juicing… meat eaters fear not!

January 28, 2014 By in Apples, Juicing, Main: seafood, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , 39 Comments

Juicing 1-2014-19I don’t know why I say that except that many of the meat eaters just might turn their heads the other way. Myself included. It’s not an either/or. I love meat. And I’ve been absolutely content for a couple weeks to do without it. With the door closing on the holiday over-indulgence, I was more than ready to regain a little control over my eating. I’ve loved juicing over the years but have never honestly gone more than one day without solid food.

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I just wasn’t able to control the urge to stick something in my damn gob. So cruising through January posts with the ‘I’m going to eat healthy intention’, I came across a juicing 101 post from What’s Gaby Cooking. She didn’t re-invented the wheel here, nor did she need to, but her approach just hit me at the right moment. I loved the ingredient combinations and I loved that she made it sound simple. Thanks Gaby!

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I started exactly two weeks ago with removing meat, dairy, sugar and caffeine for a few days before the straight up juicing. I started and ended with meals that looked like this. Carrots, leeks and sliced lemon lightly simmered in a little water.

Juicing 1-2014-8A couple pieces of wild caught salmon from Troller Point Fisheries laid on top and covered for about 6-8 minutes on medium low heat to poach. Flipped it once and ended with the salmon pink in the middle, just how I like it.Juicing 1-2014-9The salmon tops a bed of raw mixed greens drizzled with olive oil.

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Kale salads, fruits and raw vegetables also filled those days before and after.

What I found to my surprise during the three days of juicing? I didn’t get hungry. I didn’t feel spaced out or headachy. Because I never had success with this in the past, I had only bought enough vegetables to juice each day. After three days, I was doing fine and probably could have kept going but Chloe and I were heading to Seattle for the weekend and I wanted to eat a little. Like at Portage Bay Cafe where I ate buckwheat pancakes!

My unit is an old champion juicer with a new blade. It’s easy to clean and I love it.

I basically drank five or six 16 oz juices a day, a lot of water and herbal or white tea. I did my group power strength training, walking and yoga. I didn’t do any jogging.

Juicing 1-2014-4I recently thought back to my first attempt at knitting and remembered thinking something to the tune of ‘get out’ this is way too complicated. I was 18. Ten years later I was knitting patterned wool sweaters and Christmas stockings. So maybe the same goes for juicing… or I just got lucky with timing.

I decided to have another modified go at the juicing this week. I stocked up this round. A dozen apples, 3 bunches of kale, 6 oranges, 6 beets, 2 bunches of celery, 10 lemons, 5# of carrots, a head of romaine, 2 red peppers, 8 vine ripe tomatoes, 2 sweet potatoes, red cabbage, a couple limes, a pineapple, mango, ginger and turmeric root. phew. Shopping at 8am Sunday morning, Whole Foods. Pricey but a large selection. I’ll look forward to adding seasonal berries to this list in the summer.

Juicing 1-2014-11And this time, I’ve prepped most of the produce. I honestly felt overwhelmed. But I’m going to take it through the end of the week with juicing and salads with a little protein like fish, eggs and nuts and a little whole grain like quinoa.

Juicing 1-2014-12And I’m trying some new combos like an orange drink with 1 sweet potato, 2 carrots, 1 orange,1 apple,1 slice of fresh pineapple, a small handful of spinach and a 1 inch nob of turmeric. You get a hit of starch from the sweet potato, so you might want to try a half at first.

Juicing 1-2014-16Then I tried a V-8 or gazpacho juice. 4 tomatoes, 2 stalks of celery, 1 red pepper, 1/2 beet, 1/2 cucumber, handful of spinach, 1 lime, 1/2 lemon, a little parsley and just a couple slices of red onion. It was a little spicy but a nice change.

Juicing 1-2014-17I really liked all of Gaby’s juice blends and also her almond milk at the end of the day.

There is an abundance of recipes to try. You can check out Joe’s reboot and his movie, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Williams Sonoma has some good ones. Both these sites offer some pretty simple combos which is the best place to start. You don’t want to waste your time, money and energy making some nasty drink you can’t stomach. That’s what gives juicing a bad rap.

There are also a lot of scary articles about how you will starve, get constipated and lose hair. I suffered none of these in my three days! Joe Cross, among others, managed juicing only, for 60 days. Although extreme, he’s looking pretty good to me. The link is an older article about him from the Huffington Post I found interesting.

And here’s the green drink from Gaby’s recipe.

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I tend to press double and store for the day and at the longest overnight.

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And our winged, egg producing girls get the pulp. yum.

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This juicing is an individual experience/experiment. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts and sometimes rules that may not fit your desire or needs. One piece of advice I liked was to think about why you want to do it. To cleanse? To lose weight? To get control of your eating habits? Even write it down and look at it if you need a boost. For me it was all three and with the timing being right, I feel a lot of success. I know I will be enjoying meat and dessert again but I definitely believe this has given me a leg up in portion control and cravings. I could actually sit in my store and not think about which chocolate I would consume next!

I looked forward instead to drinking this orange drink with 6 carrots, 1 apple, a slice of pineapple, 1 orange, 1 lemon and a knob of turmeric!!

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Next week I’ll be visiting my son in NYC and attending the NY Now International Gift Fair. I adore eating in that city and I’m curious to see what I will lean towards after several more days of a lot of this-

Have a great week! And may you find health in a way that works for you.

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39 responses

    • Happy to hear it. For the most part our daily home diet is very wholesome but it’s a snowball effect especially through the holidays… we eat our healthy meals, then start adding desserts, cookies, maybe have ice cream on hand, the chocolate bar stash is steadily supplied. You get the picture. I find I have to step back about 2 football fields to get a handle on it again. Granted there will be a slow build back to indulging but my body and mind appreciate the break and I’m happy to get back in my clothes again. Just set aside a few days to start and know that all that food isn’t going anywhere. I wish you success. wendy

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  3. Just today I was cleaning around my blender (no juicer here) and thought, “Wow. I need to get back into juicing.” And here you are. Next grocery venture I will stock up and get to it. Would love replace a meal a day with a juice or two.

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    • That would be great for smoothies. Sometimes I take my juice and make a smoothie with frozen fruit, protein powder, chia and hemp seed and a little flax oil. Try to cover all my bases! Let me know how it goes for you.

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  5. This is a wonderful post! We do a one week juice fast every year around springtime. It is so invigorating and helps to realign our eating habits. 🙂 We own the same Champion juicer too! It’s from the 70’s and it’s avocado green. Looking forward to our juice fast this year and I’ll keep your post handy, you have some great combinations here. (I love Portage Bay Cafe!)

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    • I love the Champion. It’s so easy to clean and just does its job. And wow avocado green! It’s really been a great way to get back on top for a bit. I’m thinking a couple days a month could be good but I’m not going to plan that far ahead.
      I’m really liking the tomato juice blend. Just go easy on the red onion. And I like it chilled.

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  6. I was distracted by your beautiful photos with the bright fruits and vegetables and thinking how lucky you are to have access to such quality and variety. My little Caribbean island has vegetables delivered in the heat in cardboard boxes three time a week. You can imagine the condition they arrive in. Colored sweet peppers are not something we see often, although we get the green fairly regularly. Anyway, I was drooling over this yummy post!

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    • I feel very fortunate and in the summer we just use our garden produce when we can. We are also fortunate to have local meat and fish.
      But you are feeding yourself in a way that I probably won’t have (or take) the opportunity to do. So bless you for that.
      cheers, wendy

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    • That was some movie right? I took a lot of great ideas from his site. And I’m liking my tomato “V-8” that you saw in the post. Just do a couple slices of the red onion. I also liked this one chilled. I’m going to pass on the jalepeño:)

      Juicing the sweet potato was a new one for me. I think I’ll do it more but only with a half of one. And the orange juice from What’s Gaby Cooking is really good but I only used about 4-5 carrots.

      It’s a lot of fun really.

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  11. I rarely eat meat, but don’t know if I could handle juicing- mainly because I feel like I need to chew to feel satisfied. I wonder if I could do it.

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    • I eat a lot of meat. And believe me, I wondered the same thing. I just said to myself let’s try this today and we’ll think about tomorrow when it comes. I didn’t put any pressure on. So I don’t know if that is a good system, or as I mentioned, I just got lucky. After a weekend of eating I’m trying a few more days just to knock off a couple more pounds. I’m juicing in the day and having fish or something light for dinner. And this week I’m feeling more head nibbly. But so far it’s ok.

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  15. Juices and wonderful colors …. I love the salmon idea … I have to look closer to see what you have been using for the poaching.
    What I understand is that if you don’t get headaches … means that your body is a health temple.
    I admire that you manage to do it – I wouldn’t be able to, but I really should.
    Your photos they tells a magical healthy story too.

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    • Thanks viveka- I just poached it in water with lemon slices, leeks and carrots – a little thyme would be nice and normally would use white wine but didn’t this time. It was good to give it a try as I honestly hadn’t accomplished it before. x

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      • The fish looks fantastic .. have printed out the photos – loads of goodies in them. Big fan of salmon and Atlantic cod. Will let you know what I think.

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  20. I’m a huge fan of juicing. I only recently have gotten into the world of juicing, but love it already. I watched Joe’s documentary and was really inspired to commit to getting my raw greens into my diet. There’s no easier way! Such a noticeable difference in my health. Do you do anything with your pulp? Tried making muffins once, and I definitely was too ambitious in how much pulp I used. Any good recipes for that, maybe?

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    • Hi there- sorry for the delay! I either give the pulp to my chickens or put it in the compost. I’ve not tried to recycle it. But I think you can do so- but maybe you can have too much of a good thing and need to just add a little:)

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