DAY 29...Green Juice

Just in case you didn't know, green juice is the elixir of life. Seriously, I am not kidding. In fact after only being raw for almost two weeks (hey, I'm one day away, I think I can say 'ALMOST two weeks), if you cut me now my veins would run green not red.

Okay, well maybe that's not exactly 100% true, but they would run greener than they did almost two weeks ago.

You see green juice has many, many, many beneficial properties and I'm not going to go into all of them here for fear of boring you to tears. But, I will tell you this:

Green juice helps your body move from an acid state to a more alkaline state.

You would never eat the sheer quantity of greens in a day that you can put in a juice.

Greens have chlorophyll, we need chlorophyll. It oxygenates our bodies allowing us to release more carbon dioxide, toxins and stress (and lets face it, who can't do with some help releasing stress?).

Green juice gives us the trace minerals our bodies need.

If your system is a little out of whack, green juice helps you to absorb the nutrients from the greens without having to struggle so much.

So I think those are pretty good reasons to drink green juice. Oh, and everywhere I've used juice, you can substitute 'smoothie', there is much debate over whether juicing or smoothying (is that a word?) is better, but quite frankly, I don't care. If you come from a SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating any greening will be better than none.

Well, that's the science. But let me tell you my reasons for drinking green juice:

I've just got a new juicer - it cost a fortune - that's super incentive to drink juice.

There is no way I can eat kale every day, or a bunch of parsley, or a whole head of celery. While I like all of those in moderation, the quantities I need to help my health improve a little quicker are easier to acquire through juice. Let's face it, I decided to go raw, I have not yet decided to become a rabbit.

I refuse to gnaw on wheat grass for an entire afternoon!

I'm not so keen on apples - I know, strange - but I have a tumultuous relationship with apples, we have our ups and our downs and go for long periods of time not speaking to each other or returning each others phone calls. Nevertheless I know that an apple a day keeps the doctor away and most green juices require at least one apple to make them palatable. This way we can interact without speaking.

When I am hungry, but shouldn't really have another meal and can't bare the thought of yet another drink of water, I have a green juice. This way I kill several birds with one stone.

I like the green taste - yes, there is taste of green, I know it's weird - and it makes me feel super healthy. I always run to the mirror after a green juice, because it makes me feel like I instantly lost 10 pounds.

Now for some tips:

All of these are great ingredients for green juice - celery, parsley, kale, cucumber, spinach, romaine lettuce and butternut squash. (Okay, I only threw the squash in there to see if you were paying attention).

However, they are not so great on their own, so you should add some, one or all of the next ingredients: apple, banana, ginger (just a hint, don't be like me and throw the whole root in, more here is NOT better), carrot, dash of lemon juice, water.

But remember it's not really a green juice and it's not really that beneficial if you are using 10 apples to every 4 leaves of kale! Then you are cheating and we will know. You have to make the bulk of it green veggie and then just add a dash of the others to sweeten and lighten it and make it yummy.

Okay, so some of you will never find green juice yummy, but go ahead, give it a try, it doesn't bite back and it can do you the world of good.