Winter is the perfect season to experience “gustative hormetic stressors”. If you don’t know yet what hormetic stressors are, please check their benefits here.

As a Nutritionist and fervent adept of chrononutrition, raised on a plant-based diet, I always look for seasonal changes. Changes in weather and temperature are good opportunities to renew my menu plan. A good way to revive my healing alliance with plants.

Winter is time for Cruciferous or Brassica vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, or Brussel Sprouts. Beyond these most known ones, there is at least 40 types of Cruciferous vegetables consumed worldwide.

If the mention of these vegetables spark any unpleasant gustatory related memories, it is time to actualize your feelings. As you cringe at the idea of any form of cabbage on your plate, you are missing out on some seriously good nutrition. Besides being packed with vitamins, minerals, and fibre, these glucosinolate-containing foods offer benefits that may extend well into the prevention of serious illnesses.

LEARN TO LOVE YOUR CABBAGE

Their unique smell and bitter flavour are related to the breakdown of their sulfur-containing phytochemicals, the glucosinolate mentioned above. These phytochemicals support your liver phase II detoxification and suppress the expression of pro-inflammatory genes. That’s precisely because of their taste that these vegetables have been associated with reduced heart disease and their potential role in cancer and chronic inflammatory disease prevention.

Expanding and balancing the flavours in your plate is key for your optimum wellness and vitality. Your sense of taste:

– Enables the evaluation of your food for toxicity and nutrient content
– Influences how efficiently you digest those foods.

The bitter taste receptors are the more diverse but the ones the most scarcely activated in modern diet. Many beneficial bioactive compounds are bitter. Unfortunately, easy access to tasty, energy-dense foods have heightened our sensitivities for sugary, salty and fatty foods to the detriment of bitterness contributing to cause malnutrition-related diseases, in a society of abundance.

RETRAIN YOUR TASTE BUDS AS YOU PROGRESS IN LIFE

As the sense of taste has played a central role in the evolution of humans, it is time for you to review your current standing in regards to your own evolution. Your food likes or dislikes are largely shaped by your experiences: your sense of taste is changing with every meal you eat!

Many culture have some type of food they love and that is despised everywhere else. There are as many approaches to food that there are cultures and individuals, it shows how powerful conditioning is. As the traveling adventure starts in your plate, your brain can learn almost everything under the right circumstances.

As a wellness facilitator, I’ve learnt to open my mind and not to take for granted my own approach to food, nutrition and nourishment. I encourage you to learn to love new food on your path to optimal health & wellness.