Ok, so juice thing.
Ok, so juice thing. I've been yogaing more or less regularly so of course that came up. I was absolutely NOT looking at it as a lifestyle, although juicers are apparently cheaper than bicycles. Anyway, it was more of a reset and some how to deal with the craziness around here. The main yoga person who does this does it one day per week so I figured, ok, sure, why not.
Things I think after doing this:
1) It's expensive. I mean, I know I had to buy the juices, but apparently it takes some ridiculous amount of produce to do this even if you do it yourself. Ymmv. P.S. Trader Joe's has some of the least expensive juices, although very few, and they are all cromulent cold pressed juices if you are buying, not making.
2) Ugh, so much liquid. No, really, it was actually difficult to drink that much. Especially since you are apparently supposed to try to drink an equal amount of water, or something?
3) Made my stomach all acid-y. I don't know who/how thinks some of this is supposed to be "alkaline in your stomach". Seriously, I don't know what kind of chemistry their stomach does, but mine doesn't do redox. Fruit and veggie acids are still acids and so's my stomach acid.
4) It isn't as low calorie as all that. I mean, assuming you can ever believe any labeling or calorie lists anywhere, you can definitely keep this to 1000 to 1500 calories in a day, which may very well be less than usual. The only way that's going to stay below 1000 is almost entirely drinking "green", i.e. water containing veggie/herb/kale stuff, which is neither recommended nor healthy (too much of a bunch of vitamins and stuff and very little of others). Well, they have the all green cleanses, which are cleverly marketed as hard core/not for beginners/super intense/OO-RAH, etc. I would not suggest ever doing that, though, on a medical basis.
5) Some of these say that broth is ok as a sub for some of the juice, but unless you are making your own, waaaay too much sodium in a day. Even with some of the juices you have to watch the sodium - surprise! But it is very possible to get heartily sick of the taste of juices, even if they taste good, so you may want to do at least one serving of broth just for taste and variety.
6) Some of these say it's ok, or even encourage a sort of treat as your final beverage made out of nut milk or coconut milk (not water). Yet they all have a cow if you were going to have, say, kefir with something. I don't get it. Is there a real science paper out there indicating that liquid cultured animal milk fat is evil versus soggy nut fat? Not to mention it's always either overly sweetened and/or full of additives (unless you are making this a lifestyle and make your own nut milks and coconut milks - kudos to you, crazy person with all that time on your hands).
Bugger that. I got some plain, unsweetened goat milk kefir and shook it up one to one with some pineapple juice and that made me very happy. Also, fewer calories than a lot of the nut milk drinks and no added refined sugars. Thhbpt. Next time, I may get (clutches pearls) unsweetened cow's milk filmjolk.
7) Sorry this isn't really organized. I did see a couple places where they said that you could do cleansing soups. They're basically very plain, simple soups that are primarily veggies. Doing this instead of one or two of the juices might make it more functional, as well as more palatable. Probably have to make this yourself, though, or spend a lot of money.
8) I accidentally the ginger juice when playing around with a recipe for cooked food. You can get a mouth burningly hot sufficiency of ginger juice just by using a microplane grater. It's a bit annyoing, because all that fiber gums up the grater, so you have to keep removing it, but it gets you more than you will need of super intense ginger juice. Thus, if you particularly want this as an add to something, rather than paying $12 for the pre-juiced juice, you can do this with a $1 or less chunk of root and add it yourself. Since you can get fresh turmeric roots now, you can probably do this with turmeric, as well, although turmeric can be bitter, so.
9) When I was looking stuff up, one of the Great Gurus of all this is a senior hippie who published books on this stuff. And she said it was perfectly fine to use a blender. So I got a watermelon, some strawberries, pineapple, and peppermint and did some blendering. Tastes pretty good, although somehow I could not quite get what I wanted from the peppermint.
It's not like I could muddle it in the glass first, although I am going to try it next time. Of course, the other thing missing there is that it then gets submerged in alcohol, which does have to do with solubilizing aromatics and other fun stuff. So unless there's an alcohol based juice cleanse, that's not an option, and you have to drink the stuff relatively fresh, so you can't leave it infusing for a week, either.
Critically, though, it is somewhat cooling and gave me a little boost after being outside and getting all hot and sweaty. Most importantly - lots of juice for much less money. No, I did not drain all the fiber out, so technically it's not 'pure'. Wevs.
10) There should be some potassium in some of these juices. Some of them do not even list it on the label, though, and it is one of the things I noticed missing from the whole concept of "balanced". Thus, I purchased a separate cold pressed coconut water thingy and added a little of it to several concoctions to balance out some of the sodium. I suppose you could just drink it by itself, but none of these things ever just has you drink one kind of juice at a time.
11) The day that was all juices, I did NOT feel all energized and awesome and wow, who needs caffeine, etc. The yoga person actually had told me that she does feel less energetic the day she cleanses, so not a surprise. I don't need to do this, I just thought I'd try it.
Upshot: definitely do-able as a reset, very useful as a hot weather summer cooler thing, does have lower calories depending on how you do it, keep an eye on not over-doing some nutrients.
P.S. That strawberry, watermelon, pineapple, mint thing would be awesome with some vodka or the right gin. What?
Things I think after doing this:
1) It's expensive. I mean, I know I had to buy the juices, but apparently it takes some ridiculous amount of produce to do this even if you do it yourself. Ymmv. P.S. Trader Joe's has some of the least expensive juices, although very few, and they are all cromulent cold pressed juices if you are buying, not making.
2) Ugh, so much liquid. No, really, it was actually difficult to drink that much. Especially since you are apparently supposed to try to drink an equal amount of water, or something?
3) Made my stomach all acid-y. I don't know who/how thinks some of this is supposed to be "alkaline in your stomach". Seriously, I don't know what kind of chemistry their stomach does, but mine doesn't do redox. Fruit and veggie acids are still acids and so's my stomach acid.
4) It isn't as low calorie as all that. I mean, assuming you can ever believe any labeling or calorie lists anywhere, you can definitely keep this to 1000 to 1500 calories in a day, which may very well be less than usual. The only way that's going to stay below 1000 is almost entirely drinking "green", i.e. water containing veggie/herb/kale stuff, which is neither recommended nor healthy (too much of a bunch of vitamins and stuff and very little of others). Well, they have the all green cleanses, which are cleverly marketed as hard core/not for beginners/super intense/OO-RAH, etc. I would not suggest ever doing that, though, on a medical basis.
5) Some of these say that broth is ok as a sub for some of the juice, but unless you are making your own, waaaay too much sodium in a day. Even with some of the juices you have to watch the sodium - surprise! But it is very possible to get heartily sick of the taste of juices, even if they taste good, so you may want to do at least one serving of broth just for taste and variety.
6) Some of these say it's ok, or even encourage a sort of treat as your final beverage made out of nut milk or coconut milk (not water). Yet they all have a cow if you were going to have, say, kefir with something. I don't get it. Is there a real science paper out there indicating that liquid cultured animal milk fat is evil versus soggy nut fat? Not to mention it's always either overly sweetened and/or full of additives (unless you are making this a lifestyle and make your own nut milks and coconut milks - kudos to you, crazy person with all that time on your hands).
Bugger that. I got some plain, unsweetened goat milk kefir and shook it up one to one with some pineapple juice and that made me very happy. Also, fewer calories than a lot of the nut milk drinks and no added refined sugars. Thhbpt. Next time, I may get (clutches pearls) unsweetened cow's milk filmjolk.
7) Sorry this isn't really organized. I did see a couple places where they said that you could do cleansing soups. They're basically very plain, simple soups that are primarily veggies. Doing this instead of one or two of the juices might make it more functional, as well as more palatable. Probably have to make this yourself, though, or spend a lot of money.
8) I accidentally the ginger juice when playing around with a recipe for cooked food. You can get a mouth burningly hot sufficiency of ginger juice just by using a microplane grater. It's a bit annyoing, because all that fiber gums up the grater, so you have to keep removing it, but it gets you more than you will need of super intense ginger juice. Thus, if you particularly want this as an add to something, rather than paying $12 for the pre-juiced juice, you can do this with a $1 or less chunk of root and add it yourself. Since you can get fresh turmeric roots now, you can probably do this with turmeric, as well, although turmeric can be bitter, so.
9) When I was looking stuff up, one of the Great Gurus of all this is a senior hippie who published books on this stuff. And she said it was perfectly fine to use a blender. So I got a watermelon, some strawberries, pineapple, and peppermint and did some blendering. Tastes pretty good, although somehow I could not quite get what I wanted from the peppermint.
It's not like I could muddle it in the glass first, although I am going to try it next time. Of course, the other thing missing there is that it then gets submerged in alcohol, which does have to do with solubilizing aromatics and other fun stuff. So unless there's an alcohol based juice cleanse, that's not an option, and you have to drink the stuff relatively fresh, so you can't leave it infusing for a week, either.
Critically, though, it is somewhat cooling and gave me a little boost after being outside and getting all hot and sweaty. Most importantly - lots of juice for much less money. No, I did not drain all the fiber out, so technically it's not 'pure'. Wevs.
10) There should be some potassium in some of these juices. Some of them do not even list it on the label, though, and it is one of the things I noticed missing from the whole concept of "balanced". Thus, I purchased a separate cold pressed coconut water thingy and added a little of it to several concoctions to balance out some of the sodium. I suppose you could just drink it by itself, but none of these things ever just has you drink one kind of juice at a time.
11) The day that was all juices, I did NOT feel all energized and awesome and wow, who needs caffeine, etc. The yoga person actually had told me that she does feel less energetic the day she cleanses, so not a surprise. I don't need to do this, I just thought I'd try it.
Upshot: definitely do-able as a reset, very useful as a hot weather summer cooler thing, does have lower calories depending on how you do it, keep an eye on not over-doing some nutrients.
P.S. That strawberry, watermelon, pineapple, mint thing would be awesome with some vodka or the right gin. What?
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