I will be getting married in the coming weeks (about 2 at this point!) and will be upping my natural beauty routine. In the coming posts I will be writing about my favorite natural beauty foods and how I use them. In today’s post I will be talking about green juice!

If any of you out there know me personally, you know I have an insane fondness for green leafy vegetables. There is something about green vegetables that just lights me up. Funny enough I was reading “Eating for Beauty” by David Wolfe and in the book there are Kirlian photos of vegetables and fruit and the electromagnetic energy coming off of them. So, I guess I am attracted to these leafy greens because they are pulling me in with their energy. Groovy, baby!

Heart food:

I’ve also come to think of green foods as heart foods since they correlate to the heart chakra in Ayurvedic philosophy. The heart chakra is the 4^th chakra of 7 so it is right in the middle, in the heart of the body if you will. If there are any yogis out there, you know what I mean! Vegetables are the food recommended for the heart as they literally trap the energies from the earth (think nutrients), water and sun (light energy). Since vegetables balance all these forces they help to nurture and balance the heart. With my nuptials on the way, it’s nice to know my heart will be balanced, ready to receive and give love 🙂

Blood Builder:

I also love green foods because they contain chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a pigment molecule found in green foods and looks a lot like hemoglobin, which is found in our blood. With the exception of a few chemical side groups, the molecules of each are identical, with chlorophyll having magnesium in the centre and hemoglobin having iron in the centre. That is amazing news for us: plant and human blood is almost identical. Woohoo!

When we ingest foods with chlorophyll our body uses it to purify, rebuild and cleanse the blood. What does this mean for us? Cleaner blood means clearer, more vibrant and beautiful skin and more overall energy. This is a great beauty boost for anyone, especially those bridal beauties, so eat your salad, drink your green smoothies and have a green juice once a day!

Enzymatic, baby:

Green juices are also an amazing source of ENZYMES! Enzymes are our ‘life force’: in nerdy chemistry terms they are biological catalysts that speed up the rate of reaction for metabolic processes in the body – très cool! As we eat more cooked or overly cooked foods we destroy the enzymes naturally found in raw foods as enzymes are sensitive and are destroyed when heated above 118F.

As we eat more cooked foods our body needs to pump out more enzymes from our pancreas to digest the proteins, fats and carbohydrates found in food. If we do not replenish these enzymes with raw and living foods daily we begin to age more rapidly, and our metabolism slows down. Enzymes are not only used in digestion but in the maintenance of the body: the fewer enzymes you have the less resources your body has at its disposal to remove excess weight, toxins, free radicals and sick cells from the body. Essentially, your beauty fades. As you infuse your body with enzymes you give it a break and start to increase your metabolism.

When we have more enzymes we can then reduce the digestive work the body does. Digestion takes about 50-80% of our energy. By giving it a break and infusing it with little worker enzymes it can then go deeper into the body and cleanse it resulting in more energy, vitality and vigour.

Enzymes do the work in our body: they do every metabolic function and if we don’t help it along with living food and only digest cooked or literally ‘dead’ food we are not reaping the benefits of this. We can’t really be vibrant if our food lacks vibrancy, right? And I know you all want to look, feel and move with energy and bounce, oh yeah!

Nutrition Powerhouse:

I love green juices because they are packed full of nutrition in a compact form and serve as a nice supplement to our regular meals. I think of them as a bioavailable multivitamin and multimineral. When we remove the fiber from the juice we remove the digestion the body has to do and the juice can enter the body almost immediately. The organic water that is the green contains vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and enzymes!

So what are you waiting for?

When to consume juices for the most bang for your buck:

• On an empty stomach OR 30 minutes before a meal (on an empty stomach)
• Be sure to ‘chew’ or ‘swish’ your juice around so that it digests better
• Green juice is a supplement to a diet rather than a meal
• Juice mostly greens (70-80%) with 1 apple (i.e. for a 500mL juice only add 1 apple)
• It is ALWAYS a good idea to chew swish around a juice so that it is digested quicker.
• Homemade juices are best, consume within 15 minutes
• Buy freshly made juices or COLD pressed juices if buying from a retailer
• NEVER drink pasteurized juices: they are dead and lack enzymes
• Use ORGANIC produce

Get your Glow Green Juice

Ingredients: makes 1 serving, use all ORGANIC ingredients

• 1 6” cucumber
• 4 stalks of kale
• 4 romaine leaves
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 apple
• ½ “ piece of ginger
• ½ lemon squeezed

Directions:

1. Juice all ingredients in the following order: Kale, romaine, cucumber, celery, ginger, apple
2. Squeeze lemon into final juice, stir and enjoy!

So I hope you all start including some green juice in your health repertoire, your body, cells and mind will thank you 🙂

~Michelle

Holistic Nutritionist.