The Watercress Company has developed seven delicious, nutritious smoothies – one for every day of the week to help even the weakest willed person to stick to a healthy diet!
What’s more they’re all vegan so can aid Veganuary converts and taste so good even the Dry January cohort will be sorted!
Each recipe contains a generous portion of watercress, one of the healthiest veg you can eat. It contains over 50 vital vitamins and minerals; gram for gram there’s more Vitamin C in watercress than in an orange, more calcium than milk, more folate than a banana and more Vitamin E than broccoli. Watercress also boasts high levels of Vitamin A, fibre, iron, protein and a full complement of essential amino acids.
Amino acids are often referred to as the building blocks of proteins and are compounds that play many critical roles in your body including regulating the immune function and building muscle. Your body needs 20 different amino acids to grow and function properly. Though all 20 of these are important for your health, only nine amino acids are classified as essential. Unlike nonessential amino acids, essential amino acids can’t be made by your body and must be obtained through your diet.
The best sources of essential amino acids are animal proteins like meat, eggs and poultry but unusually for a plant, watercress has a full complement of the 9 essential amino acids. What’s more, although the overall number of calories are low in watercress, half of them are made up of protein – remarkably this proportion is about that same as chicken, cod and beef!
This high rate of protein makes watercress especially important in a vegan diet in which meat is not consumed, but it’s also essential for iron.
Iron is needed for the activation and proliferation of immune cells. However, for plant iron to be absorbed, Vitamins C and A are required to convert it into a more easily absorbable form such as haem iron as found in meat. Because watercress has high levels of iron AND Vitamins C and A, it is a reliable and rich source of iron.
But whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian or simply enjoy great tasting nutritious smoothies, these seven watercress-based smoothies will start your day with a healthy kick!
You can find the recipes for these drinks at www.watercress.co.uk
