Nitric oxide (NO) is a critical chemical compound in your body that is released by the cells in your arteries, signaling muscle fibers in your cell walls to relax and allow more blood to flow.
The ability of your endothelial cells to pump out nitric oxide (NO) is a direct marker of the health of your vessels.
The more your endothelial cells produce NO, the better their ability to keep the inner lining of your vessels smooth like Teflon instead of rough like Velcro.
Typically, when we are fifty, our bodies are producing 50 percent less nitric oxide than when we were twenty-five.
The good news is that you can make up for that lost 50 percent by chewing your greens and absorbing the natural nitrates that reside in leafy greens, especially kale, Swiss chard, spinach, arugula, beet greens, mustard greens, Napa cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and beets.
When you chew—and only chew—your food, the bacteria residing in the crevices and grooves of your tongue combine with the nitrates in leafy greens and reduce them to chemicals called nitrites.
Then, when you swallow these nitrites, the gastric acid in your stomach further reduces them to nitric oxide that allows them to combine with the existing nitric oxide in your system and help relieve pressure on your arteries.
Some nitrites in your stomach do not get reduced into nitric oxide, however. Instead, they continue further downstream into your gut and eventually are reabsorbed into the bloodstream. Your circulatory system carries these auxiliary nitrites back to your salivary glands where they will be concentrated ten to twenty fold.
As you chew more food, your own saliva pours the nitrites into your mouth and the whole process begins again. The nitrites will be further reduced by the gastric acid in your stomach into more nitric oxide. Bam! It’s a nitric-oxide party in your mouth, your gut, and in your endothelial cells!
This is an extremely delicate process honed by thousands of years of evolution. When you drink your green smoothies and juices, you bypass this synergistic and wonderful system and miss out on one of the most powerful holistic reasons for including green leafies in your diet. This is why we want you eating green leafy vegetables as often as possible. If you are fighting back against heart disease, we want you to consume SIX fist-sized servings every. single. day.
Leafy Green Repair & Rescue Box Delivered to Your Door!
We’ve partnered with The Chef’s Garden to create a special hand-harvested selection of leafy greens grown for optimal nitrate content, shipped straight to your door.
