Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (31 page)

If you really want to get
into the sparkle zone, you gotta get gaga for liquid nutrition! Organic green juice is like red lipstick; don’t leave home without it. Juice is the muse and the medicine. Juice is also one of the bestkept beauty secrets around. Whether you’re a Maybelline-wearing drugstore cowgirl or a Christian Dior debutante, you’re wasting your money if you don’t get with the Green Goddess. And it gets better, girls: Juicing helps to slow and even reverse the aging process. It reduces inflammation, cleanses the body, regulates the bowels, and can even help peel off extra pounds.

As my mentor, the 900-year-old Jedi Master Yoda, says, “May the Force be with you.” Well, in this wet and juicy chapter you’ll learn how to channel the Force through the power of juicing, blending smoothies, fasting, and hydration. By blessing your God pod with liquid love, you send a profound message to your cells: I got your back, and I adore you!

For some, the idea of drinking
emerald-green liquid first thing in the morning is glorious. Cheers! To others, green juice, also known as “swamp in a glass,” is totally barf-a-delic; you’d rather juice a bag of Cheetos or a fluffernutter sandwich than drink that shit. I’ve definitely been in your high heels. Drop the drama. It won’t kill you. In fact, it will save you, so ease up, Grande Dame. Just because it’s green doesn’t mean it’s gross—many veggies are actually quite sweet. The cleaner you get, the more your taste buds will change. Those little suckers literally come back to life. What once seemed nasty will become your deepest, most primal craving. Green blood rules!

Guzzling green goodness balances your pH and gives you a direct shot of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, protein, and oxygen. The trillions of cells in your glorious body are constantly being replaced—by the time seven years have passed, just about every cell in your body is new. Juicing helps you rebuild using the best raw materials on the planet. By removing the plant fiber during the juicing process, we instantly lighten the load on our digestion.

Within minutes of downing your green juice shot, your body receives a blast of optimum fuel that nourishes your cells and helps restore your immune system. I drink 16 to 32 ounces of fresh, organic green juice every day and wowza, is my body grateful. Think about how many cucumbers, kale leaves, and celery stalks it takes to make 16 to 32 ounces of juice—a lot! It would be nearly impossible to eat that much in one sitting, but with juice, you get the nutrients without stuffing yourself.

But wait, no fiber? Won’t my blood sugar go wild? There’s a common concern that juicing will cause your blood sugar to spike, since you’re taking in sugar rapidly and without fiber to slow the process. My response is that with green juice the spike is minimal in comparison with fruit juice and juices that are heavy on carrot, beets, or apples. There will be a slight raise in blood sugar, of course, but nothing to worry about too much. Also, as you recall the GI rating of veggies is zero, so it really depends on what else you include.

By the way, it’s best to drink your juice on an empty stomach. Mixing liquids with solids slows down the digestive process. It’s better to have your juice and wait about thirty to forty-five minutes before eating solid food.

Cucumbers make a dazzling base for juicing. They’re a terrific source of vitamin C and are highly alkalizing and cleansing. These water-filled wonders have a mildly sweet, kind flavor that’s easy on the tummy. If you get nauseous or your belly is sensitive to stronger greens or veggies, beginning your juicing journey with a cukes-only cocktail is a nice way to ease in. Push one or two through your juicer and voilà—you’ve got a powerful healing elixir! Organic cucumbers can be juiced with the skins. The conventional kinds need to be peeled first,
por favor
, as they are covered with food-grade wax and pesticide residue.

When you’re ready to kick it up a notch, add a few stalks of savory celery, a great source of minerals (especially potassium) and B vitamins. Please use only organic celery, as the conventional kind is loaded with icky sticky pesticides. (I’ll discuss organic veggies in more detail in
chapter 8
.) Once you’ve come to love this classic combo, start adding big leafy greens and other veggies, one at a time. That way you’ll go from a SAD slump to GLAD cartwheels without too much gastric grief. I love sweet-tasting miracle workers like romaine lettuce, pea sprouts, and broccoli stems. Build up to stronger-tasting, more medicinal plants like kale, chard, fennel, watercress, dandelion, cabbage, beet greens, cilantro, spinach, garlic, parsley, and ginger (but not all at once!).

A helpful word of warning about ginger, garlic, and parsley: A little goes a long way, warrior princess! These highly charged veggie shamans make magic, but have extremely strong flavors when juiced. A couple of tablespoons of freshly chopped parsley leaves, half a clove of garlic, or a piece of ginger half the size of your thumb is all you need at first. More than that will blow your head off (just kidding—sorta).

For added sweetness, add carrot, beet, red or orange bell pepper, or low-glycemic fruit such as a small apple or pear to your recipes. Exact amounts vary depending on your serving size. A good rule of thumb is a 3:1 ratio: three veggies to one piece of fruit. Use this ratio when juicing carrots and beets as well, as they have a fair amount of sugar. (FYI: Beets may turn your poop a little reddish. Don’t worry, there’s no need to haul your ass to the emergency room.) Another popular juice gem is a little peeled lemon or other citrus, which cuts the bitterness of harsh greens for those aforementioned Grande Dames having a hard time.

So what about all the fiber that’s left over in the pulp? Isn’t it good for me? Yes, juicing does remove fiber, but it doesn’t mean you won’t get it elsewhere. If you’re following my other recommendations, you are definitely consuming more than enough through all the whole or gluten-free grains, salads, steamed and sautéed veggies, beans, and other intestinal brooms.

Speaking of leftover pulp, it can feel wasteful to dump all those ground-up goodies into the garbage. But there are several things you can do to extract the most value from your veggies. First, try passing the pulp through the juicer a second time. Just remove the catch basket, dump the pulp into a bowl, grab it by the sloppy handful, and shove it back down the chute.

A $4 widemouthed canning funnel is a great way to make this process far less messy. Even with the best juicers, don’t be surprised when a second pass squeezes that extra half a glass. That adds up to a lot of pennies over time, especially if you’re buying organic. I don’t bother with a third pass because at that point you’re left with mostly dry fiber. Fresh pulp can also be used in various recipes, including soup stock, raw crackers, raw nut pâté, quick breads, and veggie patties. And finally, if you’re able to compost, nothing makes sexier soil than veggie juice pulp—your garden will have an orgasm.

Here’s a question I get asked a lot: Can’t I just skip the whole juicing escapade, buy a bottle of the stuff, and call it a day? No, you can’t, lazy bones. Prepackaged store-bought juices have little to no benefit—their nutrients are almost nil. Pasteurized juices may have a longer shelf life, but because they’ve been cooked at over 145 degrees they lack life force, aka enzymes. Remember, too, that many bottled juices are loaded with sugar, artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. That’s a recipe for an acid bath and a candida disco, if you ask me.

Whenever you start something new, it can be overwhelming. Let yourself be inspired by this juicy world of juicing. Channel your inner artist and get creative with your mixtures. Experiment with lots of combinations till you find the yummy groove that makes your taste buds sing like a bird. You can’t make a mistake and you have nothing to lose—except weight, disease, and suffering.

Choosing a juicer
is like choosing a mate—it has to work with your lifestyle for the long haul. Lame juicers (and lovers) mean no foreplay, no blindfolds, and no juice.

There’s a wide price range of juicers to choose from, but quality is sometimes the trade-off. The cheapest ones are often designed poorly, which means more juice ends up on you than in you. Their weak motors struggle with denser foods, like carrots, and don’t yield much juice from leafy greens. At the other end of the spectrum are the pro machines. They can be overkill—as big and powerful as a truck, but costing more than a Gucci blouse! Personally, I’ll take the blouse. Is there a happy medium? Yes—read on.