Dry fruits: Your morning energy shots – By Rajshree Dave

Our body’s natural rhythm guides the cleaning and elimination function to peak in the morning hours. This is the time when the body is flushing out all the toxins through various elimination channels.

Morning is also the time when we are breaking the fasting period through the night and feel hunger.

A good way to allow the body to carry out its cleansing and elimination function with minimum disruption is by choosing foods that are full of wholesome nutrients and minerals, take minimum time to digest and provide instant energy.

Fruits and dry fruits meet all these criteria and are the ideal choice of food to break the fast in the morning.

Fruits need a specific kind of digestive enzyme for digestion, and hence should be ideally consumed on an empty stomach. So let Fruits be the first food that enters your system for breakfast.

Benefits of having fruits in the morning:

1. Fruits are natural cleansers with high water and mineral content; they digest quickly with minimum energy loss and provide energy quickly to the body.
2. Fruits help us to keep our body environment alkaline, which is necessary to keep our body is good health.
3. Fruits also are the most wholesome food with a balance of all nutrients and minerals that are readily available as per the body’s need.

At this time of lockdown, when it is becoming difficult to procure fresh fruits to start the day with you need not worry. Know that dry fruits are a perfect substitute and can work equally well as fruits as Energy Boosters in the morning.

Since dry fruits are dehydrated fruits, they are nutritionally dense. So, one cannot have too many dry fruits at a time. But even in small quantity, they are like potent energy shots.

The best way to have dry fruits is to soak them overnight and eat in the morning. They work great as your pre or post workout energy shot too, if you are one of those morning people who exercise.

1. Take about 8 to 10 raisins or munakka (either black or brown raisins will do).
2. To make it more potent, you can add a couple pieces of anjeer (dry figs) or khajoor (dates) or apricots or kharek (dry dates) or prunes. Any one of these options will work.
3. Wash them and Soak them overnight in a glass of water.
4. In the morning, stir the water, drink it and chew the fruits. You will notice the water is nicely sweetened.

How does this help? 1) Dry fruits provide nutrient dense energy to your body in the morning and help maintain your energy. 2) The natural sugar in the dry fruits will take away your sugar cravings. 3) Soaked raisins with some other dry fruits like prunes or anjeer (dry figs), also help detoxify and ease your bowel movements.

When you can’t find fresh fruits, this is a great substitute. So, go ahead with whatever is available at home for time being, so that you can manage to remain healthy even during this lockdown.

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Rajshree Dave, Health & Wellness Coach

Rajshree Dave Ghildiyal is a Health and Wellness Coach, who believe in the infinite wisdom of the body and its capacity to keep on in optimum health. She advocates the principles of integrative nutrition and living in harmony with the natural laws to enable good health to emerge from within.

A student of Yoga for last 7 years, she has experienced its transformative effects on her health and well-being. She shares her experience to help others reach their own wellness goals through her Health counselling workshops. She empowers people to take charge of their own health by tuning into the wisdom of their own bodies and harnessing the role of food as the right fuel to reclaim health and restore mind body balance.