When it comes to boosting your fertility, I'm sure that you already know that one
of the most important nutrients is folate. Folate is obviously really
important for reducing your risk of neural tube defects but did you know
that folate being a water-soluble vitamin breaks down really quickly.
That means that the folate in things like cooked foods and foods that have been
sitting on the supermarket shelves have a lot less folate in them than fresh
foods. Which is why one of my favorite food sources when it comes to boosting
your folate intake is a fertility juice.
So stay tuned and I'm going to show you how to make one.
Hi my name is Melanie McGrice and I'm a fertility and prenatal dietitian.
Now I'm sure that you already know about the important benefits of folate. Folate is a
water-soluble vitamin, that means that it breaks down really quickly. Now some of
the best sources of folate in our diet are green leafy vegetables, some types of
fruits and whole grains. But if you are buying a juice from the supermarket
you'll find that they often actually have to add in artificial extra folic
acid because the natural folate degrades over time. Which is why I love a fresh
folate rich fertility juice, which is what we're going to make today. So let's
get started. So I've got my little blender here and
really it's just about throwing together some quick and easy folate rich
ingredients. So first of all I've got some baby spinach. I like to add in
about a cup of baby spinach. Now baby spinach is super high in folate.
Obviously you can cook it, you can cook spinach. But again having it as a juice
is a great way to get the fresh folate out of that baby spinach so and
it also is really rich in antioxidants, which all of these natural foods are.
In fact the more plant-based foods that you can have in your diet the more
antioxidants you're actually going to be giving your body and the better for
optimizing your fertility. So we've got about a cup of our baby spinach, next I'm
going to pop in some celery. Celery again is a good source of folate.
How I've chosen these particular foods are because they're all super rich in folate.
So I just like to cut this up a little bit. So celery is also a really
good source of fiber. And I do like to just cut it up a bit. If you've got a
really powerful blender you could probably just throw it in as is but
I always think that it's helpful just to just chop it up roughly. Then I just want
to put in a few mint leaves. Now again great source of both folate
and our antioxidants but the mint also adds some beautiful flavor and freshness
to our fertility juice and just smell so divine. Now when it comes to having your
fertility juice I'd recommend having one of these a day, for about the three
months of the lead-up to conception and then also through that first trimester
of pregnancy when you're at highest risk of having neural tube defects. So we
popped our mint in. The next ingredient is some garlic. Now garlic is..
Oh again smells just divine! Garlic is
really rich in an antioxidant called glutathione and again we know the
antioxidants and particularly this glutathione, are great for boosting our
fertility. It really helps to get your oxygen flowing around your body and
and sending a whole lot of nutrients to our eggs or sperm. This is great for the
men too. Finally I'm going to add in an orange. So depending upon your blender
you can actually add in the rind if you want to. Instead of an orange you could
also add in some lime or lemon. But again you know I was mentioning that some
fruits are really rich in folate, well orange is one of the richest fruit
sources of folate so that's why I like to add some orange into this fertility
juice. The other thing is that it also adds
adds some sweetness to our juice. So in terms of this as I was saying
I'd recommend having one a day and what you might want to do..
just going to add in about half an orange. And what you might want to do is either
have it for brekkie with I'd recommend with a bowl of oats, is a great start to
the day. Because the oats are very low glycemic index and being a juice it is a
little bit on the higher glycemic index side. So if you have particularly if you
have to be careful of your blood glucose levels, that's kind of the one downside
of a fertility juice. I'm just chopping up my orange here and pop that in.
Have it with a bowl of oats and you and with that you can have it on a daily
basis or you can have it in the afternoon and again match it was
something that is low GI so for example have it with a tub of yogurt and then
have your fertility juice. So I've got everything in there now I'm just going
to add in a little bit of ice and about a cup of water. So that it's nice and
cold. And this just helps it to blend up a
little bit better as well. So making a mess
Add that in there and then we'll give it a blitz.
So we'll give it a blitz and then you're right to drink it!
You can see that it only takes seconds to make and you do want to make
it fresh so that you get as much folate as possible.
So, cheers!
Enjoy your fertility juice on a daily basis and please let me know in the
comments below how you enjoyed your fertility juice, if you made any little
tweaks or changes. And if you haven't done so already make sure to subscribe
so that you get access to my weekly videos. And if you haven't done so
already make sure you download my free fertility meal plan just go to www.melaniemcgrice.com/fertility
and I look forward to seeing you in my next video okay so let's go again