“Health is like a vegetable garden; cultivate it.”
Julien Allaire.
Hello, young Padawan
Since we are in the fall, I was getting ready to plan my three days of apple diet like every change of season. Suddenly (or almost, lol), I thought it would be a good idea to change it up a bit and try a homemade vegetable slow juice cleanse instead of my usual mono-diet. I already knew the principle because I tried a ready-made version from two different brands before, I will tell you about it later in this article, but I wanted to test the “homemade” version this time, just out of curiosity.
So for those who don’t see the logic of going on a mono-diet, a juice cleanse, or just a fast, ask yourself if you’ve ever felt the need to take a break in your life …, well, figure – your body too. Our three meals a day at more or less fixed times are only very recently on a human scale. In the past, we did not eat every day, and our body naturally fasted regularly. As for the mono-diet or the juice cure, it’s a bit different. I explain here and there at length and across the principle of the mono-diet, and as regards the juice cure, let’s say that it is between the fast (without any digestion) and the mono-diet (where we still eat apples, so with digestion).
If you’ve been on an apple mono-diet before and have never tried dry or watered fasting, the juice cleanses may be a good idea to serve as a go-between or just stock up on vitamins; and prepare for winter in a healthy body full of energy and vitality. Ready? Let’s go.
The juice cleanse: homemade or ready-made?
Before trying the homemade juice cleanse, I tested two juice cures from two different brands to see if it suited me, took some recipe ideas, and gave myself time to assimilate some knowledge because it is a little technical (on the rate of carbohydrates, ed). Why technical? Wait, I’ll explain.
The advantage of slow juice (in cure or not): the body does not restart its digestive process by drinking it since it is assimilated in about 15 minutes. However, in a juice cleanse, we stop eating, and we drink water, herbal teas, and juices mainly from fresh vegetables from the slow juicer (without fibers, ed). The goal is to give fluids, vitamins, minerals, and little carbohydrates and lipids, keeping the body and especially digestion dormant. For this, it is necessary to control the rate of carbohydrates of each of the juices so as not to restart the digestive process. If there are too many apples in the juice, for example, the process is broken. Hence was my approach to test first two ready-made cures before getting started my homemade one.
About my two ready-made cleanses of fresh juices.
Kitchen detox : Cleanse I tested last fall at the request of a colleague. Yeah, some people ask me to try stuff for them, no shame, lol.
I was not too fond of it; here’s why. First, the juices are, unless I am mistaken, not organic and in plastic bottles. Then, there is a snack planned per day (in the form of a sachet of oilseeds, ed). But if you eat something during a juice cleanse, you restart digestion for several hours, so I do not understand the concept, or, well, I think I do: they save money. But the customer, therefore, does not have a juice cleanse. At the time, I had not taken the snacks so as not to break my fast, but I remember being really hungry, well, not enough juice, no doubt. I will not renew this one.
Atlier Nubio : Awesome. The bottles of organic juice are in glass and in sufficient quantity not to be hungry; the recipes are very well done, balanced, pleasant to taste, pure happiness. We come out of this cure with sick skin, a lot of energy, real overall well-being, rested. The only downside: the price.
About my homemade juice cleanse.
For my attempt at a homemade juice cure, I used three books of recipe ideas. I first followed the seasonality, the availability of my organic market, my tastes, desires, and the wanted objective (here : immunity + fresh complexion), namely to fill up with minerals, specific vitamins for the arrival of winter, by adding “beautiful skin” elements. My juice slow extractor is a Hurom, I have had it since 2015, and it works wonderfully, both for regular and fibrous vegetables, like kale, for example.
So I brought a lot of celery juice for the minerals, apples, and pears for the complexion, but also turmeric, ginger, flax and hemp seeds, and finally spinach leaves, lemon, fennel, tomatoes, garlic, carrot, and pineapple. Not all of a sudden, eh, I tried to do drinkable stuff.
All this by supplementing with water, herbal teas with thyme, rooibos, but no tea (nor coffee). I liked it so much that I did it for five days.
As for the quantities, I settled on the treatment that I had adored, namely that of Atelier Nubio, which provides 85 oz of juice per day, per 17 oz portion, namely:
1 juice of 17 oz in the morning
1 juice of 17 oz in the middle of the morning
1 juice of 17 oz at noon
1 juice of 17 oz around 4 p.m.
1 juice of 17 oz in the evening
Unlimited water and herbal teas, throughout the day.
Strengths of the homemade juice cleanse : You choose your products yourself, your juice recipes; you have mastery of taste and intensity when it comes to spices such as ginger or turmeric, for example. It’s cheaper than buying ready-made juice cleansers, but you have to own a juice extractor yourself, which is also a real investment.
Disadvantages : It’s complex to achieve and less fun than receiving your ready-made cure where you just have to sip quietly without having to cut up the veggies, do the dishes, or scratch your head to determine how many carbohydrates you should put in your juice.
Honestly, I quickly realized that without a minimum of nutritional knowledge, it is difficult to measure your pieces of pears or your spoon of flax seeds without having to rack your brain over the needs of your own body and nutrients that you want to provide for this cure.
Some ideas and tips
The three books I was inspired by are not about juice cleansing, specifically. I use them on a daily basis to acquire knowledge, recipe ideas …
– “Fresh vegetables and fruit juices” par le Dr. Norman Walker : This is the bible of vegetable juice. He explains to us the benefits of each plant on our body. A must.
– “Extracteur de jus” Estérelle Payany : She offers us recipes for juicing with the extractor, but also recipes for dishes, desserts and ice cream. The book is in French.
– My Hurom juicer cookbook.
When drinking fresh vegetable juice from the extractor as part of a cleanse or not, it should be drunk slowly, must salivate well, and preferably through a straw so as not to take too large sips. It is preferable to space each juice for 2 or 3 hours and have the most significant distance between the last juice of the evening and the first juice of the morning.
As for an apple mono-diet, the second day is often more difficult due to a bit of brain fog (or headache) from the liver cleansing itself. It is also possible to drink a large glass of magnesium sulfate to purge the intestine (a.k.a Epsom salt, ed). To be done in the middle of the cure, on an empty stomach in the morning, as for a mono-diet.
So, the verdict of the juice cure? Loved it. I loved that of Atelier Nubio, I liked mine; the effects were similar in both cases, with undoubtedly a little more well-being when I only had to receive my juices ready, I must admit it.
Will I start over? But most definitely. Whether in an apple mono-diet, classic dry fasting, with water or juice cleanse, taking breaks to start again with great energy has become an essential ritual.
And you, have you tried the juice cleanse?
XO 🥤
