If you are a patient of mine, especially one of my morning patients, you have seen my JUICE!! I have a love affair with juicing and have for over 10 years. I’ve done 3-5 day juice fasts on more than one occasion but juicing is a part of my daily life, at least 5 days a week. One thing that I will own up to here is that I am NOT, I repeat, I am NOT a big vegetable lover. I am a very healthy eater but I have to find ways to make it work for me because I don’t love to eat vegetables. Juicing works for me. It always has.
I talk to patients about making juicing a part of their life most often when they want to lose weight, if they want to improve their skin OR if they are suffering with chronic pain from arthritis or fibromyalgia. Juicing fresh fruits and vegetables is the BEST way to get all of the nutrients from these super foods, without having to eat a bowl of kale or beets. The juice of fresh produce retains most of the vitamins, phytonutrients and minerals that are in the food you would normally eat. Loading your body up with all of that goodness can help protect your body against cancer, heart disease and inflammatory/autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There are these yummy chemical compounds called flavonoids and anthocyanins in our fruits and veggies and those are the amazing parts that protect our cells from being damaged by free radicals. Free radicals are everywhere, of course, they come from pollution in the air and water, chemicals and preservatives in our food and skin care products and even the glass of wine you have with dinner or that occasional bag of doritos that you just couldn’t resist! The damage happens daily and it’s to be expected, but the cool thing is that we can counter act the damage we do, with phytonutrients from JUICING!!
I write down my favorite juice for patients all the time and I decided it would be great to be able to tell them to go to my blog and look up my favorite recipes and if perhaps, I make another good one, I will post that one too!! My favorite, ideal, morning is ….
I drink warm water and lemon juice first thing….followed by coffee ( I know , I know, it’s bad for me but as of now, it’s my only vice and I LIVE FOR IT!!) Then I have my juice, I make it before work, put it in a mason jar and bring it with me. Juice is all I have until noon! Here’s my most common recipe:
One small beet or half a big beet ( I HATE beets, FYI, but I can tolerate the juice and it makes me feel AMAZING)
2-3 cups of Kale ( I press it down and compress it)
2 Granny Smith Apples
2 Carrots
1 cucumber
a 1 inch piece of fresh ginger, or more to taste
1/4 of a lemon
2 TBSP Flax Seed Oil
2 TBLS Grade B Maple Syrup ( SUPER Expensive but AMAZING)
I wash all of the fruits and veggies and make sure that they are organic. Keep in mind, this is RAW FOOD here and any dirt that remains on the produce will be in your juice, so uber clean produce, cutting board, knife, etc….you get the picture…..
I juice all the fruits and veggies, then stir in the oil and syrup…..and that’s my yumminess every morning!
I so hope that you too can start enjoying all the health benefits of juicing and like I said, I will post more recipes as time goes on! Happy Friday, it’s been a long week and I am ready to relax, recover and recharge….sending you LOVE!!!