We’re not here to judge. Some folks swear by juicing, some think it’s a dieting and nutritional fad that can do way more harm than good (see Tracy Anderson’s tiny rant comparing them to twinkies here. Have you seen this woman? I’m not sure she’d know a twinkie if it marched up and kicked her in the jutting hipbones).
We’ve done juice cleanses; we like them (see below). Not for all the time, but they are a great kickstarter. Â If you are thinking on it, as the pressure to New Year, New You weighs heavily on your first week of 2014, here are:
Our favorite spots to Juice in Charlotte.
Viva Raw. A juice bar in the 7th Street Market with locally made, delicious juices, and they deliver. We’ve blogged about them several times, and they have a cool Jan 2014 7 day cleanse going with Nourish if you want to sign up asap. Be sure to tell em scoop sent you.
Luna’s Living Kitchen. For the local money, this is a favorite. One juice lasts me two “meals” and the assortment in their juice fridge, which seems to change with the tides, always provides something new to try.  Just know that they sell out of certain daily juices quickly. So while you can just swing by and grab a few to go, if you are seriously cleansing, I would order online.
Whole Foods. Yep. They sell both BluePrint and Suja juices and you can put your own cleanse together, buy 2-3 days at a time and get it done. Not locally made, but at least locally sold. In the front of the store, across from the cafe checkout.
BerryBrook. More about juices and smoothies than about cleanses, but it’s such an institution we had to include it. Just remember, if it’s a fruit juice or smoothie, it’s really a dessert substitute. A healthy one albeit, but still.
Hacking the Blue Print Cleanse and other juice news.
Just in case you (or I) am motivated to try to save lotsa bucks and create these juices at home, I have found this website which purports to have hacked the recipes for the BPC.  Haven’t tried them myself, have no idea how they taste.  If I do get around to it, I will def let you know, and hope you’ll do the same for us in a comment below.
And I found these sites with alternative Juice Cleanse recipes:
Raw Juice Recipes.com – a whole site devoted to juice recipes.
Joe Cross’ Juice-Cleanse Recipes from Dr. Oz show.
10 Juicing Recipes for Cleansing the Body of Toxins from the cultureist.com.
My Healthy Crush’s 10 day juice Cleanse recipes.
What did a juice cleanse do for my “healthy lifestyle?”
I did the Blue Print Cleanse and loved it – but only as a great way to lose some extra pounds in a hurry. I guess for some lucky few, it kick starts a whole new dietary lifestyle, or launches them into a body & diet transformation. Not me though.
Like most people who cleanse, it provides me a short term fix. It’s perfect if you need a totally controlled, 3-5 day prescription for moderate weight loss. But since those daily 6 bottles of liquid “food” don’t cause me to create and manage a more healthy, dietetic approach to grocery-ing, cooking or eating, the cleanse will forever be only a quick fix for me. Not complaining, just being realistic. Note that not everyone loves the BPC as much as I….read this very funny feature from the New York Times, where the author finds the BPC green juice “was like drinking everything bad that ever happened (sic) in high school.”
I just recently tried the more cost-efficient “detox” cleanse from More Magazine and Lyn Genet Recitas. My friend Mary Kay loved it, lost 5 lbs in a week and felt and looked great. I liked it ok and lost a couple of pounds (not as much as the prepared juice cleanse from Blue Print though). The More Mag / Recitas diet is a change in your approach to eating. It requires a commitment to shopping and preparing meals with a strict selection of foods known for their anti-inflammatory properties. It strikes me as healthy and mindful, and I am trying to incorporate more of these foods into my diet going forward.
I found a Q&A on the pros/cons of cleansing & detoxing on the fashion blog Fashionista. You can read that here, but in a nutshell it’s pretty much what we all already know – no real health benefits, but maybe not a bad way to kick off a new diet or nutritional focus. I also reached out to my friend Sharon, a nutrition counselor who just started her own blog. Here’s her excellent advice on the subject of The Cleanse:
Cleansing can indeed have both benefits and negative effects. I counsel my clients that the most important factor in any cleanse should be moderation. Be gentle to yourself. Any diet or cleanse that causes deprivation will inevitably swing back to excess. A very strict cleanse also can strip your body of nutrients, your colon of healthy flora or dehydrate you. Better to choose a cleanse that focuses on healthy, naturally detoxifying foods that you can incorporate into your diet long-term. Any small changes that you make to permanently improve your diet will add up and most likely give you far greater impact than a short-term cleanse.
You can read more about this on her website, www.nourish-your-health.com, (including a link to some handy “detox foods”) and sign up for her free monthly newsletter with tips, etc.
Finally, here’s an email from Gwyneth’s GOOP plugging the GOOP CLEAN cleanse from her diet guru Dr. Alejandro Junger. This will not do for me. I am pretty sure I would starve. At least I would after a day or so. Same with the famous and infamous Master Cleanse. A day or two, sure. A week or two? With those side affects? No thanks.
