Wearing masks, social distancing and washing your hands are all great ways to protect yourself from contracting COVID-19. But there’s one thing that you can do to not only decrease your chances of contracting the virus but have the strength to recover quicker and have more mild symptoms — strengthen your immune system. By eating real, unprocessed foods as part of a balanced diet along with regular exercise you will strengthen your immune system naturally. Nest at Nurture recently launched a prepared meal service, immunity market and cleanse to promote nourishing the body from the inside out through eating real, nutritious foods.
According to Kelly Campbell — co-founder of Nurture — the goal of the cafe is to make healthy food more accessible, affordable and delicious. “We want to debunk that living a healthy lifestyle is challenging,” she said. Nest’s cafe menu is easy to navigate and not too complicated — mostly because the majority of the ingredients are real, whole foods. The menu was created by culinary director Elizabeth Woodard with an emphasis on functional nutrition — a personalized method for eating that focuses on food as medicine. Nest even has nutritional panels available if you’re closely monitoring your consumption of certain foods.
The immunity market at Nest is essentially a mini grocery store where you’ll find dry goods, prepared goods, baked goods, produce and beverages. Some of the prepared items include artichoke dip, carrot and chickpea salad, dragonfruit chia pudding and a vegan cashew ranch that you’ll want to douse on everything. The baked goods are the perfect snack, dessert or breakfast and include items like a seasonal muffin, lemon blueberry scone and salted miso pecan cookie — and most are vegan and gluten free.
Currently, Nurture is also hosting drive-thru COVID testing. If you need a test, you can make an appointment and receive a rapid test from the comfort of your car. You’ll receive the results in just 30 minutes to two hours by email.
A new addition to Nest’s menu includes cold-pressed Lacuna juices. Lacuna was a juice cafe that permanently closed due to the pandemic but was able to sell its entire juice program to Nest including its juicers, bottles and recipes. Now, Nest is the only cafe selling Lacuna juice and also developed a cleanse that includes real food in addition to juices. “A lot of the just juice cleanses are really challenging and alienate a lot of people so we took the knowledge of Beth to create the cleanse and added soups, smoothies and broths so you get more sustenance,” said Campbell. If you have ever cleansed with only juice, you know it can be hard. The addition of fiber and textures from the smoothies gives you a satisfying crunch while the soups and broths provide warmth, fat and collagen to keep you full. “You learn a lot about your cravings and your emotions. There is more energy in your mind to process these things when you give your digestive system a little break,” Campbell explained. You can do a one, three, five or seven day cleanse that varies in cost from $59.99 to $399.99 and when you return your glass bottles you’ll get $1 back per bottle.
As of February 1, Nest is also offering a prepared meal program to help ease the burden of cooking since many people are eating out less often. The new program works off a weekly subscription where each week you’ll get two dinners and two breakfasts for one person, two people, or four people depending on the size of your household. All of the meals will be fully prepared, vary from week to week and are different from the regular cafe menu. Potential meals include a falafel mezze platter, tomato coconut curry, tomato basil lasagna and shepherd’s pie. There will be a vegan option and an animal protein option that are priced accordingly — $48 for one person for the one week vegan option and $60 for one person for the one week animal protein option. As with all of the food at Nest, everything is organic and gluten free.
If you’re still in the process of coming up with your goals for 2021, prioritizing your health is an easy one with the help of Nest. Whether you want to reset with a cleanse or start eating a primarily plant-based diet, Nest can help with delicious, high quality food to nurture your body from the inside out.
Nest is located inside Nurture Marketplace at 2949 Federal Blvd, Denver. Open Monday – Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Nest will be open on Sunday on February 14 and every Sunday starting in March.