Nettle, spinach, kale, cucumber and carrot juice
A couple of months ago, I busted out the old Juiceman Jr. that I got in college and used a record 2 (maybe 3) times. I always wanted to like juicing, but for some reason it always made my mouth itch. I’d visit a juice bar and order a nice fresh carrot-apple juice, and I’d be rubbing the insides of my lips with my tongue for the next 4 hours.
Fruit, in general, has always made my mouth itch. It’s hit or miss – but the biggest culprits are (raw) apples, peaches, hazelnuts, and cherries. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I discovered I have something known as Oral Allergy Syndrome – which isn’t exactly an allergy, but a reaction to certain fruits because the enzymes in them very closely resemble pollen. Ah-hah! So my inability to get through the month of September without a box of kleenex by my side constantly is responsible for my mouth itching when I eat fresh fruits!
Back to the juice. After watching a series of food-related documentaries, including Fat Sick & Nearly Dead, we decided to bust out the old juicer and whip up a few glasses (I mean, who doesn’t watch that documentary and immediately drop $200 on a juicer?). At first it was terrible – my mouth was itching all the time. But then I remembered the Oral Allergy Syndrome, cut out the apples, and really started to enjoy my liquid meals!
Like the millions who have seen the documentary, we had this crazy idea to try a one-week juice fast. We went to Costco, Cub Foods, and Aldi and filled up shopping carts with more fruits and vegetables than could fit in the refrigerator. (Seriously – we had to bust out the cooler and hope that the temperature in the garage wouldn’t fluctuate too much!) I learned that fresh squeezed pineapple juice is among the best things available on this planet – oh. so. creamy. dreamy.
Well, our week-long juice fast ended abruptly after 2 1/2 days with a giant meal of veggie burgers, onion rings, and beer. How’s that for healthy?
Try, try again. This time for almost 2 days before we decided that we had to eat dinner every day or there was no way this was going to last.
Since then, we’ve actually been using the juicer quite frequently. I have been trying to add one green juice to my diet every day. I have this *theory* that replacing your lunch with a glass of juice every day really is the ticket to health, weight loss, perfect skin, curing cancer, healing broken bones, creating world peace, and all that jazz (okay, maybe not all that jazz…). Juice your lunch.
Now that we’re juicing most days, we’ve outgrown our Juiceman Jr. I just ordered the Breville 850-Watt Juice Extractor, which should be here tomorrow! I’m excited to give it a whirl (pun intended), and hopefully we’ll be able to make more use of the nettle and other wild greens that grow so abundantly in the garden this summer!
