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My Juicing Adventures

6/28/2013

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I'm a Green Smoothie girl through and through.  I love Green Smoothies - they are amazingly beneficial yet easy, inexpensive, and quick to make.  That's kind of my motto. 

I designed a 21 day Detox Program that was designed to transform people's bodies and lives. It consisted of 5 days of Raw Food, 4 days of Green Smoothies, 3 days of Juices, 4 days of Green Smoothies, and finished with 5 days of Raw Food.  In February my husband and I went through the program with my clients.  It was a wonderful experience and I learned so much, but the most life changing part of the program for me was that it made me juice for three days straight.  

I've never really liked juicing.  It takes a long time: you have to cut a bunch of stuff up and you have feed everything through the juice chute individually.  It's expensive: you need to go through a LOT of fruits and veggies to produce a LITTLE bit of juice. It is not that easy: you can juice too much of one thing and not enough of another and end up with a juice that's difficult to drink but so expensive that you cannot throw it away.  Not to mention the pulp!  Oh, the pulp.  So much to throw away and so much valuable nutrition lost.

But okay, I know juicing is amazing.  It's supercharged nutrition.  The only way to get SO much produce into you in one shot. No fiber for your body to break down, and it digests and gets absorbed quickly without taxing your body and taking valuable efforts away from detoxing/repairing/healing. 

So, in February I juiced for my husband and myself for three days.   I was blown away.  It wasn't as time consuming as I had always expected.  It was more expensive than smoothies, but I quickly learned tricks to keep my produce prices down (another blog post in the future!).  AND - I was never hungry.  That was the most life changing concept...I didn't NEED the fiber to keep me full all day long as I had assumed. 

Still....It's more work than I'm comfortable with.  For the past year I've made 128 ounces of Green Smoothie for my husband before he left for work so that he could drink all day long and stay away from all the temptations that plague him at his workplace.  I then make 64 ounces of Smoothie for myself for my breakfast or lunch.   When we got through the 21 Day Transformation, my husband requested that I make juice instead of smoothie.  He had always enjoyed juicing (and had even done a 40 day juice fast a few years ago) and wanted to get back to it.

Okay, so let's make juice!  I learned very quickly that I neither had the time or budget for 128 ounces of JUICE each morning before he left for work.  So I switched to 64 ounces of juice and 64 ounces of Green Smoothie for him.  I've been doing that ever since.  Every so often I wake up a bit later and all he gets is Green Smoothie ("all he gets"...lol). 

I inherited my husband's Breville Juicer when we got married and that's what we've been using.  It's wonderful, fantastic, amazing....but for the past month I've become discontent.  The amount of pulp I'm throwing away is abhorable. The chunks of fruit/veggies that end up in the pulp container are not okay.  The amount of produce I'm going through...well, I wonder if there is a better way.

So I started to research.  I've heard good things about Champions, Omegas, and Huroms.  I started to ask people who have them, watch demo videos, read reviews, etc. One name kept coming back to me: Hurom.

So I decided to bite the bullet and invest in a superior juicer.  My new Hurom arrived yesterday and like all new toys, I had to play with it immediately.  

The Hurom is a single auger masticating juicer - it produces extremely dry pulp and more juice through SQUEEZING the juice out. 

So I've used it three times since it has arrived.  The first was simply to play and see how it worked.  The second time was to use it just as I did the Breville and see how it compared.  The third time was again for fun to try to juice interesting and unusual things (Butternut Squash, Collard Greens, etc).

My experiences with my new juicer:

1. SO QUIET!  I was able to juice while my husband was on the phone three feet away.

2. It's so tiny!  It takes up a fraction of counterspace compared to my Breville (or my former Jack LaLane).

3.  DRY PULP! Seriously, this stuff is cool.  It comes out looking like....well, I won't say, but it's remarkable.  I'm already thinking of what I can make with it.  That was never a thought previously, but it appears easier to use and my brain is already sparking with ideas.

4.  MORE JUICE! I definitely am getting much more juice out of my produce...yaaaay!  That was the main reason I bought this new machine! Mission accomplished.

HOWEVER,  the juice isn't as smooth as the Breville. The Breville had this anti-foam screen thingy that kept the foam and such in the container as you poured out.  The Hurom could use one of those. My husband mentioned that while the juice is wonderful, he has to supress his gag reflex due to the pulpy nature of the juice.  Perhaps I'll learn to use it better with time and starting with oranges wasn't the smartest idea, but I'm a tad disappointed with that aspect.

So...now I'm a juicing girl.  I juice a little for myself and a lot for my husband, but I still think Green Smoothies to be the golden ticket. I will always share the magic of Green Smoothies and lead Green Smoothie Detox Programs, as I believe they are powerful, easy, simple, inexpesive ways to get more nutrition into your lifestyle without making any other changes.  

The Hurom Demo Video

A Green Smoothie Recipe!

2 Comments

Camping While Raw Vegan

6/14/2013

3 Comments

 
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I love the outdoors. Sunlight, fresh air, plants, trees, animals...just thinking about it and I start to yearn for it!  I live in the city with far too many cars, people and not enough nature.  So every now and then I strip myself of this "civilized" life and go camping. All out camping - tents, fires, digging a hole when you need one - just nature and silence.

Camping brings memories and visions of s'mores and hotdogs. When I changed my diet and became a raw vegan nearly five years ago, I had to shift the way that I thought about camping.  The food that I eat now, that brings health and healing, goes where I go.

The great thing about camping is that you don't necessarily sit down for three square meals a day. Usually it's quite a lot of snacking - which is precisely how I eat as a raw vegan.  Frequent little nuggets of energy to refuel all day long. I do camp with others (who are not raw vegan) so I'll need to have a few options that would feel meal-like.

The fun thing about being me?  I'm not ridiculously strict about it all. I've learn to loosen the reins and allow myself room to breathe.  I don't dry my own spices, I use small amounts of processed food (like soy sauce or toasted sesame oil) for flavorings. And sometimes I enjoy some portobellos mushrooms while camping....grilled.  GASP!

On my list to snack on: apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, blueberries, dried figs, raisins, raw nuts, dehydrated cheezy crackers, almond butter, and some strawberry fruit leather I made.  

On my list to enjoy as a sit down meal (a.k.a. social time): Salad fixings - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, avocados, vinegar, seasonings, olive oil. Portobello Mushrooms and Yams (to grill! woah!), and my Lemon Ginger Lettuce Rolls.

For my kids (who are about 80% raw): all the fruit I have...they could easily become fruitarian, I think, dry healthy-ish cheerios, packaged applesauce, and tortillas with ham and cheeze. 

I'll eat when I'm hungry (which is pretty much all the time - some things never change), and I have a few things up my sleeve for when we gather as a group around the fire. 

Oh, and did I mention water and smoothies?  I will make 128 ounces of Green Smoothies to take with us to enjoy in the morning as breakfast. Sometimes I take my Vitamix if we will be gone a long time.  If it's only for a few days - I premake and take them along. 

So there you have it. Easy, peasy, raw pumpkin pie.  A little forethought with dehydrating, but most of my food is fresh fruits and vegetables. Delicious, fun, energy-producing, and easy.  

My new motto was given to me by a Marine that I'm coaching to eat healthier:  "Adapt, Improvise, Conquer."  That's how I help people get healthier and how I live my life. :)


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     About the Blogger

    Haley is passionate about Raw Food and how God has used it to heal her. She loves to share what she knows with anyone who is curious, and finds herself talking to everyone around her about her lifestyle. 

    God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.  For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us. (2 Corinthians 3-7)

    This Scripture applies to every area of  life that Haley is passionate about. In order to be grateful, confidant, and assured of anything in your life...it must be tested and proved. That testing is never easy and rarely pleasant...but it IS purposeful. She now can take the comfort that God has given her and share it with you. Amen!

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