How to Choose Between Smoothies vs. Juicing (& Recipes!)

Smoothies vs. Juicing: WHY and HOW?

     There is a ton of talk about smoothies and plenty more talk about juicing.  What are the benefits of each food preparation?  They truly do differ in the value they have for our health and both are very beneficial in their own way.  

Smoothies

     Smoothies are useful in that the ingredients are broken down by the blender in to easily digestible particles.  The blender does for us what our teeth can't really do. If you think about it, chewing greens in to a liquid form in the mouth takes a lot of time and one can't possibly get as many greens in one bowl as can fit inside of a smoothie. Therefore, it's easier to get more packed-in nutrients by drinking a home-blended smoothie.  The blender also breaks down ingredients so that our body can more readily digest and absorb the nutrients. The most important thing to remember with a smoothie is that you still need to "chew" it.  The amylase in our saliva begins to break down our food as a prequel for our stomach.  Swish the smoothie around in your mouth before swallowing and let your saliva do it's work and enjoy the benefits if a nutrient-dense meal.  Smoothies are great because you can also add in power-foods and herbs like bee pollen, raw Cacao, Goji berries and herbal powders like Ashwaganda, Astragalus, and Maca.   Grab a good blender and go crazy! 

Juicing

     Juicing definitely comes across as somewhat of a fad sometimes, but it's for a good reason.  Extracting the fresh juice from produce is beneficial in more ways than one.  By removing all of the fibrous meat of produce, you are left with just the juice which is full of enzymes, minerals, and vitamins.  Drinking this juice within 40 minutes of pressing causes the nutrients to be 99% available to the body!  When the nutrients are consumed with the fiber of the produce, they are less available (especially for those who do not chew their food well).  In two glasses of juice there may be nine or ten pieces of produce! It would be very, very difficult to eat that amount of fruits and vegetables in one sitting.   By extracting the juice, you can reap the benefits of higher levels of minerals, vitamins, and enzymes.  You can safely juice 3-7 times a week as part of your diet plan. Don't forget that it is highly important that all produce juiced is organic!  You don't want the pesticides from conventionally grown produce to contaminate your juice.  

      Juice fasts are useful for giving the over-taxed digestive system a break.  During a juice fast, one must consume only fresh pressed juice and water for 3-10 days.  You can even do it for just one day to give your digestive system a break. Don't over-do juicing, though.  The digestive system can be weakened if it never has to process the fiber from produce.  So, keep your juicing at a healthy balance and enjoy the benefits of highly bio-available nutrients.

    Just some extra notes on juicing: juice from the store is purely sugar water.  It's been heat treated, processed, and has sat on the shelf for who-knows-how-long. In order to properly juice, one must purchase their own juicer (or source from a fresh-pressed juice bar) and drink the juice within 40 minutes of pressing to get the full benefits.  Within one quart of juice, you only want to have pressed one or two pieces of fruit, like an apple or pear. Any more then that is too high in sugar and causes inflammation in the body or an over-taxed liver (though freshly-pressed fruit juice is a better option for the body than sugar!).   But, ideally you want to press mostly vegetables and then have just one piece of fruit to sweeten the mix.  Add in ginger, lemon, or parsley for extra zing and cleansing benefits!  

Recipes!

  Hopefully this information has been useful!  Here is a great green smoothie recipe that I make myself all of the time.  Play around with it and find out what you like best!  At the end I have also added in a juice recipe.  Modify it to your liking, as well!  Enjoy! 

Green Smoothie (Fool Proof)

Feeds 2-3

All Organic Ingredients:

2 cups kale

2 cups spinach

2 cups almond milk (half water, if desired)

1-2 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil

1-2 tbsp cacao nibs

2 bananas

1 ½ cup frozen strawberries

1 ½ cup mango frozen

Instructions: Blend everything together in blender until homogeneous.  

Additional Info: You can substitute the banana with avocado.  Make sure to include one of either ingredient in every smoothie, because they are what make it creamy and suspend all the other ingredients.

Rotate out different greens at least every week.  Use spinach, collard greens, dark lettuces, swiss chard, and turnip greens.  Mustard greens and kale are bitter and very beneficial, but you will want to pair them with a sweeter green like spinach or swiss chard.  

Refreshing Juice Blend for Summer Heat 

Makes one glass full

Juice (organic produce):
3 cucumbers
1 apple
1 celery stalk
1 cup fresh pineapple
1 small thumb ginger

Add:
1/2 cup coconut water (not from concentrate)
1-3 Tbsp chia seeds

Instructions:
Gel chia seeds by mixing and letting sit in coconut water for 3-4 hours in refrigerator. Juice ingredients fresh from the fridge and add together with coconut water.  Enjoy!

Begin to Heal Your Digestive System (We All Need It!)

By Lexi Johnson, Clinical Herbalist
Do you experience any of the following uncomfortable symptoms such as bloating, stomach or intestinal pains, gas out both ends, constipation, diarrhea, food sensitivities, low immune system function, acid reflux, or ulcers?  The list of GI tract imbalances doesn't end there, but all of these symptoms may be due to a compromised digestive system!  Learn how to treat yours and your family's digestive tracts through the power of nutrient dense foods and herbal medicine.  Balance and optimal function can be achieved with life-giving diet and herbal treatments that are easy to do in your own home.

We Are Like a Doughnut

The digestive system is the seat of all health. Every cell, tissue, organ, and body system rely on what nutrients are put in to the body and, more importantly, what the body is able to absorb and utilize.  Maximum absorption of quality nutrients is key for health and longevity. We are, in essence, like a doughnut. food enters our mouths, travels down the trachea in to the stomach which empties in to the small intestines, moves on to the large intestine (colon) and out the anus.  Along the tissue lining of our whole doughnut digestive tract are billions of bacterias that symbiotically give the body life... literally.  Without tons and tons of healthy bacteria, humans cannot absorb nutrients from food, thus surviving and thriving for a lifetime. Our bodies need vast diversity of strains of bacterias as much as we need billions of them living in us.  So many factors of American's diet and environment greatly compromise gut bacteria and it has become a major problem in today's world.  Our digestive tract tissues are not only meant to be covered in bacteria, but are also meant to be toned, tot, and strong.  The digestive tract tissues are the barrier between undigested food molecules and digested food molecules.  Healthy tissues are crucial in digestive health, and most of America's people suffer from digestive damage and malfunction. Digestive secretions such as amylase in the mouth and hydrochloric acid in the stomach are what break down foods in order for them to be properly absorbed.  This, like all other digestive issues, can be healed and brought back to balance!   Most ailments, conditions, and diseases begin with digestive malfunction and mal-absorption through compromised gut bacteria, tissue health, and low digestive secretions.  By healing the digestive tract, conditions and diseases may be reversed and prevented for a life time of strong physical, mental, and emotional health

Bacteria Makes Up 90% of the Body?

It's true! the adult human body contains about 1,000,000,000,000,000 cells.  Only 10% of these make up our body and the remaining 90% are bacteria living mostly in large intestines!   This magnifies how crucial gut bacteria is to our health.   It is sad to report that most Americans gut bacteria is compromised beginning in the womb, and is threatened and mistreated throughout their entire lives.  A few reasons for compromised gut bacteria are use of antibiotic drugs (even once does lasting damage), constant small doses of antibiotics in the water supply, gross amounts of antibiotics in all conventional (non-organic) meats and dairy products, and a diet consisting of foods found in a box, bag, restaurant or can.   These examples alone bring pretty much every American in to the category of having compromised gut bacteria.
Though circumstances may feel bleak, there are life giving probiotic foods and probiotic supplements for which healthy gut bacteria may be found and consumed every day in order to restore the digestive system back to health!   Fermented foods, for one, are used in every culture (except for America) as a daily form of probiotics. This includes kimchi, miso soup (made organic ONLY), fermented vegetables (so easy to prepare!), homemade sauerkraut, home-cultured yogurts, and tempeh (organic only).  To bring the health of probiotics to one's family, make it a habit of preparing fermented vegetables, homemade kimchi, and so forth to be eaten as a daily staple in the household diet.  These recipes and techniques are easy to find online. Make sure to use organic, raw vegetables.   It takes time to prepare fermented foods, but brings lifelong health for the whole family, saving in medical bills and time spent being sick.  As an extra note, organic miso soup paste can be found at a local Whole Foods (no affiliation).  Miso soup is delicious with added mushrooms, scallions, sea salt, and some chili powder.
Supplemental probiotics are recommended by most herbalists and holistic nutritionists as a recovery treatment from the use of antibiotics as well as a maintenance of healthy gut bacteria.  Health food stores carry probiotics, but nothing beats medical grade cultures.  You can ask your doctor for a prescription for probiotics and they may be covered by your insurance.  A good brand that offer 115- 225 billion cultures and above is VSL#3.  You can ask your doctor what they know about probiotics (some doctors know, some don't) and get their opinion, but after reading this introduction to bacteria in the gut, you may know more than they do!  Regardless, VSL#3 Probiotics is an herbalist recommended prescription.
Don't forget the most important part about feeding and cultivating healthy and diverse gut bacterias in the digestive system. The most important thing is to eat a diet consisting purely of foods from the earth. For those who have a hard time passing up dessert, a little processed food once a week won't kill anyone too quickly, but turning one's focus to a diet that is made up of foods found in their truest form and as closest to the earth as possible is crucially important.  This includes drinking half one's body weight in fluid ounces of water each day.  Eat a diet where the staples are green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds.  Partake of whole food vegetables each day, and for every meal.  Eat fruits of great varieties and color and eat grains (excluding wheat and un-fermented soy) in their whole, organic form.  Eat lots of healthy fats such as expeller pressed coconut oil, grass-fed butter, extra-virgin expeller-pressed olive oil, avocados, and so forth.  Try to eat a diet that consists of at least 51% raw foods every day.  If you do eat meat, consume only grass-fed, free-range, and organic meats at a low consumption rate.  If you need help, always feel free to email me about diet and nutrition or set up a consultation with me to help guide you on your quest for cooking and preparing whole food meals each day. 

Digestive Tissues and Poop

We herbalists freely talk about poop.  If the word is uncomfortable to you, you may replace it with "elimination", but remember that it is one of the most important bodily functions to examine!  Yes, examine your eliminations, because they will tell alot about the health of your digestion.  Digestive tissues must be healthy, strong, and whole. Know what you are looking for.  It is normal and imperative to eliminate one to two times per day.  Healthy bowel movements include a solid mass that is neither too runny, nor too hard. It shouldn't be sticky or in balls.  The epitome of a healthy bowel movement is the length of one's forearm and the shape of a banana. It should neither be too fat, nor too skinny.   If you find that you are eating foods and seeing them eliminated more than 24 hours later, you may have too slow of a transit time.
Another aspect of digestive health is the health of the cells of tissue walls.  Many people suffer from gut perforation on small levels.  What this means is that the tissue of the digestive tract develops small holes in which large, undigested food molecules may enter in.  Gut perforation causes many issues and the largest attack is on the immune system.  This is why people have obscure food sensitivities to seemingly random foods such as blueberries, vanilla, or lettuce.  These small gut perforations can be attributed by genetically modified foods (GMO's) such as conventional corn, soy, dairy, meat, and sugar beet products. Holes in digestive tissue are also attributed to acetaminophen (Tylenol) usage. It is more common than one would think, because inflammation caused by an average American diet can attribute to gut leakage.
Because of the American diet and high-stress lifestyle of our culture, inflammation is rampant.  Inflammation comes in the form of an over-stimulated, over-active, up-in-arms immune system, in which immune cells are constantly in battle with foreign molecules broken down from foods such as white wheat, white sugar, and anything that is processed.  Inflammation also comes in the form of stomach irritation, where the tissues are constantly hot and inflamed.  Inflammation shows on the skin for many people in the forms if itchy, red skin, acne, uneven skin, rashes, and eczema.  The condition of inflammation causes lowered immunity to sickness and diseases, resulting in a seemingly endless experience of colds, flues, and bacterial infections one after the other.   How amazing is it that all of this inflammation can be healed by starting with the digestive system? 
  Healing digestive tissue and reducing inflammation takes time and consistent treatment.  As an herbalist, I work with clients to change their diet and formulate herbal medicines to help bring them to a state of balance and health.  Some things you can do to start lowering inflammation is to convert your diet to a whole foods, nutrient dense diet as described previously.  This includes staying far away from sweets, white flour products, bad fats, and processed foods.   Eat a diet high in fiber from vegetables and full of leafy greens, avocados, gelled chia seeds, fermented foods, sprouted or soaked whole grains, nuts and seeds.   Steer clear from dairy, as it causes more inflammation.  Live a stress-reduced lifestyle. Take up meditation, anger management, spiritual studies, yoga, or relax your schedule and allow for de-stressing. 
After changing the diet to heal the digestive tract tissue, herbs are still very necessary for truly healing the tissues. Herbs are synergistic medicine that will help one heal faster, gently, and wholly.  I use formulas in the forms of teas and tinctures that I formulate specifically for each client.  One tissue healing herb is the wonderful Slippery Elm (Ulmus rubra). Slippery Elm coats the digestive tract with mucilage that heals and nourishes the tissues, restoring them back to health. Slippery Elm bark needs to be steeped at room temperature for a long period of time to extract the healing mucilage.  I usually add it to tea blends and make a strong herbal infusion, steeping 1/4 up herb for every 4 cups boiled water, for at least 5 hours.  A tea blend like this should be drunk 1 cup 2-3 times per day on an empty stomach.  Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is another herb I use for specific anti-inflammatory indications.   This herb tightens and tones the tissues, strengthening them and relieving inflammation.  I prepare it in a tea blend with the same instructions as above.  A few other herbs I will mention here are Plantain (Plantago major) leaf, which is used to heal inflamed and irritated GI tract issues and relieve gastric bleeding and Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) which heals inflamed gastric and intestinal mucosa, is an anti-inflammatory, and inhibits H. pylori which is the cause of most gastric ulcers.  These are a few of the tissue healing herbs that can be used in a tea blend for healing the gut lining and taking you one step further to a healed and balanced digestive system.

Saliva, HCL, Bile, and The Works!

Our bodies must be able to properly break down foods in order to fully digest and maximize absorption.  This process is key to health, because nutrients feed every cell in the body, therefore they must be absorbed from the digestive tract.  As food moves through our doughnut hole, it must be broken down so that the body can take in the nutrients and use them to give us life.  Imagine yourself biting in to your dinner, chewing it a few times while you load up your fork with the next bite, swallowing, and biting down on the next fork full. The food leaves your mouth, with chunks still not fully chewed and fills your stomach burdening it with the difficulty of breaking down un-chewed food, then dumping it in to your intestines never to be fully absorbed and only to be released out the other end almost in the same form as when it went in via your fork.   The amylase in our saliva begins the necessary break down of foods.  Let your food be properly broken down to a liquid in your mouth by chewing, and chewing, and chewing, and chewing.  Chew just one bite as many times as it takes to turn it in to a liquid. This could be thirty, forty, or even fifty five times!    As you begin the process of the break down of food inside of your mouth, your body will have access to much more of the nutrients found in the food.  The stomach acid will have greater ease breaking it down and it will be made available for absorption as it moves through the intestines. 
 Have you ever gotten something bitter in your mouth and instantly was repulsed?  If you answered yes, it is no surprise, because the taste of bitter has been almost completely removed from the American food culture.  Americans have focused on the tastes of sweet and salty for so long, that all of the other important tastes have been forgotten, bitter being one of them.  I love the traditional East Indian diet, where the culture as a whole has always provided a bitter gourde or bitter greens chutney before each meal.  This is both wise and healthful, because bitters stimulate digestive secretions.   You may ask, "what foods are bitter tasting?" for it is not the category of which lemons fall under. Bitter foods include arugula, kale, dandelion greens, and bitter gourde to name a few.  These (and more!) bitters stimulate the production of saliva, stomach acid, and bile from the liver.  As you chew and swallow, food will be broken down and absorbed properly, giving your body the benefit of higher nutrient availability.  This will bring health and vibrancy to your cells, tissues, organs and body.
It is estimated that more than half of the American population suffers from low stomach acid production. This is caused by diets, stress, and poor eating habits.  The stomach is the seat of fire, where highly acidic hydrochloric acid is needed to break down food with vivacious ferocity.  You know you have low stomach acid if you experience stomach pain with a sense of burning, excessive gas, belching abdominal bloating, and a heavily coated white tongue. People with low stomach acid can experience the feeling of slow digestion where food seems to sit for a long time in the stomach and intestines.  These people may experience constipation or diarrhea.  People often mistake this for high stomach acid and try to suppress it with antacids, which makes matters worse.  If one has too much stomach acid (which is less common) stomach pain with burning sensation will be experienced, but rarely gas, belching, or diarrhea.  People with too much stomach acid will possibly see red, receding gums, stomatitis, and sometimes a pointed tongue.  My favorite, and one of the best herbs for stimulating stomach acid is Orange Peel.  This herb should be made in to a tea and drunk before every meal or at least twice a day on an empty stomach.  It stimulates the fire within the stomach to properly break down foods. Doing this makes a huge difference! You can harvest your own orange peels from organically grown oranges. Just remove the peels, chop them up in to small pieces, lay out to dry, and store them in an air tight container for up to 6 months. In addition to Orange Peel tea, bitters should be eaten every day in order to stimulate the fire of digestive fluids.
As a side note regarding digestive secretions, the liver should always be tended to. I love my liver and it loves me right back!  I work with people who often times have compromised liver function.  This means that their liver may be having trouble emulsifying fats, breaking down hormones, and doing it's other important functions of the body.  If one experiences a lot of abdominal bloating, stagnation in the digestive process, low energy and sluggishness, or has eaten a diet filled with processed foods from a bag, box, restaurant or any other forms for a long period of time probably has a bogged down and compromised liver.  Eating bitter foods will help to clear the liver, but herbs are very much needed in situations like this.  I usually formulate a bitters tincture for my clients to clear their liver and assist it in it's function of emulsifying fats and converting hormones.  Angelica root (Angelica archangelica) is a warming bitter that enhances digestion, relieves gas and nausea, and enhances absorption.  Tumeric (Curcuma longa) is a warming bitter that relieves gas and protects the liver as well as the GI tract.  I also like to use cooling bitters in balance with warming bitters for my formulas such as Artichoke (Cynara scolymus) and Gentian (Gentiana lutea), both of which stimulate amylase, HCL, and clear the liver.   By doing so, they improve digestive function, absorption of nutrients, and liver efficiency.  All of these things will work together for the good of your digestive system and over-all health.

Boy, Does It Feel Good

It feels good to properly digest and eliminate food! Relieving inflammation is like a sustainable breath of fresh air that bestows calmness, balance, and peace to the body.  The digestive system is the seat of all health and maximum absorption of quality nutrients is a key to health and longevity. Visualize your doughnut- like digestive system filled with friendly bacteria, strong tissue, digestive fire!  This visualization will become a reality by healing the digestive tract through enhanced gut bacteria, tissue restoration, and stimulated digestive secretions.  Save you and your family money and stress through lowered health bills and sick days.  Feel the freedom of a fully functioning digestive system and reap the benefits of health by reversing your negative health conditions and preventing sickness and disease from taking over your life!   Through the power of a nutrient dense diet and healing herbs, you will be on your way to the reality of balanced digestion. After all, it is the seat of health!