March 17, better known as St. Patrick's Day or the second drunkest holiday in the United States, is a day full of toasting with pints of Guinness and partying it up with your best friends. However, that following Sunday hangover is dreaded by almost all St. Paddy's day partygoers, putting a damper on your lucky streak from the day before. This year, you can party your heart out Saturday AND ride out that Irish luck through Sunday by curing your hangover with one of these delicious green hangover cures, because who doesn't want to keep the green theme going?
1. Green Tea
Green tea is the hangover cure that beats even coffee. Packed with antioxidants that clear out your system, green tea settles your stomach and wakes you up, rejuvenating your system and bringing you out of your post-St. Paddy's haze. Add some honey to sweeten it if you want to and get additional antioxidants into your system!
2. Green Eggs and Ham
Any foods rich with sulfur, such as eggs, garlic, onions, and green vegetables are the ideal hangover cures because sulfur is a detoxifying mineral. So spice up your morning-after breakfast with eggs with protein (or ham in this case) with a green sauce made from spinach.
3. Green Waffles
Spinach and oat waffles, or green waffles, are the ideal hangover cure because the breadiness of the waffle will soak up the alcohol and the spinach will provide the much-needed detoxifying nutrients to aid your liver in its recovery. Oats provide your body with essential B Vitamins and minerals, both of which your body has lost due to drinking alcohol. Also, B Vitamins boost your mood, which is a definite bonus when battling a hangover.
4. Green Juice
The base of most green juices is water, which is essential when eliminating the alcohol from your system. Make your own in a blender or juicer by adding cucumbers and lemon to a water base to restore alkalinity in the body, or even avocado, which provides healthy fats, proteins, and fibers. You can even go out and buy one if your too hungover to make a juice yourself, which, too frequently, many of us are. If you're looking for a sweeter addition to your green juice, add frozen mangoes, which are rich in Vitamin A, or raw honey.
5. Green Vegetable Omelet
Omelets are a great hangover cure because of the protein and sulfur in eggs, and the addition of green veggies restores essential minerals to your recovering body.
6. Avocado Toast
Avocado toast is not only trendy on your Instagram feed, but the good fats and essential oils in avocado will revive your tired body, and the delicious bread will lap up all traces of alcohol from your system.
7. Green Smoothie Bowl
When you're hungover, your body has lost a lot of potassium, so revitalize your system with a smoothie bowl packed with bananas (which are rich in potassium), ginger to eliminate nausea, almonds which are packed with Vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids to support liver detoxification, coconut water to restore hydration, and kale and avocado. Top it off with oats or oat-based granola, and your favorite fruits for a beautiful and tasty jump start on your lucky escape from a hangover.
8. Kale
The thought of eating kale hungover is not my first choice if I'm entirely honest, but kale is high in Vitamins A and C, which restore the body post-St. Paddy's day. Maybe I should give it a try...
9. Peppermint Tea
Peppermint is a digestive aid, relieving tension, bloating and many of alcohol's other dreaded day-after effects. Peppermint has also been proven to speed up the detoxification process, so get a jump start on your Sunday by drinking a large mug of peppermint tea!
10. Spinach Salad
Harness your inner Popeye and eat a spinach salad packed full of folic acid, sulfur and vitamin C. Spinach is also great for the circulatory system and the brain, both of which are suffering post-hangover. Top your salad off with tomatoes for extra nutrients, such as Vitamins A and C, beta-carotene, and the antioxidant lycopene.
11. Green Apples
Apples are rich in potassium, phosphorus, calcium, iron, and Vitamins A and C, which rejuvenate your body and provide a healthy crunch. And you know what they say--an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so keep your health up and do not get sick from not caring for your body while suffering from a hangover.
12. Lime Water
The leading cause of a hangover is dehydration, making water essential to beating the system. Limes are rich in potassium, calcium, magnesium, and Vitamins A, B, C, and D, and are also packed full of antioxidants that will remedy any hangover, so adding them to a tall glass of water is a surefire way to feel better after a long day and night of partying.
13. Asparagus
While not the first thing that comes to mind when you think hangover cure, steamed asparagus has compounds in it that aid in the breaking down of alcohol and the exit of toxins from the bloodstream.
14. Green (Spinach) Pasta
Nothing tastes better after a day of drinking that a large bowl of pasta that soaks up all the alcohol. While not proven to necessarily be the healthiest of options, green, or spinach pasta at least has some of the health benefits of spinach in it and the carbohydrates in the pasta will aid in the digestion and the soaking up of alcohol in the system.
15. BEC on a Green Bagel
Green bagels are a favorite around St. Paddy's day, and what could be better than your favorite hangover cure—bacon, egg, and cheese—on a green bagel!
16. Green Shamrock Sugar Cookies
Everyone's second favorite St. Paddy's day treat (next to beer of course) is decorated shamrock sugar cookies, because what's better than buttery-sugary bites of goodness alongside your endless pints of Guinness? Use your leftover cookies from Saturday and munch on them for Sunday breakfast because who wants to eat something good for them when they're hungover?
17. Green Beer
The best hangover cure by far is just to keep on drinking. Keep the party going all Sunday-long and toast with friends on a successful Saturday partying and an even more successful Sunday where the fun never dies.
So, when your spirits are low on the Sunday after St. Paddy's day, remember this essential advice: cure your hangover with one of these delicious green foods and reminisce on the fun you had celebrating St. Patrick with your friends and family the day before. Then, start the countdown for St. Paddy's Day of 2019. Who knows, maybe next year you'll be even luckier and not have the slightest trace of a hangover! So continue celebrating the luck of the Irish and their rich heritage all day Sunday as well as Saturday by sipping on giant pints of green beer!