Spinach Salad with Pine Nuts

Spinach is a precious vegetable, available abundantly in spring and early summer. It is rich in essential nutrients and low in carbohydrates, protein, and fat. In other words, spinach is low in calories. It's also mineral rich. Iron and other minerals in combination with chlorophyll and vitamins promote the formation of blood and hemoglobin. Eating spinach stimulates the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and other digestive glands. But eat it raw. Heating spinach destroys most of these valuable nutrients.

Always serve a fresh salad before a cooked meal to provide your body with the enzymes needed to digest the cooked food. Cooking foods over 118°F (48°C) denatures natural enzymes so we have to introduce other enzymes or rely on our own to digest well.

Salad:
1 bunch spinach, washed and sliced thin
1 red onion, cut into fine rings
4 tomatoes, sliced
2 Tbsp (30 ml) pine nuts, chopped

Dressing:
4 Tbsp (60 ml) cold-pressed oil such as flax-seed oil, pumpkin-seed oil, or extra-virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lime or 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp (1 ml) herbal salt
Balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and soy sauce, to taste

Combine spinach, onion, and tomatoes in large salad bowl. In separate bowl, use a fork to whisk together oil, lime or lemon juice, and herbal salt. Add a touch of vinegar, mustard, and soy sauce so they taste in balance, without one flavour dominating. Season to taste with more herbal salt, if necessary. Pour dressing over salad and mix gently. Sprinkle pine nuts over salad and serve.

Source: alive #259, May 2004