Forget Juice Cleanses Eat Bagels Instead

Paleo mini bagel with wild salmon, kale and cashew cheese, seriously?

When it comes to nutrition and exercise, I am willing to try almost anything. Weird ingredients, provided they aren’t synthetic, don’t scare me. And I’m not against the somewhat-extreme experiment either. I believe in mixing things up but there are ways I prefer to “mix”.  I’ve done juice cleanses but they don’t work best for me. They’re generally more sugar than I’m used to and as Carolyn, often my partner in cleansing, says, “we like to chew”. I have enjoyed Pure Food and Wine “not justa juice cleanse” and The Squeeze’s version; I can eat like a vegan for a few days but I do feel my best with eggs and fish in my life. Enter Food Matters.

curry roasted chicken with southwestern slaw

I cook and can plan a daily menu but sometimes I need a break from thinking and cooking and eating out and cocktails and so this week it’s been all Food Matters for me.  I’ve written about Food Matters before. I call Tricia, FM founder, a nutrition magician. It’s not only that their food is gluten free and dairy free and organic but it’s creative. I find a few days of this helps me with the following:

No more nibbles

I’m pretty organized but the few nuts or olives or samples around the office find their way into my mouth. With FM I’m eating 9am, noon (when I can wait), 3pm, and then ideally dinner early thought two nights a week are later due to my office hours. I don’t look for extras.

Protein portions

I usually say most people don’t overeat on lean protein and it’s true. On client’s lists of trigger foods where nuts and chips and cheese and sweets live, wild salmon isn’t often on there. But it is for me, I cook extra protein and I’m a protein person. Resetting my brain to see a more petite portion is useful. You see, with our weight nothing is really “free”.

Drying out and Hydrating

I’ve mentioned this over the summer, I’m not someone who generally is out every night or drinking every night and I prefer it that way.  So this week has been “dry” but at the same time I am hydrating (I think in those moments I would usually open the fridge).

For more information on Food Matters, check out their website. Tell them we sent you (and they’ll be sure to keep things strict, ha).  And because everyone asked about the paleo bagels I posted, here is the recipe.

Are you a cleanse or food delivery person? What do you do when you try to tighten things up?

A great juicing resource

Are you familiar with Max Goldberg or since we're all know by our handles Living Maxwell? If you're passionate about healthy food and juicing he has a  great feature Pressed Organic Juice Directory, he’s curated juicing locations in different states, even in different countries. Max is also a great resource, I follow his tweets and posts as I find he's always manages to locate information I have yet to hear (legitmate information). 

He interviewed me for the Juice Directory. I do a lot of these Q/As and I really felt this was fun and worthy of the repost. Here’s  portion of the piece below, the rest can be found here

Why do you juice?
I’ll admit a couple ulterior motives for juicing others may not have mentioned (or admitted). I juice because it makes me feel nutritionally virtuous – getting so many nutrients into a couple of cups – and I also juice because it helps me successfully use up the farm box.
But juicing energizes me and my workouts, and helps debloat me when necessary. And I swear that any compliments I get on my skin have more to do with juice than topical products (although I love Joanna Vargas’daily serum which she refers to as “green juice for your skin”).

Tell me about your juicing lifestyle?
I was a “smoother” before I was a juicer and still alternate between green smoothies and juices. Although there are some common “players”, I feel juicing is where I’m most creative. With cooking, I’m more of a recipe girl but for juices I feel there’s really no messing up. Either the Vitamix or the juicer get action daily.

Do you have a juicing habit that no one knows about?
Ooh you mean a juice secret (or juicy secret)? Hmmm – pretty much everyone I know or e-know hears about my juices since I Instagram them constantly. If there are ingredients that I find are secret weapons, those would be coconut, fresh herbs and fresh turmeric. My best-kept juice secret, the “bikini greenie”, is in The Little Book of Thin’s pre-beach chapter (rude and annoying to mention and make readers wait, I know).

What is one of your favorite pressed organic juices?
Ooh can I name two? I adore both Jalapina from Organic Avenue and Swan Greens from One Lucky Duck.

How has your juicing evolved over the years?
My juices are less sweet and more interesting, but greens, lemon, and ginger will always be staples. Some things don’t change.

What kind of juicer do you have at home and how often do you make it?
I have a Breville. I know some purists will say this juice gets “heated” but you know what? I love it!

What are the biggest mistakes people make when juicing?
Too much fruit. We don’t need more fruit juice in our lives. I suggest 1 fruit (excluding lemon/lime) per juice.

What are your thoughts on juice cleanses?
I love juice/clean food cleanses like The Squeeze and Not Just a Juice Cleanse from Pure Food and Wine.

What are your best tips for staying healthy when traveling?Arm yourself. We have a Food First Aid Kit that we send clients away with and a Nutcase to bring Foodtraining abroad. There’s a tonic for every travel trap from the minibar to vacation-constipation. I also find seeking out juice shops is a great way to locate the healthy folks in town.
Do you seek out juice when you travel? Do you juice at home? What are your favorite ingredients? What type of juice do you have?

What's Better Juices or Smoothies?

As I sit here, at my in-laws house, after Thanksgiving #1 with my family and Thanksgiving part duex with Marc’s family I’m looking forward to Monday. It’s not what you think; we’ve had a great time. I am excited because we’re testing out a cleanse from my favorite juice truck The Squeeze. With juice on my mind, I thought about this question I received from a client.

What is the difference between smoothies (drinking the roughage) and juicing (no roughage) in terms of my diet? 
I was posed a similar question for a Refinery29 article.

For starters, smoothies are made in a blender (for me that means Vitamix) and juices in a juicer (love my Breville). My client who posed the question was correct. With smoothies the fiber from the fruits, vegetables, herbs or spices are retained. Whereas when you juice the pulp (which contains fiber) is extracted leaving just the liquid behind. Fiber has such a healthy reputation that there can be a rush to judgment that higher fiber has to be better but it’s not that simple.

Juice and I'm talking primarily veggie juice, with the bulk removed, enables quick energy. Juice doesn’t play hard to get and your body doesn't have to "unwrap" or digest in order to access the nutrients. For those of you who enjoy spinning, juicing is akin to riding with little resistance (fiber) so you can go (or get your nutrition) faster. Eating a salad or drinking a smoothie is more like riding with tension or resistance. You’ll go more slowly perhaps in a more controlled, even manner.

There’s also the issue of quantity. When I juice in the morning I cover a large cutting board with greens, ginger, lemon, pear or whatever I have on hand. You’d have to eat 9 cups of kale to get the potassium, calcium and iron in two cups of green juice. I think of a daily juice almost like a multivitamin. Smoothies, on the other hand, don’t require as much in terms of quantity. My typical smoothie is approximately 1 cup of frozen fruit, a handful of greens, protein powder and then other random ingredients (cacao, yacon, coffee extract are current favorites). I digress, the point I’m making is that there’s a fraction of the produce in a smoothie versus a juice. From a calorie perspective, green juices hover around 150 per 16oz. Smoothies made with fruit, protein, some sort of liquid (almond milk or coconut water) and a little good fat can be double but you’ll get more staying power. 

I think I answered the “what’s better?” question in the most annoying manner that is saying “it depends” but it really does. I hate to be "bi-vegetable" but there are benefits to juicing and “smoothing”. Juice is a megadose of nutrients and smoothing is better for satiety, better for post workout recovery. Most days I’ll have one of each. So if you’re in the market for a Vitamix or a juicer, I can’t sway you either way. It’s like choosing between my family and my in-laws and let’s just say diplomatically that I’m “thankful” for both.

Do you juice or "smooth"? Which do you prefer? What are your current favorite ingredients? And after a holiday weekend, how was your eating? Parents or in-laws?