Balsamic Roasted Brussel Sprout Rocket Salad

I have been thinking of recipes that are especially important for supporting liver detoxification of hormones.  I believe this recipe helps to target all the main detox pathways in the liver and helps to support optimal liver function. This recipe is just a jazzed up version of my usual rocket salad that I consume very often as a side salad to many Italian type dishes I make for dinner. My usual salad is literally just a bunch of rocket (arugula) leaves tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sometimes I go through some extra effort to add in some pear and chopped walnuts. This time I decided to bring the salad to the next level and make it sparkle.  This salad has all the ingredients I could think of to help support all phases of liver detoxification of hormones. Rocket is a bitter which helps stimulate bile flow and keeps the liver and gall bladder functioning optimally. Brussel sprouts are a cruciferous vegetable which helps to support phase 1 ,2 and 3 of liver detox, pomegranates are a very high antioxidant food that can help reduce the damage caused by unfavourable estrogen metabolites (and other toxins).  They are also a potent phytoestrogen that helps to naturally balance estrogen in the body, improve ovulation quality and boost progesterone. Walnuts and olive oil provide healthy fats and omega 3 to combat inflammation and lastly the balsamic vinegar can help to blunt the blood sugar response which also helps liver function and is good for hormone balance on the whole.

Its taken me a long time to come around to Brussel sprouts, I have been afraid of them for many years because I hate cooked cabbage (still do). But I love experimenting with food when I have time, so I persisted and discovered that I like Brussel sprouts roasted. I like to have them roasted in balsamic vinegar like this or roasted with a lot of nutritional yeast and salt. I also like them raw, shaved into a salad. I will admit that they still aren’t my most favourite cruciferous vegetable of all, but Im happy I have found a way to enjoy them and get their amazing health benefits. I am aware that many other people also struggle with Brussel sprouts, in fact so many people hate them that it made me scared to try them even more! I promise that roasting Brussel sprouts definitely makes them become much more tolerable and I think its worth a try.

This salad isn’t calorie and protein sufficient enough to count a as a main meal but it works great as a starter alongside other meals. Adding a veggie starter is a great way to help reduce the blood sugar response of any given meal. The addition of vinegar helps to do this even more with some studies suggesting it can reduce the blood sugar spike of a meal by up to 30%. I am personally not a fan of drinking vinegar in water before meals. It does not make me feel good at all, but I will happily incorporate vinegar in a beautiful veggie starter.

Please note that its pretty hard to write out a recipe for a salad because there aren’t any exact measurements to follow. The measurements I have provided are just a rough estimate based on a smaller side salad to share. You can add in as little or as much as you like.