girl-ish
By Valerie Frost “What are you drinking?! Swamp water?” My coworkers can’t help but comment on the thick, frothy, fluorescent green juice in my glass. “Close, it’s kale juice.” Yes, I’m one of those people, who use perfectly good vegetables and extract only the juice, leaving the dried up remains in the compost. I know many people see the juicing fad as a big fat waste and I completely understand this point of view; however, my experience with juicing has been only positive and dare I say, life altering. I was a notorious heavy eater from birth; at ten years old I could easily put away an ENTIRE turkey pot pie and a pint of ice cream, easy (not that I would, but I could...and wanted to, but I guess moms and pops gotta eat too). Eating only one plate of food during a meal literally never happened from the ages of 8-17. After struggling with my uncontrollable ID for my entire life, I have finally learned that rather than try to suppress that energy, I can redirect it in a healthy way. After watching “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” for a Health Psychology class, I decided to give juicing a shot. It seemed like it had a lot of benefits,* and having just gained the Sophomore 20, I wanted to rebound from my health-dive. I found a cheap juicer at the Peddler’s mall (brand new! It was a sign from God!) and started juicing away. After a few days of consuming mostly juice, I kid you not, I was a changed woman. I felt cleaner (warning: if you’re new to juicing it will clean you out. Be someplace safe) and more energetic than I had since...ever. I had tons of energy throughout the day with waaay elevated moods and slept great at night. I swear I could hear my cells buzzing. This is how we’re supposed to feel; like well-oiled machines. Then of course I ate something highly processed and greasy and went right back to feeling ‘normal’, which I now know is really quite shitty. My juice induced health-gasm showed me how I wanted to feel all the time. I don’t live off of juices due to my unfortunate job surrounded by delicious free food, but I’ve noticed that when I do drink a juice either before or during work I’m less likely to eat everything in sight. When I’m buzzing off a juice, eating healthy or moderately becomes easier; the trajectory has been set and I’m prepared to keep the health wagon-a-rollin’! I can say no to the limp fries (my favorite) covered in pink sauce and ‘just one’ to the flour-less chocolate brownies. Juicing requires a bit of energy to make so it packs a punch in not only nutritional content but man-power as well. My juices are powerful and valuable, so much better than just about anything I could ingest! Since I started juicing I’ve lost 10 lbs without even trying. What about the waste?! I’m well aware that by juicing I’m going through a lot of fresh food and producing quite a bit of waste. I’ve tried making tasty treats out of the pulp but I have yet to find a recipe so good I would want to share it with you. So yes, parts of those veggies are going to be trashed, but, I believe that is a better fate than wasting away in some grocery store or someone’s forgotten crisper. And let’s face it, as far as making sure I get my daily dose of vitamins every day, I’m simply not going to eat enough kale, apples, and carrots to equal the nutrients I’m getting from my daily juices. Even if I did manage to eat all of those veggies every day, my body would be spending quite a bit of that new found energy digesting and chewing! Through juicing I’m able to give my body a rest while providing it the nutrition it needs to function most efficiently. Our bodies want to heal themselves but when we are stuffing it with unusable materials it has no chance, it’s too busy digesting. Not all juicers are created equal, but oh well I have the centrifugal type of juicer which is the most common and affordable (I got mine for $30 brand new at Peddler’s Mall). A centrifugal juicer uses a fast spinning blade and mesh filter to separate the pulp from the juice and although I love my juicer very much, I recognize that it is inferior to the cold press juicer. The centrifugal generates heat which kills the ever important enzymes in the juice and the slicing process speeds up oxidation which also nullifies nutrients. The cold press masticates rather than slices resulting in full enzyme preservation and slow oxidation. Knowing this, do I still think juicing is worthwhile? Absolutely. I’m still getting far more vital nutrients than I would be if I weren’t juicing at all, and the way I feel after I’ve been drinking juice for a couple of days is enough to make me a believer. You could say that I’m under the influence of a placebo effect but that really doesn’t settle the case either. Having a healthy ritual that produces delicious reminders of how good health can taste and feel has done wonders for suppressing my binge cravings placebo or not. Juicing in the mornings puts me in a healthy mindset and even if I do fall off the wagon a little bit throughout the day, there’s never a juice very far away to help steer me back on a healthier path. Thanks my gorgeous little juice babies! Meet the Juices When I wake up, or whenever, I get my kale, carrots, apples, grapefruit, oranges, celery, ginger, beets, sweet potatoes and lemon out of the fridge. After experimenting with lots of different fruits and veggies, I’ve found that it’s best to just keep it simple and these are my staples for great juice every time. I wash, cut, and peel to prepare the veggies for their transformation from frumpy fruit to transformative juice. It takes about 20 minutes from start to finish including clean up but I assure you, the juices are well worth it. My Favorite Juice Recipes (Use these numbers as suggestions) Orange Drank - 1 grapefruit, 2 oranges, 1 apple, slice lemon, ginger, handful carrots Purple Drank - 3 oranges, 2 apple, 1 or ½ sweet potato, ½ beet, handful carrots, 1-2 kale leaves (optional, as is everything) Green Drank - 2-4 Kale leaves, 2 stalks of celery, 3 apples, 2 oranges, lemon, handful carrots Tiddly Bits -Shoot for as many vegetables in a juice as possible to keep sugar levels down. -*Carrots and sweet potatoes are a good veggie to juice that aren’t too sweet or bitter. -Celery will greatly affect the taste of your juice, use sparingly. -I recommend having a green juice immediately after juicing and storing a larger purple or orange juice that does not have celery for later. -Green Juice expires fast, so drink it quickly. Read more by the awesome Val! Twerk It to Werk It How Playing the Sims Taught Me About Life and Love My Dog is Awesome....and Other Deep Thoughts
1 Comment
Lauren
5/8/2015 04:28:11 am
Love this! I'm going to give it a try, I think. Gotta keep an eye on Craigslist for a juicer. I also work around delicious food (manager of a Southern style restaurant, gawddddd), so having something to help curb cravings sounds like a godsend in itself. :)
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