Sponsored by: the Florida Department of Citrus
Spring marks the return of sunny gatherings and to make sure you don’t miss out on any fun plans. You need to keep your immune system in a good shape. Today, we invited registered dietitian Lauren Cornell to talk about simple ways to keep wellness top of mind this spring.
So Lauren, what’s the easiest way to support our overall health during spring? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me for National Nutrition Month. Obviously, as a registered dietitian health and wellness is at top of mind for me, but especially this month.
Um One very simple way that you can uh kind of uh support your immune system is by consuming Florida orange juice or 100% orange juice. Um You can do this by uh simply just consuming a glass, an eight ounce glass of OJ,
Which is jam packed with a lot of vitamins and minerals that we need. Uh just day to day. Like vitamin C potassium folate thiamine. If you’re drinking a fortified juice, you’re also going to get some vitamin D from 100% orange juice. Um So yeah, it’s a wonderful way for us to,
To support our immune system by just incorporating a little daily orange juice or maybe incorporating orange juice as an ingredient in some of your daily recipes. Ok. I love orange juice. Uh, there’s always a jug of it in my refrigerator. No kidding. So I’m on, I’m, I’m, I’m on my way. Yes. Ok.
So, so how does 100% orange juice actually benefit our immune system? Like how does that work well through the vitamins and minerals that I mentioned? And then it also has this interesting plant based compound called heparin. So, heparin is found almost exclusively in citrus and it may reduce inflammation.
It’s linked to bone health and linked to immune system function as well. So there’s many ways that orange juice can help to support our immune system during this transition into spring. Very cool. And so can you share some simple ways that we can incorporate some OJ into our daily routines,
You know, in order for us to get those natural benefits? Yeah, absolutely. So you can see here, I’ve got a couple of my favorite recipes that incorporate Florida OJ. So we’ve got the Florida OJ and cranberry spritzer. This is super easy to make you just do equal parts,
Which is about two cups of orange juice. And then we’ve got two cups of cranberry juice and about a cup and two thirds of an elder flower sparkling drink. So this can be enjoyed by the whole family or if the adults want to throw their favorite spirit in there.
It can be a nice little cocktail. We also got these Florida OJ, no bake protein balls. These are a wonderful um snack or you can even consume these as like a little bit of a sweet treat. Um This Florida OJ Sunburst smoothie which looks and is delicious is one of my favorites.
Um You can do this as like your breakfast or maybe an afternoon, pick me up. Um And then we’ve got this wonderful dish over here, which is the orange Cous Cous with cinnamon vinaigrette, which is and looks so delicious. All these recipes and more and including some
Information can be found at Florida juice.com. So I highly recommend checking that out for just different ways that you can incorporate this first ingredient. That is very cool and you also fed right into the last question. So great job Lauren. Thank you so very much for joining us today.
And guys, if you want to catch this segment again, go ahead over to first coast News Plus where you can catch on apple TV, Roku and fire TV.
