Juicy Juice

One of my New Years Resolutions was to watch a documentary a month.  I just want to know stuff.  And there are so many good documentaries out there, but I have a hard time choosing them over a comedy....or, more likely, a British period piece (think Pride and Prejudice)  The problem with documentaries though is that then you feel like you've been doing everything all wrong and now you have to change your life!  It's because of a documentary that I started sending lunches to school rather than have the kids eat school lunch. It's because of a documentary that I feel wretched, awful if I ever "super size" my fast food combo. It's because of a documentary that I sometimes think I'd like to live in Canada. It's because of a documentary that I can't look at a black woman without wondering how much she spends on her hair each month (yeah, there's a documentary called Good Hair by Chris Rock.....we thought it was going to be a comedy!) Anyway, you get the idea.

So for my first documentary of the year I picked Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead which then led to also watching Hungry for Change.  Both documentaries are about how people don't consume enough fruits and veggies in their diets and are relying too heavily on processed foods, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Tyson was inspired and we bought a juicer that night.  I was feeling a little less enthusiastic because the idea of drinking only liquid spinach for 10 days didn't sound all that appealing.  But I decided to at least give it a try.

Our first drink we used cucumbers, celery, spinach, apples and lemon.  This first drink we used more apples than we used for the rest of the time because we wanted it to taste good enough that we'd want to try it again.  It was actually pretty tasty!  Since then we've tried lots of different fruits and veggies.  Carrots, oranges, grapefruits, cantaloupe, peaches, sweet potatoes, celery, spinach, apples, lemon, lime, parsley, cilantro, beets, kale, pears, and ginger.  Tyson really disliked ginger, which I'll admit made me very happy, considering he dated a girl name Ginger before he met me.  There were Ginger jokes flying through the kitchen that night!  I've been keeping a list of juice recipes on my food blog if you want to check it out.  DefinitelyNotGourmet.blogspot.com

Being the awesome parents that we are we decided to let the kids join in the fun.  Some of them were more enthusiastic than others!  Surprisingly, Drake, our pickiest eater, finished all his drink and even asked for more a few days later.  In fact, all the kids have asked to try some during the past week....all the kids except Zac, that is!

We are just now finishing day 7 of our 10 day juice fast.  We're doing pretty good, though there have been a few tiny moments of cheating here and there (geez! we're not perfect!)  Days 4 and 5 were miserable for me.  I had no energy and the thought of drinking more juice was depressing.  Tyson has been flying through it....until tonight!  Apparently day 7 is his "wall."  We're already dreaming of Tuesday when we can finally eat normal food again (though we still plan on juicing regularly.)  We're also already looking for documentaries about chocolate!