Don't Skip a Beet—Juice

Don't Skip a Beet—Juice

Perk yourself up with this great tasting heart-healthy mix of beets, mandarin oranges, and ginger. I didn't know what kind of juice I wanted to make tonight and suddenly I remembered the beets sitting in the fridge.I seemed to keep forgetting them.

Cooked beets lose a lot of their nutritional value while raw juiced beets pack an antioxidant powerhouse of vitamins and minerals and are useful for detoxification. I like that they are anti-inflammatory and high in Vitamin A, Potassium, B6, Vitamin C, Magnesium and Calcium. Important for me and for you too!

Adding raw beets to your juicing ingredients aids the body to heal from anemia, bladder, and cardiovascular disease, and they encourage liver cleansing and lymphatic circulation. Beets are also known as a cancer preventative.

Ingredients: 

3 medium beets, peeled and diced

6 mandarin oranges (Cuties)

5 large carrots

1/2" fresh ginger peeled

Big handful of spinach 

Put all ingredients through your juicer. Drink up!

According to  Love to Know Vegetarian  you should:

 "Never drink juice from beets alone or in great quantities. While rare, reported side effects include hives, chills, fever and stomach upset. Always dilute it with other natural, freshly juiced fruits or vegetables."

I didn't know that!

Also, watch for red pigment in your urine and stool—no, it's not blood you are seeing!

Linking up with Raw Foods Thursdays!

Topical Sunshine Smoothie

It appears that I've been indulging us a little! 

After a week of making many mostly vegetable juice recipes for healing purposes, I allowed us the pleasure of this awesome tasting breakfast smoothie!

Beware, you don't want to indulge in drinking strictly fruit juices, but natural fruits are a part of a healthy diet. Moderation and balance are key, pertaining to your personal health journey.

Ingredients:

1 pineapple
8 oranges
1 Tbs coconut butter (optional)

Cut pineapple into chunks and place them in a high-powered blender (like a Vita-Mix) along with your juiced oranges and coconut butter.

Blend, pour into cups, and enjoy!

Super delicious.

For those that are interested in finding out What's the Difference Between a Juice Cleanse and a Smoothie Cleanse and the benefits of each, check out the answer by  Dr Ritamarie Loscalzo at Tera Warner's web site.

Linking up with Intoxicated on Life and  Wellness Wednesdays 

Banana Berry Frozen Dessert

 

Banana Berry Frozen Dessert

I know a lot of you reading this have heard of this recipe or have enjoyed it yourself, but it's so GOOD and NATURAL that it's worth repeating until everyone has placed it in their recipe files! (Or have it planted firmly in one's brain.)

This was my yummy treat to myself after a long week of sticking to a new juicing lifestyle change!

I looked forward to making this since yesterday, and several times at work today!

This is an awesome treat for anyone of any age!

 It's super easy to make and only uses these three ingredients:

Frozen Bananas
Frozen Strawberries
Frozen Blueberries

Let your frozen fruit thaw about 30 minutes before using (the time depends on how clumped together and frozen your fruit is). 

The fruit should be slightly thawed and easy to put through your juicer or to blend in a high-powered blender, or in a food processor. I used my Omega juicer with the "blank" attachment (not the one I use for juicing).


Just mix them all together and serve immediately, or place it in a container and freeze for later. (Even the really frozen "icy" version is ice-cream-heavenly, especially if you've been deprived of sugary sweets for awhile.)

To prepare your bananas ahead of time: 
Peel ripe bananas, slice them, and place them in a Zip-Lock bag and freeze.

Variations:
Try using a variety of frozen fruit like peaches, pears, apricots, or raspberries.
Add nuts, carob chips, or cocoa / raw chocolate powder.
Make a plain banana frozen dessert and top it with berries or a homemade chocolate sauce.

What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Mine is chocolate chip mint! I'll have to make a version of that sometime in the near future. I have some chocolate mint plants growing in the yard and want to experiment some with that.

Happy to be linking up with Wellness Wednesday!

D & D Juice

Digest & Detox Juice

(Or D & D for short.) 

Here's another one of the great tasting juices from this past week's juice "fast". This would be especially good for digestion and detoxing. Just what the doctor didn't order!

This recipe is pretty basic. Instead of the usual apple that ends up in most of my juice recipes, this one uses grapes. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but the ingredients for these juices I'm sharing are best made with organic fruits and vegetables. In all cases wash your produce well before using.

Ingredients:

12 large carrots

3 celery ribs

1 lb. green grapes

Several parsley sprigs

Put all ingredients through your juicer. Pour into cups, and drink up!

Co-Co for Oranges Juice

Co-Co for Oranges

Oh boy—was this delicious! 

I'm so glad I thought of it. Easy to fix too, when you get hubby to do the juicing.

It's been fun coming up with juice and smoothie recipes. I guess if you like to cook and you happen to like to make raw food recipes, you'd enjoy whipping up your own drinks too!

We keep lemon or lime juice on hand most all the time. And for this one I bought a can of coconut water. They say coconut water is the new sports drink (a very healthy one).

Just mix all ingredients together! Especially good for a refreshing pick-me-up and get-me-going breakfast drink.

Ingredients:

8 oranges 
(2 cups juice)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Coconut water 
(2 cups)

Pretty Pink, Fennel Fusion Juice

Pretty Pink, Fennel Fusion

I wanted something different tonight and I remembered that I had fennel waiting patiently in the fridge. I've juiced fennel once before and I don't remember actually tasting it so much in the juice I had made. In this recipe, the fennel gives a slight anise taste. My husband loved this drink; I got the best response from him out of all of the juices I made this past week! Try this pretty pink one.

Pretty Pink, Fennel Fusion Juice

by Kathy Reynolds

Keywords: juicing beverage raw vegan fennel

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The pretty color adds to this great tasting and healthy juice!

Ingredients

• 1/2 small red cabbage
• 1/2 fennel bulb
• 3 apples
• 2 Tbs. lemon juice

Instructions

• Wash and cut all ingredients and put them through your juicer. Enjoy!

 I'll be posting a lot of my juice recipes from this week of our juice "fast" so please look for them. As for our fast? I'll give you an update soon!

This recipe is similar to one I found in 
Juices & Smoothies and it's online here.

Our Fresh Juice Fast — Day 1

Our First Day of a Juicing Fast starts with 

Green Goddess Juice

The day has arrived!

In the past year we've watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead along with Forks Over Knives and several other documentaries that expound on the wonderful benefits of juicing for improved health. I've been a member of Raw Food Rehab, I've done green smoothie challenges, and I've explored the healing and juicing nature of Gerson Therapy, and most of you know I'm a fan of raw foods. I've been thinking that since hubby and I both have some serious-enough health issues, that we need more bombardment than just adding more raw food recipes into our lives and drinking raw juices here and there, and that a juice fast might be the best way to go for us.

I'm really excited about this, which sort of surprises me—I mean, not eating food . . . "me" . . . who is really addicted to food!  I imagine it would be hard for anyone, to abruptly change that habit of eating so often, from eating big meals to drinking meals, and consuming nothing else but water and a few supplements. But I'm also thinking that with the nutrition we'll be getting, I won't be hungry at all, and that has been the case today. I'm not hungry, but I have to get over my habit of nibbling something so often. 

Nothing is as beneficial as a daily green drink. 

And we'll be getting much more than one a day!

The amount of nutrition you consume from juicing is much greater than you could ever eat. According to Mimi Kirk (voted Sexiest Vegetarian Over Fifty, and she's 70+) says in her book Live Raw:

"It (green drink) can pack more nutrients in one drink than we can consume in a plate of salad. One large glass of juice can supply us with more nutrients than we could get from eating three vegetable meals a day."

That's what we need, to jump-start and continue the healing process!  

What is a green juice exactly?

A variety of fruits and vegetables can be juiced with a juicer. I use an Omega Juicer similar to this one. Through the mastication process (some juices use a different method), the fiber is taken out and you get a predigested juice that is very healing to the body. Most all of its nutrients remain in the juice, and we benefit as it quickly goes into our systems to all cells, tissues, and organs. Fresh juice also helps to flush the colon. Doing a juice fast allows the colon to rest and heal, especially good for G.I. symptoms and diseases.

I'm envisioning myself being drenched in enzymes, nourished with minerals and chlorophyll, and flushing toxins and disease out of my body. Plus, dropping a pound a day (just a hopeful guess), as I continue to exercise, feeling bright-eyed and alert, with more energy, and no aches or pains or migraines. Honestly, there have been many days the past year that I have not felt well and the brain fog has got to go. I look forward to seeing what I'll feel like at the end of a week, and then some.

We're going to take it a week at a time, but I know I'm going to want to continue somewhat longer. How long? I don't know actually. We'll see how it goes.  

 

I'm Excited to Get Started!

I did a "Master Cleanse" maple syrup lemonade fast for 10 days many years ago and I remember then, that the third day was the hardest. I managed, (I remember saying no thanks to the homemade ravioli at my neighbor's house) and I lost too much weight. I was a skinny rail, just in that short period of time, but then the weight quickly returned and I found myself pregnant with baby boy number three (yes a long time ago)! This is much different—I won't be starving myself, but feeding all my cells what they crave, at the basest level.

Hubby may need a bit more juice (or nutrition) than me (he's 6' 4" and 280 lbs), and he did eat some steamed broccoli, a handful of grapes, and Brazil nuts today in addition to his juice. That's perfectly fine!! If he goes without enough food, he gets terribly grumpy. I'm 5'10" and 200 lbs. wanting to drop 30 lbs. Since I'm tall, the weight hasn't always been a problem, but a few years ago when I was 170 lbs. it made a big difference in the way I looked and felt, so I'm wanting to get back to that weight.

Our chiropractor told my husband that for every 10 pounds overweight you are, there is a greatly increased pressure of 40 pounds on all of your joints. We all know that, right? That's something both of  us need to consider, especially at our age (too close to 60—YIKES!)

Green Goddess Juice 

I think it was the fact that I LOVE pineapple and I happened to have four of them sitting on my kitchen counter, but the name grabbed me . . . and with this fresh juice, hubby and I started our juice fast.

I found this great tasting recipe here through Karen Knowler. My version was only slightly different.

Ingredients:

2 cups of organic spinach

5 celery stalks

1 cucumber unpeeled

2 Granny Smith apples

1 large ripe pineapple

Juice from two lemons

Instructions:

Wash and cut all ingredients into pieces and then put through your juicer.

Have you done a juice fast before? I'd love to hear how it went for you!

To Your Health, and Mine—
Delicious! 

Linking up with Wellness Wednesdays