Tag: green juice

Natural Tonic for Improved Mental Health

This brain-boosting tonic with adaptogenic herbs will aid in improving your overall mental health by balancing your neurotransmitters to keep you happy, stress-free, focused, and energized.

Mental Health Natural Tonic Ingredient Breakdown

Lemon

Citrus fruits are high in vitamins, and a healthy dose of vitamin C can fight infection, reduce kidney stones, relieve indigestion, decrease headache pain, and help detoxify the body.

Cucumber

Cucumbers help maintain water balance in the body.

Fresh Turmeric Root

Turmeric is known to improve mood and feelings of depression.

Fresh Ginger Root

Ginger fights inflammation and is great for healing and protecting the gut.

Beets

Beets support heart health and liver function by helping our bodies maintain healthy blood sugar levels. While the antioxidant power of beets improves nerve function.

Pears

Pears are a low-sugar fruit. They are excellent for anxiety as they soothe the nervous system with vitamin C, which triggers the production of norepinephrine and serotonin, the happy neurotransmitters. They are also a great source of potassium, an essential electrolyte for the proper function of nerves, muscles, joints, and the heart.

Adaptogens

During cold and flu season, the addition of adaptogens like goldenseal and elderberry extract have both been shown to support a health immune system and are available as herbal tinctures (liqud form) that you can easily add to your tonic just before drinking it. To help alleviate stress, add ashwagandha and astralagus, which are both adaptogens known for their calming effects on our bodies.

Mental Health Natural Tonic

Ingredients

  • One whole lemon with peel cut off
  • One whole cucumber with peel
  • One 2-inch root of ginger (if you’re not a fan of ginger, cut this amount in half)
  • Two 3- to 4-inch roots of turmeric
  • One whole pear
  • One yellow or red beet

adaptogens such as

  • extract of ashwagandha
  • extract of astragalus
  • extract of goldenseal
  • extract of elderberry

Directions

  1. Place all ingredients in a juicer, and add extracts of ashwaghandha and astragalus (for further adaptogenic support) or goldenseal and elderberry during flu season.
  2. Serve immediately.
5 Simple Juicing Recipes to Restart Your System

5 Simple Juicing Recipes to Restart Your System

Every year after Thanksgiving, I regret the amount of overeating and drinking that I did. It’s a vicious cycle. Thanksgiving comes and goes and I’m left feeling sick and sorry for myself because my jeans don’t fit. The upside of this terrible cycle is that it impels me to do a juice cleanse (something that I lack the discipline to do unless absolutely necessary). We’ve all heard how amazing juice cleanses can be. They recharge your immune system, they’re great for your skin, hair, and nails, and they deliver all the necessary nutrients to fuel your body.

Image: blueprint.com
Image: blueprint.com

A few years back, I heard about the Blueprint Juice Cleanse and I was sold. You know Blueprint, right? They’re those simple, organic juices that you see at Whole Foods with all the ingredients listed on the label. I wanted to give that juice cleanse a go until I saw the price. A quick visit to their website and you’ll see what I mean. The 1-day Renovation Cleanse (6 bottles of juice) is $65! That’s almost $11/bottle. I couldn’t justify spending that much on convenience and packaging, so I decided to make my own. The amount of juice that you can yield at home with a handful of veggies shows how insane that price really is.

juice-cleanse

Anyway, I always keep these recipes on hand so that I can quickly make these juices at home when my body is craving a fresh start. You certainly don’t have to jump into an all out fasting/cleanse, but adding any one of these juices to your daily routine will have you looking and feeling like a million bucks. These recipes are for the juices contained in Blueprint’s Renovation Cleanse. The cleanse itself calls for these five juices + a repeat of the green juice recipe. Each recipe that follows yields about 16oz of juice.

Green Juice

ingredients

  • 5 ribs of celery
  • 1 cucumber, halved
  • 2 large green apples
  • 3 kale leaves
  • 1oz lemon juice
  • 1 handful of parsley
  • 3 romaine leaves
  • 1 handful of spinach

Directions

  • Juice the ingredients and add a tiny bit of water to help things along (not so much that it changes the consistency)
  • Strain the juice through a sieve to remove excess pulp

Pineapple, Apple, Mint

ingredients

  • a third of one pineapple
  • 2 large green apples
  • a few pinches of mint

directions

  • juice the pineapple and apple together
  • add mint one pinch at a time to taste (mint can be strong, so be careful not to add so much that it overpowers the flavor of your fruit)

 Spicy Lemonade

Ingredients

  • 14oz of filtered water
  • 3-4 lemons
  • a few dashes of cayenne pepper
  • 1tbsp agave nectar

Directions

  • mix the filtered water with the juice from your lemons
  • stir in the cayenne pepper
  • you can substitute the agave nectar with raw honey

ABC Like 1-2-3 (Apple, Beet, Carrot)

ingredients

  • 1 green apple
  • 2 beets (greens and all)
  • 3 large carrots
  • 3-4tsp ginger
  • 1/2oz of lemon juice

Directions

  • juice all ingredients together

Homemade Cashew Milk Blend

Ingredients

  • 4-5oz raw cashews
  • 16oz filtered water
  • 1tbsp agave nectar
  • 1tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1tsp vanilla extract

Directions

  • soak cashews in cold water for at least 8 hours (preferably overnight)
  • drain and rinse cashews until the rinsing water runs clear
  • blend softened cashews with your filtered water, agave nectar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract

You should definitely give this juice cleanse a try. Full disclosure: I’ve only been alternating between the Green Juice and the ABC juice this time around, but I feel so much better than I did a few days ago, that I might stop being lazy and start making the other juices again too!