It’s been nearly a month since Eric and I radically shifted our diets and starting juicing heavily. About six weeks ago, my dad watched the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and got inspired to do a juice fast to heal himself. Eric and I watched the film also and thought it would be cool to try it with him. My digestive issues had been better after cutting out gluten, but I was curious to see if this kind of thing would mend the rest of the pain and discomfort I was having. Juice fasting isn’t for everyone (and honestly I’m not sure it’s actually for me!) and, of course, you should consult your physician if you’re considering doing something like this. We didn’t do the full-on juice fast, but we have been doing probably a 90% green juice diet with maybe a fully raw light salad or some fresh fruit in the evenings. Probably twice a week we have a meal that is cooked — something that we’ve been craving during the week of juicing and eating raw. Having these meals and knowing that we can have something cooked now and then if we feel like it makes the rest of the time enjoyable and relatively easy to do. We also treat ourselves to some raw meals –either homemade or out at Chaco Canyon Café — which are a nice way to celebrate delicious raw food in the summer time. I cut out caffeine and alcohol about five weeks ago and have maybe had one drink and a couple of cups of green tea since then. Amazingly, my stomach pain has completely resolved itself and I honestly haven’t felt this good in a couple of years.
So I thought I would share my green juice recipe with you. It’s delicious and it tastes so healthy and energizing! Even if you’re not going to shift to raw foods, a green juice in the morning is a great way to start your day. If I’m feeling groggy in the morning, I drink a glass of the green juice and feel energetic and ready to start my day, even without caffeine. While I’m at my desk working during the day, I have a constant glass of green juice that I sip on and refill as needed from a big jar of juice in the fridge.
Notes about ingredients: If possible, organic produce is best, but if you’re going to prioritize and only buy certain items organic, they should be the following: greens, celery, apples. Cucumber and lemons/limes can be purchased non-organic and peeled before using. If you do a little recon to see where the best prices are on these different items, you can save a lot of money that way.
The Recipe
Makes about 64 ounces
1 head of lettuce (romaine is a nice choice)
1 bunch of kale
1/2 bunch of parsley (optional)
4-5 stalks of celery
3 cucumbers, peeled if not organic
2 apples
2-3 lemons or limes, peeled
thumb of ginger
Prepare a big bowl of all of your ingredients, washed and peeled as needed. Start juicing with the greens first. We have a Breville juicer, which works great, but I like to run the pulp through again to get more juice out of it. To do this, once you’re done juicing the greens, dump the pulp from the greens into a large bowl and feed it through the juicer a second time. Then continue on with your other ingredients. Once you’ve juiced all the ingredients, you can run all the pulp through again. You don’t have to re-juice the pulp, but I love how much extra juice you get from this process. Pour your juice into a large glass jar or other container, pour yourself a tall glass, put the rest in the fridge and enjoy!
Follow
So weird!
I’ve been all over their website and have a juicer in my Amazon shopping basket (although haven’t determined if I’ll really use it…)
Kevin — what a coincidence! 🙂 I was worried about not using the juicer, too, before we bought it. And honestly, we definitely have our ups and downs with using it. When we first got it a few years ago, we used it all the time for about a month or two. Then we didn’t use it at all for about a year, then we would go through phases of using it and not using it. In the end, I’m really glad we have it, even if we are sporadic juicers. And I know a lot of people do use juicers sporadically — like to do juicing reboots when they’re feeling like they’re needing a burst of nutrition or feeling yucky. I know my mom is a lot better at using it regularly over the long-term. Let me know how you like it if you end up pushing the ‘order’ button on Amazon. 🙂