weight gain and the accumulation of fat in their body.
Lemon is an anti bacterial that can protect you against yeasts and fungi such as candida albicans.
Drinking lemon juice during a meal assists in balancing blood sugar levels by slowing down the emptying of the stomach. If you are subject to these fluctuations, drink lemon water during your meals. This practice will also assist you in losing weight.
A surprising effect of lemons is to reduce anxiety!
And here’s the best part!
The detoxifying effects of lemons may actually mainly come from the anions they contain. An anion is a negatively charged ion, in other words a negative ion.
The air we breathe contains anions (negative ions good for your health) and cations (positive ions bad for your health).
The air by the sea side, nearby waterfalls and in pine forests, has an abundance of negative ions. They are necessary for life. Without negative ions there is no life.
Urban air, polluted environments and an atmosphere influenced by modern technology (offices, cars, synthetic material, electric appliances, machines etc.) are rich in positive ions and poor in negative ions.
The effect on your health of these different types of ions, is well documented.
Negative ions (the good ones) can:
Make you feel more energized
Increase the use of oxygen by your body
Improve your immune system
Help athletes recover faster
Have an anti bacterial effect
Reduce respiratory allergies
Reduce depression
Reduce inflammation
Modulate stress
Just think of how you feel when you are by the seaside, in the mountains, near a waterfall or a gushing fountain in the city, in a pine forest and even after a shower. The beneficial effect of these atmospheres is linked with the presence of negative ions.
And lemons are probably the only food in the world that have them in abundance! Some believe that the beneficial effects of lemons are essentially due to that.
Buy your lemons by the kilo and use them generously: right after waking up and several times during the day, drink a glass of lemon water with the zest.
“Garçon! Un citron pressé, s’il vous plaît”!
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