When I was sick over the winter I basically ate (Imagine) soup and drank (Naked) juice. I couldn't believe how amazing I felt while going through a sickness. It was the first time I thought that I might actually enjoy doing a juice cleanse. I had tried the master cleanse (pre-vegan days, I don't do honey now) once in the past, for like a day and a half. I just couldn't drink the same thing all day long. It worked, but I felt like I was burning off my taste buds from over exposure to the mundane. But a juice cleanse, with a variety of flavors all day, that gets my attention.
When you do a search for juice cleanses you'll find a slew of mail order juices in pretty packaging and with glowing reviews. I wanted to try all of them. And review all of them for you! Then I looked at the price. For one day, I would end up spending at least $65 for one person... times three days and we're at about $200. Now add in my partner in crime and we're looking at $400. He actually said, "I'll just drink orange juice or something, that's ridiculous!"
The lazy version of me started to pout over the realization that the curious version of me was about to take on DIY juicing for three days. It's happening! I chose this last weekend because it's spring break in our college town, so I knew boyfriend would be less tempted by his PhD/Master cohorts to go get lunch or bring food into the office (because he's the only one there this week). We also started on a Friday so the two of us would be working on (according to others) the crankiest day of the cleanse. Good distractions and some separation from one another so we don't get in a fight was good thinking on my part (I'm patting myself on the back a lot in this review, aren't I). And then we would have the weekend for flexibility, since neither of us knew what to expect.
I'll start with the recipes... Actually, I'll start with the grocery list. Which, when all was said and done (including the jars for storing), cost us a total of $125 for two people over three days. Way better than that $400 price tag from earlier, right?!
Shopping List:
6 grapefruits
36 carrots
2 chunks of ginger
18 green apples (should have done 12)
6 beets
6 sweet potatoes
2 pineapples
6 cups of cashews
60 brazil nuts
12 pears
12 cucumbers (only needed 6 because they were huge)
3 bundles of kale (probably could have done 2)
3 bundles of spinach (probably could have done 2)
1 nutmilk bag (I'm sorry, how do you not giggle at "nutmilk bag"!?)
24 canning jars (we reused some)
6 grapefruits
36 carrots
2 chunks of ginger
18 green apples (should have done 12)
6 beets
6 sweet potatoes
2 pineapples
6 cups of cashews
60 brazil nuts
12 pears
12 cucumbers (only needed 6 because they were huge)
3 bundles of kale (probably could have done 2)
3 bundles of spinach (probably could have done 2)
1 nutmilk bag (I'm sorry, how do you not giggle at "nutmilk bag"!?)
24 canning jars (we reused some)
1 green apple
1 beet (peeled)
3 carrots
By far the prettiest of the drinks, but my kitchen looks like a murder scene.
1-2 pears
1/2 cucumber (if it's ginormous)
handful of kale
handful of spinach
This one took some experimenting once I discovered my cucumbers were larger than the recipe was probably expecting. So I would start with a 1/2 of cucumber, do the 1 pear, then do spinach and kale, and then if there was more room do another pear.
1 sweet potato
1-2 green apples (was suppose to be 1/4 of pineapple in the original recipe—I followed the wrong one on my pinterest page)
2-3 carrots (depends on the size to figure out if you need an extra one or not)
1 square inch of ginger
1 grapefruit
2 carrots
1 square inch of ginger
I gave my juicer a break after the first three and made the last two juices the following day (the first day of the cleanse). I'm pretty impressed that my dad's juicer from the 80s (earlier?) is still holding strong.
3/4 cup of unsalted cashew nuts (soaked the night before)
10 brazil nuts (soaked the night before)
water
1/4 t vanilla
pinch of salt
I added in one of the pineapples into this one
Soak the cashews and brazil nuts in the fridge overnight
Rinse them off and put them in your blender with 2 cups of water
Blend for 3 minutes until smooth
Add vanilla, cinnamon and salt (and pineapple) and blend for another minute or so
Strain the milk through a sieve lined with a nut milk bag or muslin cloth (based on experience, I would recommend investing in a nut milk bag!)
Refrigerate to chill
Here's how we did...
Day One
What a rough start to our day one—we both woke up around 3am—Jafe with heartburn and me with cramps. Tums solved Jafe's problem, but I was up til about 7am until I finally fell back asleep. Once I fell asleep, I dreamed of eating food the entire time. COME ON!
All I want to do is eat everything in the house. It doesn't help that Jafe agrees and is naming the things we could actually eat in the house. But then we buckled down and agreed to make it through day one without cheating. Jafe left with three juices for his day at the office, I sat down to drink Juice Three (because I didn't have Juice Four made yet). Luckily, I slept in pretty late, so part of my day of wanting to eat is already behind me, hooray!
Yoga was a great distraction from feeling hungry, but now that I've had two drinks and I'm back working at home (surrounded by food) I'm not feeling satisfied... little nervous about that. But going for my third drink—ABC juice. Jafe sent a text to check in, that was sweet. I needed it.
No headaches, sweats, tummy issues... I'm just hungry. I can't tell if it's real or if I think I'm hungry. I need to drink more water though. Luckily I got to spend the late afternoon with my dear friend and her adorable family. Between cute kiddos to make you giggle, a sweet dog to make you feel so very loved, and catching up with one of your favorite people in the world... you just can't go wrong! My friend and her hubby make cute babies, right?
OK, we're both home... on what would normally be a dinner out night out for us. Ugh! I'm starving, but Jafe claims to be fine. I asked what he thought of the juices, the green was his favorite, the orange was alright, and the beet was too strong for him. I was surprised the green was as good as it was (but still the worst on my list)... honestly, it's not food so I don't even care what it tastes like.
I am happy to report I don't want to fight with anyone (which I usually get really cranky when I'm hungry)... seriously, we borrowed a phrase from our friend with the same affliction. They (and now we) call it hangry. Like hulk hangry. Anni smash! There should be specialized section in the greeting card aisle for it.
Day Two
I guess this is actually still a part of day one, but discovered on day two... My number one tip for doing a juice cleanse (yes, I already know it). Make sure you're not allergic to any of the ingredients before you use them. Seems pretty obvious, right? Unless you've never had an allergy your entire life and tried a couple brazil nuts before hand to be sure (because of a weak gut instinct to test it... trust those intuitions!!!!).
I woke up at 3-4am coughing and with THE sorest throat I've ever had. I immediately panicked thinking I had strep and was just around three little kiddos yesterday (Bridget is gonna kill me). I've never had strep before (that I'm aware of, at least), so I searched the symptoms. I kept thinking... I don't feel sick though. No fever, no aches, no anything but this horribly painful throat. Then I went to go say something to one of the cats (they were probably excited I was awake so early to feed them, because they are of course wasting away and completely neglected). I couldn't speak. I had no voice. Hmm. I've never had laryngitis (I'm starting to feel pretty grateful for all the ailments I've avoided over the last 37 years), so I look it up. It made way more sense as a symptom of something that wasn't a sickness. Wait, it says allergies. I don't have allergies. <insert slow camera move from my perspective of the phone to the half-full mason jar of nut milk.> I should also mention that I probably had about 40-50% of my breathing capacity available too. OK, I'm waking up Jafe... first I'm going to need paper + a pen. He knows me well enough that if I panic I will stop breathing all together, so he calmly said, "This is obviously from the Brazil nuts... let's keep an eye on your breathing. Has it gotten worse since you woke up?" No. "Good good... does this mean I get to go to Devon + Mark's house (our rugby friends) and get their epi-pen?" In large letter, underlined 12 times... NO! He uses his sense of humor to calm himself down. Luckily it was making me giggle this time too. I drank some tea + took one ibuprofen (which was all I could get down my tiny little throat) and eventually fell back to sleep. When I woke up... sore throat was gone, I could talk again, and could breathe a little better too. BIZARRE!
At this point I'm scared of all the juices, so I just continue drinking tea and thought a cup of pureed soup is like warmed up juice, right? So I have some of that. Jafe is continuing on with his juices. We start to talk about if this is really doing anything... Neither of us are feeling more alert (I can't imagine why I'm not bright-eyed and bushy tail after my night), I don't think my skin is glowing, and we're both not too impressed with our juices. They're gross. We do both like the grapefruit one and the sweet potato one is pretty good too. Jafe likes the cashew + Brazil nut milk, which is good because he gets the rest of it. I was surprised that it wasn't as good as it smells, and am disappointed I can't use the left over pulp to make vegan dairy replacement products. What a waste of cashews.
We grab a couple juices for the road and find a distraction... the mall. We're not mall people, but we had gift certificates to Old Navy (which moved to our mall) — so we're going shopping! It was a pretty good distraction. Next we go to the grocery store, because I've decided I just can't drink the green juice anymore... it's disgusting. I'm buying naked juice to get me through the rest of this.
Once home we end up talking through the afternoon and researching more about juice cleanses. Jafe—who has been strong for both of us, because I would have quit this morning if he let me is starting to think this is all bullshit. I have to remind him that each person is different and maybe get great results out of their cleanses. To which he says, "Those people are stupid." lol.
We ordered pizza.
Yep, we're not finishing this cleanse. Though I did lose 2.5 pounds over those 2 days (which they say isn't the point of a cleanse, but when you're 40 lbs over weight and not losing an ounce for no clear reason... it sure is appealing). It was all water weight from not needing it to digest food, and the second I eat a solid I will retain that water again. BUT day two we also weren't as hungry, and I liked resetting my perspective on when I'm actually hungry and when I'm eating out of habit. Jafe on the other hand went through a mini great depression and now wants to hoard all the food in the house... I ate one piece of pizza — Jafe ate half of his pizza. Should we have chosen something else to eat? Of course, I was thinking that the whole time... But we didn't, move on.
Day Three
We both had juice this morning. Mine was with a piece of toast. Jafe's was with toast, eggs, and coffee. We plan on drinking the rest of the juice, so we're not wasting food... but we're going to do it with other food.
Jafe didn't realize I was going to review this (so the whole world will know we're failures?! No, no—the whole world doesn't read my blog, but thank you for thinking that!), so I'm asking him for one last tidbit of goodness. He says, "I like the taste of food." Lol. He also adds he goes through waves of eating and not eating, and thought this was a lot of effort for little reward. He agrees the second day was definitely easier than the first, and if we liked our juices we probably would have finished the cleanse.
So, there you go! We're gonna go to the gym now... and work off our pizza :)
0 responses:
Post a Comment