quickie green juice: cold be gone!

As was the case this weekend, I felt a fluish cold coming on which is something pretty rare since last year, when I've started integrating juices into my daily routine. This has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in life, as lame-sounding as that might be, because I used to be fending off colds every week.  It's been really liberating (for me) to know that colds and flus don't even have to be an option if we take care to nourish our bodies through juicing with fresh produce while keeping our stress levels down. This realization alone has completely transformed my way of looking at pretty much everything. Being sick is an option for the most part. Why doesn't anyone tell us that?  When I reflect back on the past few weeks, I realize I was not taking in enough greens, nor was I coping with stress in a way that served my 'highest good' as they say. And wallah, a cold. Again, it's been a YEAR and I used to get them every week just about my entire life. So this lifestyle more than pays off in my view. 

So wallah again,  the insides of my frige. I try to keep as much produce on hand so I have all the necessary ingredients to make green juice daily-- for detoxification and fending off colds and to be ready for when they do strike. As you can see, today I meant bidness.  Do I enjoy this drink? Mmmaaaaybe. .. But I will say that the green drink does taste a lot like lemonade, you don't have to drink this much to reap the benefits and it's really something my body *literally*(to be read in Chris Traeger voice) wants everyday now.

By the way, while I'm drinking this, I see fried chicken being eaten on, "The Help" and  that ain't helpin'! Butchering that heartfelt movie aside, when I drink this, I find I don't have cravings for even meat right now, much less meat saturated and fried in lard.  And while I'm talking about the Help, I'd say this sums the movie up best: "The Help is a high-functioning tearjerker, but the catharsis it offers feels glib and insufficient, a Barbie Band-Aid on the still-raw wound of race relations in America". Thank you Rotten Tomatos! Now back to green juice! 


Here is the recipe:

1 bunch of fresh collard greens (sometimes I use kale but I feel like collards deserve more 'hype' these days..)
1 package of organic romaine hearts
3 fuji apples
1 lemon
3 inches of aloe
An insane amount of ginger-root (I broke off roughly 5 inches)

*note:  if you are juicing non-organic ingredients, your juice contains concentrated pesticides.  But if you're accustomed to more mainstream foods, these juices are so rich in alkalinity, you'd still be doing yourself a tremendous favor taking them in. So you have to factor in what will serve your highest good for where you're at.

Collard Greens: lowers cholesterol, aids in detox, prevents cancer. In fact, The connection between collard greens and cancer prevention should not be surprising since collard greens provide special nutrient support for three body systems that are closely connected with cancer development as well as cancer prevention. These three systems are (1) the body's detox system, (2) its antioxidant system, and (3) its inflammatory system. Chronic imbalances in any of these three systems can increase risk of cancer, and when imbalances in all three systems occur simultaneously, the risk of cancer increases significantly. Greens are extremely rich in iron and magnesium (two vital nutrients most Americans on the Standard American Diet (SAD) are lacking and according to the juice-feasting site (www.juicefeasting.com), magnesium is crucial to fighting heart disease, which coincidentally happens to be the #1 killer in the US. 

Lemon: aids in weight loss, cleanses one's liver, prevents kidney stones, promotes immunity, fights infection, aids in digestion, helps mitigate body oder, removes fatigue, eases anxiety, fends off chills associated with a fever, erases eczema.

Romaine Lettuce Hearts: while this part is more-or-less to create a watery base for the collard greens, it too aids in weight loss, promotes a healthy digestive tract, prevents plaque formation and helps to increase muscle strength.

Fuji Apples: taste amazing in juice, act as a natural sweetener, and apples are now known to significantly alter the amounts of two bacteria: Clostridiales and Bacteriodes in the large intestine. The bacterial changes alter the metabolism in the large intestine and as a result, helps with bacterial balance in the large intestine, necessary for health. 

Ginger: prevents and treats colds and flus, prevents migraines and cancer; helps with PMS.


Last, if you drink this juice, you'll experience the biggest surge of natural energy. If you keep drinking this daily you'll learn to discover what authentic health feels like and I promise your life will have more 'zing'.