Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Green Juice

I have been asked dozens of times lately to do a post on Green Juice.  I am so excited about the powers of Green Juice that I talk about it a lot.  It has been fairly life-changing for my family.



Green Juice is PACKED with micro-nutrients and enzymes.  It gives your body a tremendous health boost.  Think about a cutting board piled high with dark green leafys, green vegetables, root vegetables, ginger, limes, garlic....you could never eat that much.  But you can JUICE that much, and by juicing, you get all the micro-nutrients from the produce without any of the fiber, making it incredibly easy for your body to absorb and put to good use.

Most disease is started by cellular inflammation.  Cellular inflammation can be caused by some of the food we eat, by toxins in our environment, by stress, and many other factors.  Flooding your body with enzymes and micro-nutrients reduces inflammation, allowing your body to stay healthy, or fight disease if you already have it.

One of the keys to Green Juice is VARIETY.  This is for several reasons:

1) Every vegetable has different qualities, vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.  By varying what you put in your juice every day you give your body more of the good stuff, more often.

2) You want to make sure that you don't eat brassica vegetables every day.  The brassica family can, if you have any trouble with your thyroid, give your body too many goitrogens and throw off your thyroid function.  The brassica family includes kale, broccoli, cabbage, etc.  Goitrogens also inhibit cancer growth, so don't eliminate them completely! Just skip it every few days.

I have been making a huge batch of juice every morning for about 5 months now.  I have the Raw Food Institute and Lisa Wilson to thank for really making this a daily ritual.  I make enough so that Garth, my mom and I all get some.  (I can't quite get the kids to drink it yet....someday!) I always say "I can feel it in my finger tips!" and I really can.  My mom is healthier than ever.  I am convinced it has fended off chemo for 5 months now.  It is truly amazing stuff.


There is no "recipe" for Green Juice since you really should vary the ingredients every day.  However, the base of mine usually includes:

1-2 cucumbers
4-5 pieces celery
1 head romaine lettuce
1 lime or lemon
1 inch of ginger
a big pile of sprouts of some kind (pea shoots, wheat grass, alfalfa sprouts)
sometimes a half or whole clove of garlic
a BIG pile of some greens (chard, kale, spinach, collards, mustard greens, parsley...)
Today, a beet was in there. Yesterday, a few carrots.

Would you be interested in a Green Juice workshop? If so, please comment (click on blue "comments" below!)


2 comments:

  1. I'd be interested. What do you mean "fended off chemo?" -- Wendy L.

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  2. I am very interested in the green juice idea. Thank you for your blog...which I have just found...

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