Juicing Recipes

Wow. I've made it to my sixth day of ingesting only fruit and vegetable juices, water, and herbal teas. Although I felt weak during my exercise class, in general, I've felt pretty good. The first thing I noticed about my day that's different, is I don't get my usual afternoon slump. This diet takes me off the roller coaster ride of carbohydrate ups and downs, coffee and candy jerks to the right or left. I've never had it so easy to resist the pull of regular food and drink. Oh, but, the aroma of my dear man roasting a pizza (frozen) in the oven enticed and teased my olfactory nerves once. I just stayed in a different part of the house to resist any temptation until he finished his evening ritual mastications.

I'm really glad that I made a New Year's resolution to stop drinking alcohol, too. Now, over the course of  the first week, I've made some adjustments to this resolve. I have reckoned that moderate social drinking is okay. Just not the daily beer, that turns into two, or three, followed by a glass of wine or two every night. Only half a bottle of red, red wine easily turns into an entire one at a party. The next day lay wasted, due to alcohol poisoning. It's not worth it! Time to make a change before I'm a full blown alcoholic. Before my liver turns into chopped! At my age, its very easy to build up immunity to the affects of alcohol. A daily habit gradually grows into a serious addiction! However, I refuse to give up my good health, and organs.

Actually, I've never had it so easy to resist the pull of regular food and drink. Probably because this is the sixth year I've been attempting to stay on the full 10 days of this cleanse. Practice really does help. A psychological confidence that I won't die of starvation. Even though I hear a few more growls in my stomach. Especially the last couple of nights of guzzling the fiber in a full glass of water right before I hit the pillow. Listening to the twists and turns as it courses my clean, well rested intestine. Well. it didn't sound off Pavlov's bells of salivating hunger, even though, my stomach was indeed empty. This is how you love your digestive tract, people! Just think what an annual break can do to fight colon cancer, the silent killer?

The last two days of the diet are very important. If you need to cut the diet short, cut back on the juicing days, instead of these. Just like the first transition days, only eat fruit and vegetables, steamed or raw, with only lemon juice, fresh herbs and soy sauce to season. Gradually return to normal eating. Use these last two days building back the good flora in the intestine. Take a pro biotic pill three times a day with your meals. Any brand will do, look in the refridgerator section of your healthy grocer for a bottle.

I strongly recommend that you make most of your own juice, but I really do understand how annoying the juicer is to clean. Easy enough to buy your own carrot juice, if not apple and fruit mixes that are put out by Naked Juice or Odella. You should find a juice bar too. Go there every day for a shot of wheat grass.  When I skip a day I take a bigger shot the next day. We have a juice bar inside the health food store in my town. They let you choose any combination of a base: Apple, Carrot, Celery, Cucumber, Tomato. Then, you can choose more intensive flavors and additives. It's important to keep the proportions of greens, to no more than a quarter of the base mix. I like using a 4 cup measuring cup to check my levels. First I juice the spinach, watercress, parsley, herbs, escarole, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, kale, etc. and a quarter of a beet. I stop at one cup, before I add pungent flavors like a tiny clove of garlic, or ginger, or one eighth of an onion. Here are some of my favorite juice combos:

Breakfast:

1/2 organic cantaloupe with rind or peeled if not organic

OR
1 grapefruit, cut off rind leaving as much pith as possible
2 apples. quartered, unpeeled, un-cored

OR
1/2 pineapple with rind, or peeled if not organic

Lunch, Snacks, Dinner:

1/4 beet with tops, filling rest of 1 cup with greens, (parsley, dandelion greens, kale, spinach, and/or, green pepper, green onions).
spicy, pungent flavors like one radish plus greens, and/or, 1/4 onion, and/or, one small clove garlic
2 pounds carrots will yield 2 cups juice
2-3 apples will yield 1 cup of juice


OR
2 cups tomato juice
1 cup celery juice
1 cup cucumber
add a quarter of lemon with peel and
a big hand full of parsley, and/or, a small clove of garlic

Dessert:
Mango juice from Naked Juice

OR
any fruit mix juice, especially coconut mix!