Cleansing and Detoxification: Spring Cleansing Strategies
Spring is the season of renewal and rebirth.
The earth comes to life again after a long winter off.
Flowers begin to bloom; trees begin to get leaves.
Your body begins to come alive and awake again after a winter of slow-down.
A great way to shed the sluggishness of winter and add some spring to your step is by doing a spring cleaning of your insides.
Reducing the Toxic Load
An effective cleansing plan must start with what I call “reducing the toxic load”. No matter how many special detox teas you drink or potions or pills you take, if you don’t reduce the toxic load, both during the cleanse and afterward, your success will be short lived.
During a cleanse, you need to eliminate toxic chemicals in food, water and in the air. If you decide to follow a cleanse regime that does not involve cleaning up your diet and environment, you are unlikely to see lasting results. Once you stop the cleansing supplements, your body will soon return to the toxic state it was in when you started.
Foods to avoid while cleansing include all processed foods (just about everything that comes in a box, can, or bag); oils (with the exceptions perhaps of cold pressed olive, coconut, or flax oil); plus wheat, gluten, sugar, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, and peanuts. These last foods are all potential allergens or digestive irritants and thus can thwart the cleansing process.
An effective detox diet plan must also eliminate foods that are difficult to digest like high fat foods, starches, and complex recipes containing a combination of starch or sugar and fat.
Choose the Cleanse That’s Right For You
There as many effective cleansing plans as there are cleansers. That’s why on my Energy Recharge Green Cleanse I offer guidelines and ways to customize. Those who are ready to dive in head first follow Option A, which is the most rigorous plan, while others opt for some variation of B and C, which allow for more flexibility in meal planning.
When I first started my Energy Recharge Green Cleanse (ERGC) back in January 2008, there were very few online cleanses.
Now there are dozens, each one with its own special twist on the cleansing process. Some are food only; many involve a variety of products. A few, like my ERGC, are fully supported and include several support calls and a forum. My ERCG is one of the very few that includes daily journals that allow you to get feedback and support.
Regardless of how you get supported, I feel it’s critical to the success of your cleanse to have a support system in place. It’s a rare person that’s so dedicated and disciplined as to be able to engage successfully in a cleanse and see it through to the end with its emotional ups and downs, temptations to quit, and unpredictable effects in terms of detoxification symptoms.
Learning More About Detox Symptoms
On my blog talk radio show episode, Cleansing and Detoxification Strategies for Spring I discuss the concept of “detox symptoms” — what they are, and why they happen.
I also talk about the pros and cons of a variety of cleansing methods, including fasting, juicing, blending, potions and pills, and just eating whole fresh foods for cleansing so you can determine what’s right for you.
There are some foods that are especially good for cleansing. On the show, I went into detail about my top 5 favorite detox foods. These are described below.
There are many cleanses on the market today. There are potions and pills and herbal remedies. While these sorts of cleanses can be very effective, they can also be complicated and expensive.
I personally prefer food based cleanses.
On my blog talk radio show episode, Cleansing and Detoxification Strategies for Spring I discuss the concept of “detox symptoms”, what they are and why they happen.
I also talk about the pros and cons of a variety of cleansing methods, including fasting, juicing, blending, potions and pills and just eating whole fresh foods for cleansing so you can determine what’s right for you. There are some foods that are especially good for cleansing. On the show, I went into detail about my top 5 favorites. These are also described below.
There are many cleanses on the market today. There are potions and pills and herbal remedies. While these sorts of cleanses can be very effective, they can also be complicated and expensive.
I personally prefer food based cleanses.
My Top 5 Cleansing Foods
Dandelion
Dandelion is a common “weed” that grows abundantly on lawns, in fields and along highways. It’s known for the wispy sprays that top the stem after the flower dies away. As I kid, I loved to blow on them. It was said to be good luck if you could blow all the wisps away with one breath.
I later came to discover that dandelions are one of nature’s most powerful plants. They are part of the sunflower family, another of my favorite plants growing up.
There are about 100 species of dandelion. The entire plant is an effective cleanser.
The root is a common ingredient in detox teas and it stimulates the bile and liver. It also acts as a diuretic and stimulates the release of toxins via your urine.
The leaves are cleansing and nourishing additions to salads, smoothies and soups. A little goes a long way. The bitter flavor stimulates the release of stomach acid and bile, which is why herbalists call dandelion a hepatic.
It’s also considered an aperient (gently moves the bowels), diuretic (makes you pee), tonic, and stomachic. It is useful with all kinds of conditions involving kidney, liver, gallbladder and inflammation of the bowels. The fresh root is good for helping with gallstones, jaundice, alcoholism, hepatitis, scurvy, and especially enlargement of the liver and spleen. Dandelion is also a tonic for female reproductive congestion.
Burdock Root (Arctium lappa)
Burdock is a powerful detoxifier. It’s also a delicious food that can be added to soups, salads, stews, smoothies and stir-fries.
It’s considered by herbalists to be a deep cleaner for it stimulates the release of toxins through sweat, urine and feces. It can also help lower your blood pressure. In Healing with Whole Foods Paul Pitchford writes, “(Burdock) is a virtual cure-all for conditions of excess, and significantly purifies the blood while reducing fat and regulating blood sugar.”
In the West, burdock is known to cleanse the blood, and is useful in situations such as exposure to environmental toxins such as cigarette smoke or air pollution, heavy metals such as mercury, lead or arsenic, and chronic bacterial or viral infections.
In macrobiotic tradition, a popular way to use burdock is cut into match stick sized pieces with equal parts carrot and sautéed in sesame oil. The resulting dish, called kinpura, is considered a deeply cleansing food.
Avocados
We rarely think of avocados as a cleansing food but these nutritional powerhouses lower cholesterol and dilate blood vessels while blocking artery-destroying toxicity.
Avocados contain a nutrient called “glutathione”, a potent antioxidant enzyme that is used by your liver in phase 2 detoxification reactions.
According to the human genome project research, glutathione tends to be low due to genetics in almost 50% of the population due to a single nucleotide polymorphism (an alteration in a gene). The enzyme glutathione-S-transferase, responsible for making glutathione, is missing or deficient in close to 50% of the population.
Glutathione is a master antioxidant that’s important for detoxification of synthetic chemicals, for blocking at least thirty different carcinogens and for increasing the activity of the most important aspect of liver detoxification, the phase 2 cytochrome P450 system.
Cruciferous Vegetables and Leafy Greens
The foods in this detox category include kale, collard greens, dandelion, arugula, spinach, chard, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, broccoli sprouts and Brussels sprouts and many more.
Green foods are powerful allies in cleansing your liver by providing a plethora of minerals, antioxidants and cofactors that support liver detox pathways. Greens are abundant in chlorophyll which has the ability to suck up environmental toxins from your blood stream and neutralize heavy metals, chemicals and pesticides. They are also cleansing to your colon as they provide an abundance of fiber to “sweep” your digestive tract clean.
Crucifers and leafy greens can be eaten raw, cooked or juiced. They can be blended to make smoothies, soups and salad dressings, marinated, processed with nuts and seeds to make crackers and bread, and eaten whole, dipped in guacamole or a healthy dip. Leafy greens make tasty wraps, a cleansing alternative to tortillas, pita bread, sandwich bread and other popular grain based processed wraps and tortilla shells.
Bitter greens like arugula, dandelion greens, mustard greens and chicory help increase the creation and flow of bile and aid in the removal of waste from your organs and blood.
Turmeric
Turmeric is a bitter spice used extensively in East Indian cooking. It contains a chemical constituent called “curcumin” that helps cleanse your liver, purify your blood, and promote good digestion and elimination. It stimulates your gallbladder to produce bile and scavenges free radicals. The spice is aromatic and has a bitter taste. The plant, which grows five to six feet tall, is found in tropical regions throughout Southern Asia; its fingerlike stalk contains the spice’s healing agents.
Turmeric has been shown to be a potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer agent. It has been shown to increase two very important liver detoxification enzymes, UDP glucuronyl transferase and glutathione-S-transferase. Turmeric has also been found to inhibit free radical damage of fats and, prevent the formation of the inflammatory chemical cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2).
When rats were fed curcumin, the active constituent of turmeric, for 14 days, glutathione-S-transferase production increased by 16%, and a marker of free radical damage called malondialdehyde decreased by 36%.
Turmeric looks similar to ginger, except that it’s bright orange and the roots are smaller. It’s what gives curry its characteristic bright yellow color.
The Energy Recharge Green Cleanse
My Energy Recharge Green Cleanse is a food based cleanse, although you can supplement with detox herbs and formulas if desired, but it’s not required.
Whether you live in a small town in the Midwest or a bustling metropolitan area, you have access to grocery stores and can get an abundance of fresh produce. That’s all you need, along with a blender, to do my Energy Recharge Green Cleanse.
We currently have over 100 people ready to begin their cleanse on Monday. They’ve been busily preparing by simplifying their food choices and increasing their green foods.
It’s not too late to join!
The spring 2012 Energy Recharge Green Cleanse begins on Monday, April 23rd.
It includes recipes, menu plans, recordings and support calls for guidance and detailed instructions. There’s a community forum to provide support and accountability, as well as a sharing of recipes and resources.
Click HERE for details and to decide if the Energy Recharge Green Cleanse is just what you need to sweep out the cobwebs and jumpstart your body into vibrant health. And a side benefit is a flatter belly, a clearer mind and enough energy for all the things you love.
I look forward to getting to know you during the next Energy Recharge Green Cleanse.
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
P.S. As a bonus when you register for the Energy Recharge Green Cleanse you’ll also get three months of ongoing support from me through our Eat Green be Lean Community.
Click HERE to get details and join in.
Super Cleanse Smoothie
Ingredients:
- 3/4 bunch of parsley with some stems
- 1 handful arugula
- 1 handful kale
- 1 handful broccoli sprouts
- 3 leaves dandelion greens
- 1/4-inch slice turmeric
- 1/2-inch slice ginger
- 1-inch slice burdock root
- 1/2 – 1 avocado, peeled and pitted
- 1 green apple, cored (optional)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 teaspoon milk thistle seed powder (optional)
- enough water to blend
Directions:
Blend and enjoy.
Hot and Cleansing Liver Juice
Ingredients:
- 1 bunch kale
- 3 leaves dandelion
- 1 cucumber
- 1 small sliver of fresh turmeric (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)
- 1 lemon, juice of
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 green onions (scallions)
- 1 handful broccoli sprouts
- 1 pinch cayenne
- 3-inch piece of burdock root
Directions:
Run all the ingredients above through a juicer.
Benefits to the Body:
This juice is the ideal liver cleanser. It’s stimulating and does powerful work to keep your liver functioning at its best.
Tags: 7 day cleanse, 7 day detox, burdock root, cleansing, cruciferous, dandelion, detox, detox foods, detox recipe, detoxification, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, energy recharge, Energy Recharge Green Cleanse, Green Cleanse, green leafy vegetables, green smoothie, green smoothie green cleanse, green smoothie recipe, spring cleanse, toxicity, turmeric
Posted in Cleansing Programs, Detox Program, Raw Food Recipes
Flatten Your Belly with Simple and effective summer cleansing smoothie strategies
As I get ready for my quarterly Green Smoothie Cleanse, I’ve been pondering the concept of time.
Somehow it seems there is never quite enough time to complete all I would like to do.One way I buy back some time is by doing cleanses. That may seem like a strange comment.
Let me explain
Have you ever calculated how much time it takes you to plan meals, make meals, eat meals and clean up after meals? There is a bit of a time investment. Even if you’re eating out a lot, thinking you don’t have the time to prepare your own meals, the time savings is not that as great as you think, considering you have to drive to a restaurant, order the food, wait for it to arrive, eat it, pay for it and drive home. Even the fast food drive through concept takes time, and unless you eat while driving, there’s still the time it takes to chew your meal.
Some cleanses save time, some require additional time.
Water fasts require the least amount of time at all. No prep, no cleanup. The problem with water fasts is that your metabolism slows down and you can’t quite accomplish all that you might when you’re eating. The good news about fasting is that your appetite goes away after about four days.
Juice cleanses are the most time consuming, especially if you’re dedicated to drinking the 3-4 quarts a day of juice generally recommended to cleanse effectively. It takes me the better part of an hour per quart to prepare the foods for juicing, juice and cleanup. Juicing is similar to water fasting in that your metabolism slows down and different in that you feel hungry all the time. My experience is that my appetite doesn’t go away after four days as with fasting. The lower energy makes me less productive.
Cleanses that require potions and powders, enemas and other cleansing rituals are very effective but it’s very time consuming to make all the potions, do the enemas and cleansing rituals, meditate and rest in between as suggested. I once read about a cleanse that sounded great, and I was all ready to begin. Unfortunately it required several enemas a day, cleansing baths, skin brushing and other rituals, in addition to special teas, drinks and foods. The only way I could have done it was to take time off.
Of course, the most effective cleansing occurs when you take a break from your day to day and dedicate your time to the cleansing process. I did 28 day supervised water fast once. I was at a health center and all I did was drink water, rest, walk a bit and read. It changed my life. I highly recommend that everyone take a month to cleanse sometime. It’s the best.
Unfortunately, not everyone has that opportunity, so we fit periodic cleansing into our day to day routine.
That’s why my current cleanse of choice is a green smoothie cleanse. It may not be as deep a cleanse as a water or juice fast, but it certainly has amazing results.
Every 3 months, I take a 7 day break from chewing and fats and I drink green smoothies
morning, noon and night. I have plenty of energy to work, exercise and enjoy my family. I save precious hours of food prep, chewing and cleanup. Smoothies are easy to make, quick to clean up after and take a lot less time to consume than the equivalent quantity of fresh produce would take to eat.
When you make them as I suggest, between 40 and 60% green and 40 – 60% fruit, they provide an abundance of minerals, amino acids and anti-oxidants. Leaving out the fat gives you’re a liver a break and allows it to devote more cycles to cleansing.
I lead my very first online green smoothie cleanse about 4 years ago, informally with about 25 people. It was so successful I created an official program with recipes, menu plans, shopping lists and lots of bonuses.
It’s evolved now to a full website with videos, audios, a support forum, bonuses, and daily journals and coaching questions.
I’m getting ready to lead another cleanse starting Monday, and I am so ready.
This cleanse will be a bit different for me in that I’ll be in Tucson, staying at my sister’s house. She’s done my Green Cleanse before, and she’s excited that she’ll get to do it with me in person.
We kick off on Monday evening, with a teleseminar called:
“The Art of Cleansing with Greens- Putting Your Best Food First to Get Started “
Later in the week we’ll have a teleseminar called “Gut Healing Secrets” and I’ll do some Spotlight Coaching and answer your questions.
Our last teleseminar of the cleanse is “Eating Healthy in The Real World: Tips and Tricks for Taming Emotional and Social Eating and Living in a Body You Love”
The cleanse includes full access the calls and all the materials, coaching, recipes and guidance of for a full 7 days.
For a limited time, we’re including these extra bonuses:
Early Bonus 1: Eliminate the Gluten and Accelerate Your Health – a special report containing information and inspiration packed articles, recipes and foods to avoid lists for gluten free diets.
Early Bonus 2: Balancing Your Hormones Recording - A 90 minute audio class in mp3 format containing diet and lifestyle tips for optimal weight, vibrant energy, strength, stamina, and joyful longevity.
Early Bonus 3: Balancing Your Hormones Power Point Presentation – A pdf file containing the slides that accompany the 90 minute audio class.
Early Bonus 4: Balancing Your Hormones e-book – Complete written transcripts of the entire 90 minute Balancing Your Hormones audio, as an e-book in PDF format.
Please comment below and answer these questions:
Have you ever cleansed? If so, what’s your favorite way?
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: cleansing, cleansing strategies, detoxification, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, green smoothie cleanse, loscalzo, Raw Foods, raw foods cleanse
Posted in Cleansing Programs, Green Smoothies, Raw Foods
Green Smoothie Cleanse Recipes – Low Glycemic
Our Summer 2010 Green Smoothie Cleanse is officially over, and we’re transitioning into the Post Cleanse Week. Chronic fatigue symptoms are abating, allergies are improving and the consensus is there is an overall increased sense of well-being the cleanse promotes. This week is as important as the cleanse week itself. This is wher new habits are formed and the imporvemetns made dueing the cleanse are either re-inforced or left behind. Continuing on a high raw food diet plan helps people sustain the benefits long term.
Here are a couple of delicious recipes shared by one of our Green Smoothie Cleanse Participants. They use in-season, fresh, raw and ripe produce and just the right amount of seasonings.
“Spring Garden Soup”
4 tomatoes
4 celery stalks
2 cups spring mix
2 cups romaine heart
2 limes juiced
1 garlic clove
“Spicy Garden Soup”
1 Tomato
1 English Cucumber
1/2 Zucchini
2 handfuls string beans
8 cups Spring Mix
1 garlic clove
1 ginger nub
1/4 cup lime juice
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 cups water
Blend and enjoy!
Love, Health and Joy to You,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, DrRitamarie, Gluten Free Diet, green smoothie, green smoothie. detoxification programs, Living Foods, raw and living foods holiday recipes, Raw Foods classes, vegan foods, whole foods
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Articles, Cleansing Programs, Detox Program, Fatigue Treatment, Gluten Free recipes, Raw and Living Foods
Adrenal Fatigue: Tips to Restoring Your Energy and Your Health
Do you ever wake in in the morning, even after a long night of sleep, only to feel sluggish and wishing you had another few hours to rest?
This is one of many signs of adrenal fatigue.
Adrenal fatigue is a common condition in our fast paced, stressed out society.
Your adrenal glands are your body’s mechanism for responding to stressful situations. In the olden days, this meant getting chased by a tiger or dealing with severe cold without shelter or proper clothing.
Fortunately for us, tigers and lack of clothing are not problems we deal with on a regular basis.
Unfortunately we have our own modern day tigers, and they chase some of us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Modern Day Tigers that Stress Your Adrenals
- Deadlines at work?
- Juggling kids schedules with your own?
- Worry about the economy?
- A sick parent or child?
- An unreasonable boss?
Whatever it is, the response is similar to a real tiger chasing you. Your adrenal glands step into action and do what they do best…shift you into what is often called “fight/flight mode”, and in scientific terms, “sympathetic nervous system dominance”.
In hyper vigilant adrenal state, your heart rate increases, your respiration quickens and the blood supply to your brain and vital organs decreases and is sent to your extremities…so you can run away or fight.
In addition, your digestive track activity decreases and the sphincters– the valves between sections of the digestive tract– tighten. This is to protect you from needing to use the bathroom in the middle of running away from or fighting a tiger.
Translate this into modern life. If you find yourself stressed out and worried quite a bit of the time, you increase your risk of indigestion, constipation, gas and bloating as well as heart and circulation problems due to prolonged increased heart rate.
Oh, and I forgot to mention. In fight flight mode, your sex drive goes away, too.
Doesn’t help to be having lustful thoughts when you’re trying to get away from that tiger. On a biochemical level, the same chemical molecules that make the adrenal hormone cortisol, which gets elevated under stress, are also needed to make estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, all needed for libido and reproductive function.
Another problem with cortisol is that in excess it can cause damage to your mitochondria, the energy producing mechanisms in each of your cells. Cortisol also damages your hippocampus, the part of your brain that helps with short term memory. Ever walk into a room, only to forget what you went there for? That’s likely because your hippocampus has been impeded by the cortisol you produced when you were stressed out.
Yikes! SO if this is you, what can you do to fix things?
In my over two decades of clinical practice, I’ve seem many cases of adrenal burnout and the damages caused by chronic stress.
Fortunately there are actions you can take reverse the damage and repair your adrenal glands. But if you keep getting stressed out, you’ll be a lot like a hamster on a wheel….working hard but never getting anywhere. Repairing your adrenals and transforming your response to stress take some time and retraining, and the transformations you experience when you do can be miraculous.
3 Tips for Combating Adrenal Fatigue
1- Learn stress management and stress transformation techniques. One of my favorites is called Heart Math, and uses a combination of deep breathing, focusing on your heart and feeling appreciation. It completely changed my life. I did a 90 minute stress transformation teleseminar a couple of years ago that guided the participants through the process and the response was dramatic.
2- Nourish your adrenals. Did you know that 80% of the vitamin C used in your body is used by your adrenal glands? Excessive stress depletes your vitamin C stores and can lead to allergies, poor wound healing, easy bruising and increased susceptibility for colds, flu and other infectious disease? Your adrenals also use lots of B vitamins, especially pantothenic acid and B6. That’s why a lot of B complex formulas are called Stress formulas. Eating a whole foods, high raw, high green diet will ensure you have adequate intake of nutrients to maintain your adrenals when they are brought back to normal;however, when you’re in the mode of recovery, supplementation is often needed.
3- Support your body’s detoxification systems by periodic cleansing. Face it, eating on the run, making even occasional poor food choices and being stressed out impair your liver’s ability to do it’s job of cleansing. One of my favorite ways to cleanse my body is with green smoothies. Even though I eat really healthfully, exercise on a regular basis, and do my Heart Math exercises daily, I’m not perfect. I still get stressed out sometimes, I’m exposed to toxins and I eat on the run more often than I’d like.
I personally do a Green Cleanse at least quarterly by taking a week off eating and just drinking green smoothies or juices for 7 days. I am always amazed at how much more energy I have when I do this. That’s why every 3 months, I lead a group green smoothie cleanse. I have hundreds of success stories from people who feel they got their life back after a green cleanse. This time around I’ve added a new component – daily interactive journals. The details about the cleanse, go to my Green Smoothie Cleanse Website.
If you’ve already done a green cleanse or a short cleanse and are ready to take it to the next level, I suggest you do a deep tissue detox like my Six Week Deep Tissue Detox or something similar.
Bedtime and Wake-up Rituals for Adrenal Fatigue Support
One last tip for rebuilding your adrenals – create supportive bedtime and morning rituals that re-establishes
your circadian rhythm. Here’s a starting set that I recommend to my adrenal fatigue patients:
- Shut off all electronics within an hour of bedtime.
- Eat your last meal within 3 hours of bedtime.
- Fill a 16 ounce glass with pure water and the juice of 1 lemon and put it by your bedside.
- Find 3 things to appreciate before you fall asleep.
- Find 3 things to appreciate before you get out of bed.
- Drink the water as soon as you get up.
- As soon as you get up, go outside and get 5 – 15 minutes of sun, even if the sun is not out. Face in the direction of the sun and sip your water.
Get going on these habits, cleanse regularly and master the Heart Math techniques and you’ll soon be bouncing out of
bed in the morning with vim, vigor and enthusiasm for life.
I hope to meet you soon on a green smoothie cleanse.
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, chronic fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, green smoothie. detoxification programs, Living Foods, Raw Foods, raw foods diet, raw foods recipes, Vibrant Health
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Detox Program, Green Smoothies
Green Smoothies vs Green Juice, Fruit Friend or Foe, and Other Controversial Topics
Green Smoothies have been my friend for close to 25 years now. My daily smoothie habit is a part of my life, just like brushing my teeth. When Dr. Brian Clement spoke here in Austin earlier this month, he brought up a very controversial issue…Green Smoothies vs Green Juices. He flat out said that green smoothies were “a step above soft drinks” because 90% or nutrients are lost through oxidation when the fruits and vegetables are blended.
I personally have a hard time with this. Nutrient destruction can occur as a result of damage by heat, light and air. The amount of damage is a function of severity and It is generally accepted that nutrients begin to be damages when heated above 118 degrees F. I have not found any studies that confirm this. In fact there is quite a bit of evidence that refutes this.
First of all we need to define what we mean by nutrients.
- Macronutrients: nutrients consumed in large amounts , ie protein, carbohydrates and fats.
- Micronutrients: nutrients consumed in small mounts , ie vitamins, minerals, enzymes
Not all are similarly sensitive to oxidation. Take minerals for example. You can leach them out with prolonged heat, but its hard to destroy calcium by blending. In fact, calcium becomes more available after blending because ti’s released form the cell walls, a feat ordinarily accomplished by stomach acid – which becomes deficient as we age and abuse our bodies.
The smoothie vs juice debate is a hot topic these days. Her’s an excerpt from an excellent article written by Kevin Gianni of Renegade Health. Kevin gave me permission to reprint it . Thanks Kevin. You saved me some precious time.
There are 5 important issues to address when discussing the Green Smoothie vs Green Juice debate, according to Kevin.
1. Oxidation
2. Fiber
3. Sugar Content
4. Available Nutrients
5. Ease of Making them.
Number 1: Oxidation
It’s said that high speed blenders can oxidize your nutrients so that when you drink a smoothie you won’t get the health benefit of it.
This is why you should drink juices instead.
This is false.
Victoria Boutenko did a study using potatoes in a blender and in a juicer and found that the potatoes in a blender oxidized much more SLOWLY than the potato juice.
- Fiber actually protects the smoothie from oxidizing quickly.
- Juices should be consumed right after you make them for the highest nutrient profile.
- Twin gear juicers like the Tribest are best for slowing the oxidizing process when you juice. (Sold in the Renegade Health store)
So the bottom line is this…
Smoothies oxidize slower, which means you will be able to preserve more nutrients for longer.
For oxidation, we like smoothies best.
Number 2: Fiber
Don’t we need fiber to prevent heart disease?
Why would we take the fiber out when we make a juice?
These are good questions.
First off, we do need fiber… but if we’re eating a high raw diet we’re getting plenty of fiber. Your body won’t miss the fiber from the juice.
Why take the fiber out of the juice?
For fast absorption (and maximum) of the nutrients.
A juice to me is like a power-packed supplement to your regular healthy diet.
For fiber, the smoothie has more, but the juice has a different purpose.
Number 3: Sugar Content
For sugar content, if you’re using fruits and sweet vegetables for your juices and smoothies you’re going to get sugar. Most people can deal with moderate amounts of sugar in their diet for an extended period of
time. (Higher sugar for shorter periods)
Because there is fiber in your smoothie, your body will absorb the sugar slower. This is good for your pancreas. When you juice fruit, you take away the fiber and this can cause your pancreas to struggle to regulate your blood sugar.
For this reason, I recommend smoothies with sweet fruits and veggies and juices with greens and low glycemic fruits like lemons and limes. This way you can enjoy your fruits without blood sugar spikes and enjoy a nice, clean green juice!
Just to recap, smoothies contain more fiber, don’t oxidize as fast, and allow for slower nutrient absorption.
Juices have less fiber, oxidize quicker and allow for quick absorption.
Now again, this doesn’t mean that juices are bad, they just have their place. We use them as we would a supplement. Drinking an organic vegetable juice is an opportunity to get great nutrients and minerals straight into your system.
4. Available Nutrients
When you juice a veggie, you strip away all the fiber. This makes the nutrients extremely available for your system to absorb. When you blend a veggie, you break down the fiber making the nutrients easier to absorb, but you still have a bunch of fiber that will slow absorption in your intestines.
For sugary foods this is ideal. For greens it’s good too, but not as good as a green juice. When it comes to readily available nutrients, juices take the lead.
5. Ease of Making Them
Smoothies hands down on this. Put your ingredients into a blender and turn it on. Cleaning with a blender is simple too. Rinse it out a bit, add some water and soap, then put it back on the base. Turn it on for a few seconds, then use a sponge to clean out what’s left.
Juicers are harder to clean because they have more moving parts.
To get the best of both worlds, you can use your blender to make juices.
Add your juice ingredients to the blender, add some water, and blend. When you’re done, strain everything through a nut milk bag and you have your juice ready to go.
http://www.renegadehealth.com/smoothieweek
Check out Kevin’s Smoothie Wee Specials…1/2 off Kevin’s “Smoothies for Optimal Health” book, and discounts on Kev’s Super Smoothie Powder.
For the second topic, Fruit friend or foe, we’ll continue tomorrow.
Bottom line: enjoy your smoothies and have juice too, for a powerful nutritional boost.
For a super powerful nutrition and energy boost, check out our Green Smoothie Cleanse as part of our “Drink Green Stay Lean” Coaching Program.
Love, Health and Joy to You,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: Adrenal Fatigue, Cleansing Programs, detoxification programs, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, green smoothie, Living Foods, raw and living foods holiday recipes, raw foods diet, vegan foods, Vibrant Health
Posted in Cancer Nutrition, Detox Program, Green Smoothies, Holistic Nutrition, Vibrant Health
