Pre-Cleanse

I have a confession: I am a closet juicer. I purchased my very own juicer recently and am completely in love with it. It's generally not a great idea to drink too much juice, especially fruit juices or starchy vegetable juices (like carrot or beet) because of the high sugar content, but I have been starting every day with a glass of leafy green juice (I like a combination of kale, celery, romaine lettuce, green apple, ginger, and lemon), and it makes me feel great. The wonderful thing about drinking your vegetables is that it gives your digestive system a break- you get to absorb all the nutrients in the food without having to process any of the roughage.

Although I normally only drink one glass of juice a day, I try to do a juice cleanse for a few days every season. In the past I've ordered juices from Blue Print Cleanse (some other great bottled options are Can Can Cleanse, Juice to You, Juicey Lucy's and Living Greens here in SF, Organic Avenue in NY, or Ritual Cleanse in LA), but the shipping time really depletes the enzymes in the juices that are so nutritionally important, and the cost is a bit prohibitive for regular cleansing, which is why I saved up for my own Super Angel 5500 juicer.

It's important to wean yourself off of most foods before you start juicing, to avoid shocking your body, so I like to spend the week before a cleanse doing just that. On Monday I stopped eating meat, Thursday I stopped eating (most*) refined sugars and white flours and had my last bit of dairy, and tomorrow (Saturday) I will start eating only raw vegetables and fruits so that on Monday my body is adjusted and ready to cleanse! In the past I've made some scheduling mistakes and started cleansing without a much prep time, and the resulting detox was pretty gross. I'm starting my three day cleanse on Monday, so in the interest of this blog being a record of what I eat, I thought I'd share some of the raw foods I'm eating this weekend, and the juices I'll be drinking next week.

Some of the easiest and best things to eat in preparation for a cleanse are raw greens, like arugula. I dress mine in a little bit of mustard and lemon juice, and I like to have some avocado with it for substance. Because I haven't gone completely raw yet, and I do love my fiber, tonight I also had half a roasted sweet potato with some salt and pepper.

*I must admit I was not super strict about this one- today I had some bhatura with lunch- but I won't be having any more grains (even whole ones) for the rest of the week.