I Juice? Part 2 – Suja and Whole Food Juice Reviews.

Greetings and Salutations.  I realize this post is many days behind the initial post on my second/third juicing experience.  I have no excuse.  I suck.  But, better late than never!  As I mentioned in the first part of this post, I juice? Still? Seriously? https://prettydamnuseful.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/i-juice/, I strayed from just Blueprint juices this time around.  Actually – I only had one Blueprint Juice, the Cinnamon Cashew Milk and we all know from the first time around, I find this drink to be heavenly.  This time around I mixed juices from Suja and Whole Foods to create my own custom, you don’t have a damn degree in juicing either, cleanse.  So for all you blueprinters or first time users of these products, here are my thoughts on the juices I tried from each brand.

One last note, I tried to follow the Blueprint type format So each day I drank 3 green juices, 2 fruit juices, and a nut milk.

 

The Suja Cleanse Juice Line.

Suja Juices

So, overall, the Suja juices were comparable to Blueprint juices.  The Suja juices were cheaper at whole foods, $6.99 a bottle in comparison to $8.99 a bottle and the nut milk (almond coconut) was also $6.99 in comparison to the $11.99 price tag on the Cinnamon Cashew Milk.  I’d like to make one note, the Suja juices are named by their benefit (I guess) so the cute names aren’t mine.  I actually found them annoying because I had to try to remember what’s in them and the name.  Just a nit.  Here’s brief overview of the juices I tried:

• Green Supreme – This was supposed to be the last green juice of the day.  I didn’t look that up until day 2, so I started with this juice.  Oh well.  This can be described as Salad in a bottle.  If you like the Kale Blueprint juice – you’ll like this one.  If you don’t like that one, you won’t.  It wasn’t particularly sweet and while I like green juice, my experience is most people find this one to be outright yucky.   Nina found it to be “grassy”.
• Glow – This was still salad in a bottle, not much sweeter than the Blueprint green juice and while it had some extra stuff, tasted very similarly to Green Supreme.
• FIJI – Not sure I could differentiate between this one and Glow.
• Fuel – Tastes like carrots.  If you like carrots, you’ll like this one.  If you don’t, you won’t, but as the second juice of the day, it is no PAM (Pineapple Apple Mint from Blueprint).
• Vanilla Cloud – The Suja answer to the Cinnamon Cashew Milk…. For $5 less, it passes and it is good, sweet, and filling.  It is however, not nearly as heavenly as the Cinnamon Cashew Milk.  However, don’t get me wrong, it is very very good – especially after a day of basically vegetable juices.
• Purify – I didn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole.  This kid does NOT do beets.

Whole Food Juices

Whole Foods Fresh Squeezed Juices

Whole Foods also has a line of fresh pressed juices.  While I was staring at the dwindling juice choices in the aisle, another helpful customer pointed out the Whole Foods Juices stating they were cheaper, but she wouldn’t drink them because they aren’t Organic.  I find that hard to believe.  Isn’t everything at Whole Foods Organic?  Either way, they were cheaper and available and organic or not – I do not really care.  I believe on my trip their juice bottles were in the $5.99/$6.99 range.  Also, they have cute names, but for some irrational reason they don’t irritate me as much as the Suja names.  My peeves don’t have to make sense, they are mine.   I tried two of the juices there:

• Greens with Envy: Contains: Green Kale, Curly Parsley, Baby Spinach, Broccoli, Cucumber, Bartlett Pears, Pineapples, Lemon.  This green juice was actually quite sweet to me.  I think the pineapple made the difference, but it was DEFINITELY sweeter than either the Blueprint or the Suja green juices.  It almost felt like a green juice cheat.  It was good though.  I couldn’t say much about the nutritional information because the label wasn’t detailed enough to compare to the other brands, but this is definitely the most delicious of the juices, especially for green juice haters.
• Belly Rub:  Contains: Green Cabbage, Bartlett Pears, Pineapples, Curly Parsley, Fresh Mint, Fresh Ginger.  This was the closest thing to PAM I found.  A co-worker examined the bottle and reminded me that the cabbage diet was used to and I quote “clean you right out” so I should be careful.  Between you and me, this juice gave me killer gas.  I actually had to excuse myself to the bathroom and then wait it out until empty to “unload”.  I guess cabbage can be quite brutal.  The juice was tasty, but may be best consumed when you are not likely to be in public or around people that can hear or smell for a while.

My final verdict – if you want to save a little money over Blueprint (and it’s actually cheaper at your store)  go for Suja.  It seemed to be basically same difference to me and the juices were pretty tasty.  If you REALLY hate green juice, ease into it with the Whole Foods Greens With Envy.  It’s much less Salad in a Bottle.  If you are a regular juicer, this may seem a bit on the sweet end of the spectrum for you.

In my next post – I’ll talk about my four/five-ish day experience and how it compared to the first juice cleanse I did.  I shall call this post Juice Angry.  Juice Crazy.  Juice Happy.

For more information on Suja Cleanses see: http://www.sujajuice.com/collections/juice-cleanses

For more information on Whole Foods juices see: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/service/cold-pressed-raw-juice

Vegan Food that Doesn’t Taste like my Foot…. YUMMY YUMMY!

Today is the end of day 3 of my raw Vegan detox (and yes, I have had non-raw Vegan food, I do the best I can).  My meals have been courtesy of the talented Stephanie Hall and I wanted to provide you all a review of each thing I’ve tried thus far.  The disclaimer is, I certainly have no clue how it’s made or always even what it’s made of, but I know what’s nummy (yes, I said nummy) and what’s not.

My Delicious Raw Detox Food – Part 1

1. Green Juice – YUMMY, NUMMY.  Unlike the blueprint Green Juice, this is more fruit forward (a nice wine reference).  It’s actually quite delicious.  There were 2 green juices in my meals and I enjoyed both of them.
2. Vegan Pizza – Again YUM!  It’s topped with olives and tomatoes and other great things and is AWESOME.
3. Vegan Lasagna- Seriously – not sure how you get a ricotta-ish texture with nuts and other vegan ingredients, but again, it’s awesome.
4. Kale Salad – Yum.  Kale can be a bit overpowering, ususally when I use the fresh stuff in smoothies, I have to hold my nose.  Stephanie’s kale salad is lite and delicious and filling
5. Brazilian Nut Mylk – Much like the cashew milk, I could live on this stuff.

Overall – I haven’t had anything I haven’t liked.  I also had some sort of vegan burger and it was also awesome.  This plan makes “going vegan” seem easy.  The food is delicious.  I feel great and I just feel like i’m giving my body all kinds of great things.  However, I know i’m not a quarter of the chef that Stephanie is, but the experience did cause me to order an easy Vegan recipes book on Amazon.  I won’t pretend i’m going to start sprouting my own bread…because let’s be realistic, I can barely motivate to go buy store brough bread, but i’m hoping the recipe book will give me some new ideas on salads and I would love to learn to make vegan lasagna.  I will also keep experimenting with nut milks.  I “borrowed” A’s Vitamix blender and so far, so good.  Not sure i’m ready to sacrifice the number of shoes i’d have to leave in the store to buy my own, but perhaps after a week or so, i’ll be too spoiled by perfect protein shakes to go back to my $29.99 walmart wonder.

Love those Greens! Vegan Food – Part 2

Bottom line – if you are Vegan, ever wanted to try it, or just need to clean up your body…this is the way to do.  Stephanie makes it SO EASY.  Pick up the goods, eat.  Done.  She also makes it taste great!  I’ve had some vegan stuff from the freezer aisle that tasted like a combination of cardboard and my foot.  This food, I’d order on a regular menu even with full out meaty and cheesy options, it’s just that good.  She does the raw detox program monthly.  Give it a whirl, you’ll have a brand new appreciation for how eating healthy, even vegan, which is hands down challenging, can be awesome and not feel like a sacrifice.  http://stephaniethall.com/

STAY TUNED!!! My Next Eating Healthy Adventure – Raw Solution Detox…..

Sooooo…. I’m going to admit, after doing the Blueprint cleanse, I immediately went back to my disgusting eating habits and while I was enjoying inauguration weekend, I enjoyed a number of mimosa’s, beers, and wines.

Yummy Mimosa’s….

I am also doing a Beer 1K tomorrow.  I know, I know, but it’s not like I’m going to be running.   It’s a nice leisurely walk with beer, inside.  Yes, I’m disgusting.  Anyway, I have decided that it’s time for another healthy adventure, so we’re going VEGAN for a few days courtesy the only woman I’ve ever met that can make cheesecake that is neither cheese, nor cake taste DELICIOUS (seriously, we all know I’m not health nut and I definitely sniffed it a bunch before digging in…it was  FANTASTIC), Stephanie Hall.  I have had a number of Stephanie’s meals in the past and I’m really looking forward to doing this for the next 3 days.  As always, I’m going to delight you with a review of the program and the food that I’ll be enjoying.  We start on Monday.  In the meantime, if you want any information on the detox program or Stephanie, check out the website.  If you have EVER wanted to try to do a raw detox – this is the way to go.  She does all the work, you reap all the benefits.  More to come on Sunday!!!  Wahoo!

http://stephaniethall.com/events/the-raw-solution-detox-program/