365 Challenge Day 230 – Juice

Okay, another try.  Tonight I made a juice with beets, romaine lettuce, radishes, lots of celery, apple, and carrots.  There is no way I would have been able to drink this combo as a smoothie.  But, it was really too sweet for me.  I probably should have chosen between the apple, carrots and beets, not used all three.  Or, it needed some cucumber or more lettuce, or something to water it down.  Honestly, I don’t know how people drink straight carrot juice, or fruit juice.  I’ve never been able too!!

Well, I’m still experimenting.  I don’t know!!!  These were definitely a lot of nutrients I would not have gotten otherwise.  But also a lot of waste, as I throw all the pulp away.

365 Challenge Day 229 – Juice?

Darn it, only my second day of juicing and I’m already having second thoughts.  This is actually not juice, it’s a smoothie.  The good news is my Vitamix is fixed and I have it back again!!  I was going to make a juice, but I just couldn’t bring myself to waste all the pulp.  I threw it all in the vitamix instead, thinking that it might make me gag, but it was actually really good.  And I got two of these big glasses.  If I had made this into juice it would have been less than half of this.  Here are the ingredients I used (all organic, of course):

Peeled Granny Smith apple; Celery; Romaine lettuce; Unpeeled cucumber; Baby kale

Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but it really was delicious!

365 Challenge Day 220 – Juice

Here in New England we got two feet of snow today! I’m really not much of a movie watcher, but I was pretty much stuck inside all day and everything outside was closed, so I watched two documentaries, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead 2 (I saw the first one several years ago) and Vegucated (which I’ll write about tomorrow.)

They were both very inspiring to eat healthier.

What was inspiring with Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead 2, was hearing the stories of people who turned their lives around, many of whom were able to go completely off of their medication by increasing their health, losing weight, and decreasing the crap they were putting into their bodies.  There was one really inspiring story about a guy who in the first movie had said “I’m going to fat and happy” and seemed completely uninterested in changing his ways, he just wanted to eat what he wanted.  But after the movie came out and he saw himself, and saw the movie, he did a complete turn around.  When they went back to interview him in the second movie had was like a different person, full of energy, healthy and happy!!

I don’t really agree with the idea of long term juice fasts.  I don’t like throwing out all that fiber of the fruits and vegetables.  And reducing calories that drastically for a long period of time can slow down your metabolism.  I also think that’s a lot of sugar for the body to consume, and a lot of sugar that hits the blood stream all at once.  But what does inspire me is the reminder of how good it is to have so much fresh food.  There were stories of people who increased their health just by adding a glass a day of green juice, without doing the fast.  It is true that by juicing you can get a lot more vitamins and nutrients into your system.

Well, I gave my juicer away last year in an effort to declutter, and in favor of green smoothies in made in my Vitamix.  But the person I gave it too still has it and said he never uses it and I can have it back…