Juicing Exploration

Juicing... As my 84 year old mother would say "is sounding a little too hippy dippy" and a couple months ago I would have had to agree. But todays post is going to be about my adventures with juicing.

First I would like to say that I am not a hard core, eat it "Because it is healthy for me" kind of person. I like food, I like it to taste good, and I like it smell good, and I like it to be consistently the same every time I make it. After reading all about how great juicing is for you to get the nutrients, and hearing people talk about how much better they feel after drinking it I decided last month to give it a try. It never hurts to give something a try? After a month of experimenting with different ingredients and spending time searching blogs and Pintrest I have found a juice that I can say I love.

I chose simple ingredients that I can get anywhere and everywhere that I go. Spinach, carrots, celery, apples, and a grapefruit! As you can see I do my best to choose organic, I feel like when juicing it is important to have the cleanest ingredients you can find. I live on a budget, and so I go to Sams Club to get most of my juicing groceries.

  To give you an idea, I go though 2 boxes of spinach, close to a bag of carrots, one bunch of celery, 1-2 bags of apples, and 1 bag of grapefruits per week. At Sams the costs roughly 20$ each week for all my juicing supplies. 80$ per month sounds like allot, and you can make less to make that stretch, especially since my morning juice is between 2-3 cups of juice, so it would be very easy to cut this in half. The juicer I am using came from Walmart, it is a Hamilton Beach brand and was about $60, They had cheaper, but I wanted something that would last for a longer time. I have been really impressed how easy it is to set up/ take down, to juice with, and to clean!

This is the amount that I consume every day! This is more the fruits and vegetables then I consumed in a week, let alone a day! Last month I went to my in-laws for a week before coming to my families home in Wisconsin. I didn't bring my juicer thinking it wouldn't be a big deal. 8 days later I bought a juicer in WI and started drinking this again, and WOW I suddenly felt better! I personally like drinking this for breakfast every morning, as it starts my day out great. I also noticed that I my whole body started running better, I have been craving less sugar, my hair is becoming less greasy, my skin is cleaning up, and my sleep has improved! All things that I wasn't expecting, but are so welcome, and I understand so much better now why people love juicing.

The last thing I do to my juice is add 1-2 scoops of organic Chia Seeds, this one came from Walmart and was about $8, but the one I get from Sams Club is about double the size and about $10 (I haven't even made a dent into it!) I do this because juicing removes the fiber and 1 scoop of Chia seeds has 5 grams of fiber! I have also been reading that Chia seeds bind with impurities in your body and help your body to remove them. (The best part is that they don't have a flavor so it doesn't change a whole lot in terms of taste :)  )

My Juice Recipe 

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2 Large handfuls of Spinach

3 large carrots

2-3 stocks of celery

2 apples 

(2 Gala makes sweeter, 1 Granny Smith & 1 Gala is my personal favorite)

1 grapefruit

 1 scoop Chia Seeds (Optional)

I never expected to incorporate juicing into my life, but now that I have started I can't see my life without it. This may be "Hippy Dippy" as my mama would say, but maybe we all need to be a little more open minded and a little more hippy dippy in our highly processed world.

Peace.