It all started when we first watched this movie - Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. We realized that we hadn't been juicing like we used to. We hadn't even really been paying very close attention to our diets.
Not that we were fast fooding it up, but we weren't being as conscious as we would like. Then my husbands co-workers started a group juicing thing (which he wasn't really a part of).
Then I stumbled upon Shutter Beans post about her juicing cleanse. It was ever so timely and I decided that I needed to stop all this cleanse stuff from haunting me.
Here's where I found dairy to be so mean, and how I almost made it all the way through....
I really liked the theory and practical nature of The 3 day cleanse.
It's not super preachy, and realizes that this is actual a large test of will. I found it more practical for us to just juice ourselves since we already have a juicer.
The 3-Day Cleanse really advocates eating well and limiting calories 3 days before you juice, and bring your self out of the juice by eating equally healthy and simple foods 3 days out of juicing. We were very strict on ourselves for the 3 days prior.
This is the part that I liked A LOT. The recipes are about 95% raw, and all the recipes we tried were amazing. The roasted red pepper soup is on my menu again this week. The cold soba noodle salad is making a come back as well. The dressings are easy and full of flavor so it made eating a high raw diet for 3 days a cinch.
The juicing day was ok (oh, I highly recommend Shutterbean's version of pineapple, apple mint juice. In fact I can drink this everyday for the rest of my life). We did the "excavation" plan of the diet because this wasn't our first rodeo.
Here's where we didn't follow as planned. We noticed that for the 2 of us to juice we were flying through the produce. We are on a pretty limited and very strict budget, and we didn't calculate exactly how much this juicing thing would cost. We still needed to feed the kids as well. We thought it would be better to juice for one day and save some fruit and veg for slowly coming out of the fast then to be broke and have to eat Ramen.
I don't regret cutting it short at all. I felt great. We spent about 4.5 days eating very clean and mostly raw foods, and one day of letting our insides rest. We may not excavated everything in there, but that sounded gross anyways.
Another delicious finding along this gut cleaning was my favorite and easy to make milk alternative.
The book has a recipe for cashew milk that you drink during the juicing portion of the cleanse. I really enjoyed this part and made some changes to the recipe that makes it a bit more appealing for every day use. I'm loving how rich this milk is. It's not at all gritty and I can even drink it straight with cookies (something I've yet brought myself to do with rice milk or soy milk)
Cashew Nut Milk
keeps for 5 days in the fridge
2 cups raw cashews
4 cups water for soaking
6 cups filtered water
2 1/2 Tablespoons coconut oil
1 Tablespoon honey or agave syrup
pinch of salt
In a large bowl soak the cashews in water for 4-8 hours (if you need it to be longer just change the water and leave them in the fridge). In a blender add the soaked and rinsed cashews, 6 cups water, coconut oil, honey, and salt. Blend on high speed for about 2 minutes.
Pour through a fine mesh sieve lined with cheese cloth, painters bag (they even sell nut milk making bags, but I just used a flour sack towel and it worked great). Make sure to squeeze all of the liquid out of the nut pulp.
Now all the extra nut pulp seemed a bit alarming to me. I think I'm just cheap, but it felt wrong to throw it out. Fortunately there's people out there who have already thought of things to do with this stuff. I tried this recipe for hummus and it was amazing. It tasted just like the usual hummus.
I dried it out and added to some granola. Next week I'll try adding it to some baked goods.
All in all it was a good experience and I plan on keeping at least one day a month open to mostly raw mostly juice. We'll see how that goes with the holidays, but for now I feel spic and span and ............ ready for pie.
***I was not payed or given any product for this review. I simply wanted to share my thoughts and happenings from following this plan. *****
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