Juice: It's What's For Breakfast
October 28, 2013
Hubs and I are beginning our THIRD week of juicing for breakfast, and we are seeing (and feeling!) the benefits BIG time. Thanks to my mother-in-law, we acquired a juicer and have used it every single day for the past two weeks. When we made our first juice (a simple carrot, apple and ginger juice), we really had no intention of incorporating it regularly into our diet. My inspiringly healthy co-worker did a few juice fasts, and each time she let me sample her concoctions. I honestly didn't try one I didn't like.
So I began researching the benefits of juicing and ran across two disadvantages that stuck out:
- Buying organic fruits and veggies (and a TON of them!) can quickly drain your grocery budget; and
- Prepping and cleaning up when juicing is a time-consuming pain
So without any set goals or plans, we began juicing every evening our breakfasts the next morning. Our favorite has been this recipe (makes 1 16 oz. serving):
- 3 carrots
- 2 apples
- 1 in. fresh ginger root
After reading about the healthy effects of fennel (it is high in tryptophan, which is used by the brain to produce serotonin), we adjusted the above recipe a little and added 1/2 a bulb of fennel. It tastes like a sweet licorice. Yum.
Here's the adapted recipe:
- 4 medium carrots
- 5 small apples
- 1 1/2 in. fresh ginger root
- 1/2 fennel bulb
We should have a fantastic Monday after drinking this serotonin-inducing happy juice!
Another one of my favorites:
Oranges, lemons, cucumber, kale, apples and ginger.
Let me be clear: I HATE cucumbers. To me, they just ruin a good salad and are good for nothing. BUT, they are healthy and have a lot of vitamins and nutrients other fruits and veggies just don't have. I'm okay as long as their flavor is masked, and it most definitely is in this ultra-citrus juice.
This made 32 ounces for me and Hubs to split.
- Three handfuls of kale leaves
- 2/3 of a cucumber
- 4 peeled oranges
- 2 peeled lemons
- 3 apples1
- 1 1/2 in. fresh ginger root.
At this point, we've fixed so many different juices, it's hard to keep track of our favorites. Hubs really liked a tropical juice we made using fresh pineapple, kiwi, mangos and coconut water. It called for papaya, but we couldn't find it, so we substituted mangos instead. Yum!
Another one I LOVE is spicy lemonade:
- 10 oz. water
- Juice of 2-3 lemons (I use 3, sometimes 4 if they're really small)
- 1 tbsp agave or maple syrup
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Juice vs. Smoothies
I have replaced meals with both juice and smoothies, and I must say I am a bigger fan of juice as a meal replacement. For me, texture is huge. I can drink juice easier (and faster) than a smoothie. The only downside is when the juicer extracts the juice from the fruit/veggie, it removes the pulp which contains all of the fiber. Less fiber means less work for my digestive system and quicker absorption of nutrients into my bloodstream. If I were to do a juice fast, I would have to be extra careful to include more vegetables than fruit because of the high levels of natural sugars fruit contains.
However, smoothies do leave me feeling fuller, but that may be because it takes me an hour to drink one. :)
For now, we will continue with our breakfast juices. A few days over the past two weeks, I have even had juice for a mid-morning snack and lunch. Those days, I ate a light dinner of salad and hummus with pita. It's amazing how good you feel when your food doesn't contain loads of added sugar, butter and cheese.
I would say 90% of my diet is now vegeterian, and I didn't even intend to stop eating meat. I just choose vegetables whenever I can and try to stay away from dairy when possible, too. It's crazy how things just seem to happen when you're not even thinking about them.
:)
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