detox

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How an amusingly shaped carrot (and its juice) added some sunshine to my day….

Posted by encylofoodia on April 18, 2012
Posted in: Dazzling Juice Recipes, Juice looose about this hoooose, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I wrote recently about the much maligned pea, a traditional vegetable forgotten in a sea of more unusual and fashionable legumes.  A good friend to the pea, I feel is the carrot (I think Forrest Gump agreed with me).

The old wives tale tells us that carrots are good for the eyes (despite little research being done here) and it may hold some truth, 1 cup of carrot contains about 400% of your vitamina A requirement, a substance needed to maintain the health of your retinas.   If we take a lOOK (hah excuse the pun) at more recent research however carrots are chock full of antioxidants, some which are known to prevent cardio vascular disease (carotenoids) and some that have been linked to protection against colon cancer (polyacetylenes).  Although these antioxidants in carrots are fairly stable (which means that you can cook them and not loose too many), they are at their best when consumed raw,

Today was a dull day in the UK, April showers, and little sun to be seen, until I opened my bag of carrots to find two comically joined together like little pair of (badly) fake tanned legs.  Childish? Perhaps. Silly? Yes. Did it brighten my day? Absolutely!

Laughing is so good for us (so I made sure to boost my friend’s health by posting it in Facebook) but so are carrots, so I share with you the silly photo (at the bottom), and a fabulous, shiny, happy carrot juice concoction.

Sunshine in a glass, juice recipe

This recipe produces such a vibrant bright juice, that you can’t help but be cheered by it.  It’s a little glass of sunshine whatever the weather.

Ingredients:

6-8 clean carrots

1/2 a small pineapple, peeled

2 apples

Method:

Juice everything and radiate in its warm sunny glow 🙂 gulp!

Next up: This sunny juice has left me feeling totally tropical, I’m going to do a coconutty juice recipe!

Ahahahahahahah

The grass is always greener…Nature’s food colourings: the green ones and what they will do for you.

Posted by encylofoodia on April 11, 2012
Posted in: Dazzling Juice Recipes, Juice looose about this hoooose. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

You are more like a tree than you think, on the outside we need food and water, we need light but we also need shelter.   On the inside we share some similarities too.  Essentially the blood of green plants, chlorophyll is structurally and functionally similar to that of hemin, which you will find in your red blood cells.  Our bodies overlook the difference between chlorophyll and our own red blood cells (its a small matter of atoms at the centre of the cells) so when we eat or drink chlorophyll, we turn it (all of it!) into red blood cells.

Red blood cells deliver oxygen and collect the waste, they are in a constant state of detoxing our bodies.  We all love a detox!  In more acute and critical terms however, this increase in blood cell efficiency is combined with chlorophyll’s ability to protect DNA and block carcinogens (cancer causing substances) from entering cells. It’s serious and important stuff to know, both for retaining our health and also for recovering from acute diseases such as cancer.

Coming in at the top of the chlorophyll tree is spinach, having the highest level of chlorophyll among all studied vegetables with 300-600 mg per ounce.

This has to be one of my favourite juice recipes, sometimes the colour of it makes people think twice (I serve it to any friends who stay over for the night :)) but as always, the beauty is in the surprise- it’s sweet, delicious and fresh.  After a glass of this I swear I can feel all the good stuff going all the way to my fingertips.

Plant life, the power of green juice.

Sweet green juice recipe

Ingredients:

  • 2 handfuls spinach (organic is important here)
  • small handfull of parsley
  • small handful or coriander/cilantro
  • 4 apples
  • 1 stick of celery
  • 1/2 lime, peeled

Method:

Blend the spinach, herbs and half an apple.  Juice the apples, celery and lime.  Blend the spinach puree and juice together.

Enjoy

Its not a diet, its a plan

Posted by encylofoodia on March 23, 2012
Posted in: Juice looose about this hoooose. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Diets are seen as restriction, as limiting or stopping doing things that you like- it’s never going to feel good, and that makes it unsustainable.

Ask yourself what you want from your diet.  Weight loss is the most commmon answer.  It was my answer too.  Not two weeks of weight loss and wonderful motivation after slipping into my small jeans (although I love that), only to take my new fit self out with friends, probably for dinner and drinks, and see it gradually eclipsed over the coming weeks by the old self,  kick started by coffee, fuelled by standard food and relaxed by wine.   I want to be perpetually at my best.

So many of us have tried diets, and for 90% of us they don’t work- or more accurately, we don’t work.  A little tweak to the diet here, a night off there, a break at the weekend and then the final brushing under the carpet all result in diet failure.  Diets are seen as restriction, as limiting or stopping doing things that you like- it’s never going to feel good, and that makes it unsustainable.

It needs to be a plan, a plan with no end and a plan that you don’t want to end.  It needs to be a flexible plan, an interesting plan, a plan that delivers the instant smugness of feeling thinner or fitter, with the long term comfort you find in good health.

Diet is no longer a verb, you don’t ‘diet’.  Diet is now a noun, you have a diet, and its a good one.

I credit a couple of these little nuggets of wisdom (and some of my motivation) to Jason Vale (a.k.a. the Juice Master) and his book, Turbo Charge Your Life in 14 days that I am working to.   One of many food publications that I have read (recently), absorbed, enjoyed and seen benefit from- this one I think has some lessons that I’ll carry on not for the next 14 days, not even for the next 14 years, but I hope for the next 14 generations.

Juicing is oh so fashionable, and oh so now, but what it does allow is for you to squeeze a huge amount of good things into small and edible portions, i.e. glasses of juice.  I figure that if we have higher nutrition in what we do eat, then we need less of it- and less food means less of me (physically).  I’m all over it like a blonde L.A. gym-bunny on a wheatgrass shot.

What’s next:

I won’t be copying and pasting Jason’s juices, as they are his (and the recipes wont be half as amsusing as they are in his talk speak- he is a nice bloke to read) but I will be detailaing the results, and most importantly how juicing fits into my life post 14 day turbo blast thing.

P.S. I’m 5 days in, feeling good, and very hopeful- especially as it’s a Friday evening and my old friends Ms. Sauvignon and Ms. Salt and Vinegar aren’t even close to being invited.