Time for the 2013 Ten Day Juice Fast

11:57 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 1 Comments

First of all, I shouldn't even call it a fast. I am not always hungry. Phew, got that off my chest. Now, to begin my first day blogging about my first day juicing I must go into the past. I read my blog from last year and I was happy to see some good information but I also saw some missing information. To not be redundant I will post more things that I felt were missing in the 2012 Juicing extravaganza. Things that I hope to provide this time, along with how I am feeling and what new things I have learned, is recipes. And this time I will give my wonderful readers a special treat! I will be finishing the ten days. Apparently I stopped blogging at 8 days. I guess I felt bored with it. I don't rightly know. What I do remember is that a lot of people were super interested in how to juice and it's affects so I hope to shed a bunch of new light for everyone as well as for myself next year.

First things first. I had to be ready for the juicing. About a month ago I thought I was going to do it "next Monday" but then some friends came over and we were going to go out to dinner. Then I thought ok, NEXT Monday but then things came up. You are getting the picture. I just was not ready and if I am not psyched up, if I am not totally into it, excited about it...I won't last. I looked on my calendar and it appears I have nothing that would upset my juicing. Things that would interfere would be a holiday or, of course, dinner or lunch plans and the like. Once I got psyched up for REAL, I bought a bunch of fruit and kale. I could not, for the life of me, recall what I made last year, which ones I liked the most and what recipes made me feel better or worse or whatever. I will try much harder this time. I think last year I didn't actually believe I would make it but this time, I know it is relatively easy and kind of fun.


A little about me and my style and tastes. I will just come out and say it: I dislike vegetables. I do like fruit though. I have noticed certain vegetables can be masked by certain fruits and certain vegetables' flavor breaks through any type of blending. The vegetables that I notice the most are:
Bell Peppers
Carrots
Cilantro

The veggies that I do not notice are:
Kale
Spinach

The fruits that I find mask vegetables the best are:
Lemon
Grapefruit
Melon

The fruits that do not mask most vegetables are
Apples
Grapes

So, if you are like me and are trying to trick yourself into eating vegetables your best bet is a combination like Kale and a lemon. I actually always add a lemon to my juice because I like how it masks any veggie taste right off the bat.


How much do you have a day?
I am not an expert in this area but I did really well with 8 cups a day. I tried to do it cup by cup but the way it worked best for me was to have 4 containers of 16 ounces. I would make the juice for the next day at night. This way I don't wake anyone up with the relatively loud juicer whir. This was plenty for me. I was energized enough. I felt light and energetic. It was easy to take to work as well. I drank one 16oz bottle on my way to work, I'd have two through the course of the day at work and then I would have a dinner one while I made the next day's juices.

What about protein?
Contrary to many beliefs, you can get protein from produce. Examples of good sources of protein from Vegetables:
Beets, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, eggplant, green peas, bell pepper, kale (my personal favorite), lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, tomatoes, watercress and turnip greens.

Examples of good sources of protein from Fruits:
Apples (my favorite), cantaloupe, figs, apricots, grapes, grapefruit, honeydew melon, oranges, papaya, peaches, pears, pineapple, strawberries, guavas, tangerines and watermelon, yes, watermelon has protein. One cup of watermelon has one gram of protein.



Choosing your produce:
I make it up as I go along. I quite like the idea of "eating the rainbow". The more varying colors you ingest, the more varieties of nutrients you are guaranteed to be getting! Color is a good rule of thumb in other ways too. For example, picking out grapes. I was in Costco and I was presented with three types of grapes. In the past I used green grapes and it tasted great but I was not given any options back then. Before me was green, red and black grapes. When you are presented with this dilemma with grapes, or any other type of fruit , choose the darkest color. This goes for all produce like kale: choose the darkest leaves you can see, oranges: choose blood oranges if you can as they have 40% more vitamin C and Anthocyanins* which are super antioxidants. I chose the black grapes as they have two things the red and green do not have: quercetin and resveratrol which among many other things including cancer prevention, boosts the  immune system reducing the effects of inflammation and protects cells from diabetic neuropathy. I have issues with both of those so I am eating lots of the grapes. These nutrients are in the skin of the grapes. One may wonder if they are getting into the juice or if they are left in the pulp receptacle. Do not worry. When you juice the black grapes, you will see a dark juice coming out and the nutrients are hiding in the color so you literally can see them in the juice. These nutrients are the same as in red wine when people advise to have one glass of red wine a day.



Recipes?
I will post recipes this time as I go along. So far I have made various combos of what I bought on my most recent trip. Each juice I made today had kale, lemon, kiwi, blueberries, grapes and apples in them, all of varying amounts. One thing that stayed the same was the lemon. I do not recommend using any more than one lemon or you will have one tart juice that will strip the enamel right off your teeth. (Not really but it will feel a lot like it and it may deteriorate the enamel a wee bit with the acid). I will go back to the store and get more kale and spinach and I think a melon and whatever is in season. I don't even know what is in season right now but what ever it is will be at the Farmer's Market. I will pick a variety of colors and the darkest of those colors I can find.

*Info from SFGate