Day 6: Transitions

Today was fun. I was feeling like orange juice, so I made a quart of juice that was just oranges and clementines. It was sooo good. ^_^

I also drank the rest of that salsa drink that I had made yesterday. It was really better today. The flavours had melded.

I was running around in Johnson City, so I grabbed a drink from Earthfare. It was a fresh apple, spinach, and kale juice, I think.

Finally (and now to get to the point of the sub-title), I will be teaching raw food classes in Raleigh this weekend and I'll need to be able to taste the recipes to teach them. In addition, a third friend who has been cleansing with us will be headed back home soon. So I am putting my juice feast on a slight hold til next week. We're going to transition into a "regular" diet, meaning a healthy diet that one eats on a regular basis. We want to give our friend a solid perspective on what he can eat while he is at home.

I don't know how much I'll post til after the weekend, but I'll be posting here again regularly as soon as our little "hiatus" is complete.

Day 5: Cravings and craving killers

I spent New Year's Eve and New Year's day at a friend's house, and I took a gallon of juice with me. Nevertheless, I started to get some major cravings. They were cravings for all kinds of grains, particularly tortilla chips and salsa. But I really wanted to keep on with the juice feast, so I just waited it out. It was painful at times. I guess I was in one of those "vegan zombie" modes. I was also thinking about raw vegan dishes, so it wasn't all grain-based foods, but since I'm just juicing, it was still hard.

When I got back, I made up a juice using salsa ingredients to try to satisfy my chips and salsa craving. It was good, but I wasn't quite sated.

But this morning (Monday) I woke up and drank some leftover juice, and I watched Paul Nison's video My Raw Food Breakfast. All of a sudden, I'm not craving that stuff anymore! For me, that video was a craving killer. Of course, now I'm thinking about raw vegan breakfast cereal with berries and bananas now. But I'll get to have that in time.

I'm not yet sure what I'm gonna do for the rest of the day. We've got a bunch of juices leftover that I suppose I'll be working on. I really want to get some dandelion greens and some grapes for juices (though not for the same drinks). You know what? I think I'll do straight orange juice. That would taste really good to me right now. Then I can move into my green juices.


If you enjoyed this post, "like" it or share it! What kind of juice are you drinking today? Post it in the comments section!

Day 4: lots of green!

Happy New Years!

Well, almost.

I started this New Year's Eve off with some Elixir of the Lake as I made my green juice this morning. Yes, this is the day I'm transitioning to a juice feast. One gallon of juice per person each day is what's normally recommended, so that's what I'm shooting for. Here's what I put into my first gallon:

2 cucumbers
3 lemons
2 red bell peppers
1 bunch of collards
1 bunch of parsley
2 heads of celery
about 6 roma tomatoes
2 romaine hearts

You know, even though I've only had some Elixir of the Lake and a couple glasses of green juice, I'm not that hungry. I'm not stuffed and I'm not full. But I'm satisfied. I don't want to eat anything.

Here's what happens after green drinks. :3














I absolutely love getting sun. It feels so good. It's so warm and cozy. And as a side note, I've also noticed that when I get a bunch of sun that I'm not as hungry. It's like I'm feasting on pure, beautiful sunlight. I love these warm days that are so right for getting sun.

I'm headed to some friends' house and so I'm making a gallon to take with me. Here's what's in it:
2 beets with greens and stems
maybe 6-8 apples
a bunch of kale
4 limes (we have a lot--they were on sale)
a head of celery (again, it's on a great sale)
2 pounds of carrots
2 romaine hearts (again rings the refrain "Sale! Sale! Sale!"
And I can't remember putting anything else in.

I'm taking a half gallon of this leaving a half gallon for Jacqueline) and a half gallon of the other drink. So I'll be ringing in the new year with collards and beets! Momma tells me that her mother always said "Eat your beets; they'll make you pretty." It's so fun to be able to start the new year off with a couple traditional "New Year's Day" foods.

If you enjoyed this post, "like" it or share it. And leave a comment below letting me know what you're doing to ring in the new year. I'd love to know. :D

Day 3: My day and thoughts on ecology

Today, I got up around 7ish and for two hours had all these ideas for recipes. Why do my best ideas come when I'm fasting?? :P But anyway, we'll start testing recipes when we finish the feast--and I'm in no hurry to do that. :D

We had a little leftover limeade and green juice, and had something like the usual drink around 10. I started getting hungry this afternoon, but had a half glass of limeade and I'm not hungry at all at quarter to four. It's like I can get by on less. So far, I've been eating more than the other two, so t'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out during the juice feast.

I've been reading Rhio's "Hooked on Raw" and I'm loving it. She says something in there that really strikes a cord: "Mother Nature revels in biodiversity. If we could tune into her ways, she seems to be saying to us: 'Why have one of something when you can have thousands instead?" It's true! Nature just makes and makes and makes! Biodiversity is really the key to life.

It's so sad because standardization and industry have really squashed so much biodiversity. We are losing seeds, we are losing animals, and we are losing old forests. We don't realize how much we really need old forests, those self-sufficient regions which produce beauty and life. Instead, we cut them down in favour of a strip mall. We pave paradise...

I hope we come to our senses eventually. In the mean time, I want to share the story of ecology, the story of how to live together with the whole world in harmony, producing a clean, beautiful world. We encourage healthful eating and healthful living, cleansing both body and world.

I hope you enjoyed this post; and if you did, would you "like" it and share it. Also comment below, telling us what practices you keep to care for the world. : )

Day 2: Andrew

Hi everybody!

After starting the day off with lots of water, we had a simple sweet drink for breakfast. This is kind of "the usual" smoothie that Jacqueline makes pineapple, lemon, lime, a touch of honey, ginger, cranberry, spinach, and orange. We worked really hard all day and by the time lunch rolled around at 2pm, we were really hungry. We had a savory drink with tomato, red bell pepper, jalapeno, lemon, lime, ginger, celery, romaine, spinach Rehmannia's Sea Clear (fermented sea veggies), and a bit of tahini. It was amazing! It really hit the spot!

Later this afternoon, about 5ish, I started really wanting solid food. It was so intense. I got sooo hungry. I had thought about just having an orange, but I just waited til we could fix dinner. When Jacqueline got back from the store, she was really hungry too, so I mixed up some Elixir of the Lake, a blue green algae. It held us over.

Then we fixed two juices for dinner. First of all, we made limeade with lime, apple, a little honey, and a bunch of water. Then we made a green drink with kale, celery, cucumber, beet greens, romaine, and apple. This was such a great change of pace! It's such a light drink, and it's sweet without being sugary sweet. Delicious! And it completely cut off my desire for solid food. This also makes a milestone for us as it's the first juiced meal we've had, and so it prepares us for the juice feast that's coming. We're keeping on track!

Last night, the TV equipment was messing up, so we weren't able to watch Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead. But we got everything working and we're watching it right now as we eat our dinner. Yay!

If you enjoyed this post, "like" it or share it! And leave a comment down below telling me what kinds of health-related movies you really like. Hope to hear from you!

Day 1: Andrew

Good evening everybody!

Today is the official day one of our detox! We began the day by hydrating ourselves with spring water. We're also trying oil pulling, so we'll give you an update on how we feel that works as we play with it.

For breakfast, I made a smoothie of apple, grapefruit, orange, lemons, bananas, cranberries, a little honey, parsley, and a whole lot of lettuce greens.

The parsley was very powerful and needed a lot to offset it. The drink turned out to be sweet and a touch bitter. What did we learn? Save parsley for later in the day. :P

So about 11ish I put together another drink called Goji Julius from Alissa Cohen's book "Raw Food for Everyone." It was so delicious and refreshed us after our previous drink.

I was dying to get outside in the sun, so I took a walk down the road. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was cold, cold, cold, but the sun was shining so brightly. I came back after a bit, but was that the last time I went outside? Of course not! I went outside later that afternoon for another walk in the sun! :D

Early this afternoon, I was missing solid foods, and I was really wanting just about anything solid. But I settled in and got some work done, and a couple hours later the craving was gone.

We also watched Jay Kordich's interview with Charlotte Gerson. She's such a beautiful lady, and she's so inspiring! I highly recommend this video.



Tonight, I made us a savory drink with tomatoes, red bell pepper, parsley, garlic, dulse, freshly ground flax, an avocado, a lemon, and celery. It was sooo good. I find it really good to eat savory drinks like this to break up all of the sweet drinks. Too much sweet and my mouth and mind rebel.

We're planning on watching Fat, Sick, & Nearly Deadin a little bit. It's a really great movie. I've seen it before but Jacqueline hasn't. It's one of my favourite raw food movies. You really fall in love with some of the folks who are cleansing. When you hear why they're changing their diets, you really start rooting for them.

Anyway, that's all for today. If you enjoyed this post, "like" it or share it! And leave a comment down below telling me if you have a favourite health food movie. I love seeing them and would like to add some to the list that I need to see. I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Day 0: Andrew

Hi people!

So today is the last day before the cleanse officially begins! We've been prepping this week and we're super excited.

It was a sloppy day for driving up to Loafer's Glory as there were long stretches of rain. Then when I was getting up into the mountains, a dense fog hit and I had to be extra careful. But I made it up here all right and got settled in. We ate very cleanly today, not eating a lot of heavy nuts and whatnot, and finished out the day with a smoothie after we watched "Howl's Moving Castle" (such a good movie!).

Our smoothie had lemon, lime, ginger, orange, pineapple, strawberries, cranberries, dinosaur kale, two bananas, a touch of honey, and a whole lot of spinach. It was amazing. The berries really made it delicious. It was sweet and tart. Tomorrow I'm really looking forward to Tera Warner's Banana Blueberry Brew. It's a recipe that you get when you sign up for her free three day detox. It's got parsley and kale in it. I'm sooo excited. :DDD

Anyway, I'm gonna get to bed because I can't wait for what tomorrow's gonna bring. Comment below and let me know what kind of a smoothie or juice you had today (or what kind you're planning for tomorrow!). If you enjoyed this post, "like" it or share it! Talk to you later!