Week 23 in Review

The Score
Eater - 9     Compost - 1     Carry Over - 0

This was a very interesting, not so normal week in terms of food consumption.  I started my week of with a vegetarian dinner of mushroom ravioli (something that had been hiding in the freezer for months) with sauteed Green Beans and mushrooms.  It was delicious, and made me wish that we got fresh mushrooms in the box!

The rest of the week was primarily juices.  Though I spent eight years in my twenties as a vegetarian, I had never consumed only fruits and vegetables for days on end, and certainly not in a juice form.  I went into the week aiming for five days, but acknowledging that I had no idea what my body was really in for, so I planned take it day by day, meal by meal.  The juicing plan that I followed was inspired by a documentary that I watched earlier this year, called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, which profiled one man's weight loss journey.  Though I maintain much healthier eating habits (and a much healthier weight) than the film's protagonist, I figured if he could do four months of juicing, perhaps I could benefit from five days.

I must say, I was expecting the worst, but following the plan really wasn't that bad.  Some juices tasted better than others, and only a few were really awful: one with sweet potatoes and beets almost made me barf, but that was definitely the exception to the rule.  Each day was comprised of four fruit and/or vegetable juices, each 24+ ounces, along with lots of water and herbal tea at night. 

Days one through three were easy.  The juices filled me up, I never felt hungry or weak, and I didn't have any of the "blow outs" that I was anticipating.  Day four got off to a great start, but I kind of did myself in with my evening juice.  It called for a poblano, and for some reason the market didn't have any, so I bought a New Mexican Hatch pepper instead.  Oops.  That juice was ON FIRE.  It left me with a headache and a burning mouth, but what my mouth couldn't take my body handled without any problem. 

Day five is when things started getting harder for me.  The lunch juice was the awful one mentioned above, and I had a really hard time getting it down.  By mid-afternoon I was starting to feel pretty light headed, and I knew that it was time to eat.  So, I had a light, early dinner with noodles and veggies, and then had my final juice later that evening. 

All in all, it was a really positive experience.  I drank a lot of things that I'd never imagined (ginger, kohlrabi and kale come to mind), and felt really great through most of the process.  My skin was really looking great at the end, too, if I do say so myself.  I certainly can't imagine doing something like this frequently (just the prep and clean up time alone would have been very difficult to pull off with my family around), but I do now feel that I can get clever about adding juices in here and there.  A fun week, but now, back to regular programming!

A rather pretty juice, and fairly tasty too:

1 apple
2 beets
3 large carrots
1 2" piece of ginger
3 cups spinach