Hollywood celebrities are doing it. People trying to lose weight are doing it. Documentaries like "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" are advocating it.
Drinking your fruits and vegetables.
It's not a new concept. Remember Jack Lalanne? Perhaps the first well-known fitness guru, he advocated regular, intense exercise and lived on a diet composed mostly of fish, egg whites and fruits and vegetables, many of them blended together and consumed as juice.
Campbell's V8 juice, enjoying renewed popularity, has been around since 1933. It is a blend of tomatoes, carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress and spinach.
So, while not new, getting more fruits and vegetables by drinking fresh juices and smoothies has really gotten a boost lately. Perhaps it's because we keep hearing over and over that we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables.
Will Byrd, manager at The Cosmic Coconut, an East Memphis juice and smoothie bar that also serves vegan fare, feels "there is some sort of awakening. People have an increased consciousness about their health, and they want to eat better."
Holly Bluer, who makes juices and smoothies at Whole Foods, says the popularity of juices and smoothies has "definitely gone up a lot, because people are more health-conscious." Byrd also points to the 2010 documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" as something that has increased
Americans' awareness of needing to consume more fruits and vegetables. This documentary chronicles two overweight and unhealthy men who use freshly juiced fruits and vegetables to help get themselves on the right track to better health.
Maybe Americans are finally beginning to get the message that more fruits and vegetables are needed in the diet, and they need to be included regularly. However, most people in the United States still don't get the 2 cups of fruits and 5 servings of vegetables recommended daily for most healthy adults. Only about 27 percent of Americans eat enough vegetables and about 33 percent eat enough fruits.
Even Starbucks is getting into the juice act. Last year, Starbucks purchased premium-juice company Evolution Fresh. In addition to adding bottled juices to its packaged food repertoire, the Seattle-based chain has a new fresh juice bar concept it began testing this year.
At The Cosmic Coconut, employee Taylor Maharrey noticed that "at the beginning of the year, we had a pop in business," as people aimed to get healthy after the holidays, but instead of dying off after a few months, business "has stayed up."
When someone first comes in, says Maharrey, they often "stand back a little, looking over the menu, not sure what to order." "It can be intimidating," she says, because there are so many offerings. If someone is not sure what to order, she recommends something mild, like the "Go Green" juice. With cucumber, ginger, apple, celery, kale and lemon, "it's kind of like green lemonade."
It's not just common fruits and vegetables being made into juice. Wheatgrass juice is becoming more popular, both as an additive to other juiced vegetables and fruits, or taken all at once, as a shot.
Memphian Simona Cassius drinks a shot of wheatgrass juice every other day. "I just feel like it makes me healthier," she says. She notes that "I read somewhere that one shot of wheatgrass juice is the equivalent of eating 2 pounds of veggies," and "I don't feel like I eat enough vegetables to warrant not doing it." If she is out of town for a few days, she makes sure to come by when she gets back to get her wheatgrass regimen going. "It's the first thing I do when I get back."
For some, wheatgrass juice is an acquired taste. Says Byrd: "At first you might not like the taste, but you get used to it." He suggests cutting the wheatgrass juice in the beginning, by adding it into other juices so "it's not a huge surprise of a mouthful of grass." But some have no problem with the taste. Cassius says she "loved it from the very start. I think it tastes so good."
Memphian Floyd Veasley is a regular at the Whole Foods juice counter. He comes in every day for a modified "Spicy Veggie" juice with a double shot of wheatgrass juice on the side. "When you don't do wheatgrass, your body will tell you," especially with a reduced energy level, he says. Veas- ley has been drinking juices for about 15 years and says he feels great. At 63, he plays tennis and works out and maintains his weight. "Juicing — you can't beat it for better balance and nutrition," he notes. "Spirituality and nutrition are very connected," he believes. "Total balance — that's God," he says.
More than 10 years ago, Veasley had open-heart surgery because of a congenital heart problem. He has also had malignant squamous cell skin cancer. With his open-heart surgery, "I was out of the hospital in two days." Veasley believes he wouldn't have been able to "go through it without having sound spirituality and nutrition."
Smoothies are perhaps even more popular than juicing. Says Bluer: "You get to have something that's good for you that tastes awesome." While fruit smoothies are very popular, blending fruits and vegetables together, creating "green smoothies" may be more so. Bluer suggests mixing about two-thirds fruit with one-third vegetables to create the right balance.
When combining greens like spinach and kale with fruit for a smoothie, Bluer notices "people often make a face at the brilliant green color, but no one complains about the flavor. They are pleasantly surprised."
For people just beginning to try juices and fruit/vegetable smoothies, Maharrey finds they "are more comfortable with a smoothie. It's fruitier, more familiar." She often suggests they start with something "simple" that includes juices they have had before, like orange or apple.
"Not all things taste good together," Byrd notes. He steers folks away from combinations like kale, beets and spinach, which can end up a "bitter brown mess."
"It's all about proportions," he says.
Maharrey has noticed that "a lot of people are learning about kale" and want to include it in their juice and smoothie mixtures. Kale is exceptionally high in vitamin K, and also is very high in vitamins A and C, and fiber. It also contains important phytonutrients, which some studies have shown help in reducing certain types of cancer. Byrd notes that "kale is a very bitter green left to its own devices," so he suggests including apples, ginger or something citrus to balance the kale in a juice or smoothie mixture.
Registered dietitian Leslie Schilling, owner of Schilling Nutrition Therapy LLC in Memphis, says: "I'm a fan of adding spinach or kale to things with fruit to mask flavors some don't like" to receive benefits from these valuable greens they might not otherwise get.
Several years ago, Memphian Kim Caldwell was not feeling especially well or healthy and was reading author Victoria Buchenko's book, "Green for Life," about incorporating more green vegetables through juices and smoothies. Caldwell put the book down and quickly whipped up a green smoothie. "It took 1 minute" to blend it together. "I drank it, and felt it right away," she says. "I was hooked." She began drinking green smoothies almost daily, sometimes more than once a day. "I got such amazing results from the smoothies," she says. So much so that she wrote her own book, "How Green Smoothies Saved My Life."
Caldwell finds when people first begin incorporating green smoothies into their diet, most of them need more fruit for sweetness to cover the green veggie taste. She notices that when folks drink them more consistently, the find their body saying "go green," with more green vegetables and less fruit in the mixture. She suggests starting with romaine lettuce or a spring mix blend of mild baby lettuces to mix with fruit in a smoothie, then building up to sturdier greens like kale. Caldwell also feels it's important to change the greens used to get a wider variety of nutrients and give the biggest nutritional punch.
Brittany Brewer works at the juice counter at Whole Foods and says she loves green smoothies. She prefers less sugar in her mixtures, however, so instead of blending juices with her greens, she often uses almond milk. And she "adds ginger to everything." She likes the taste, but also believes ginger helps increase energy, improve digestion and manage allergies.
Brewer, too, is an advocate of wheatgrass, citing "no end" to its benefits. She has customers receiving radiation for cancer who say their doctor suggested they try wheatgrass juice to balance the side effects. She notes that even on her days off from work, "I still come in to get my shot of wheatgrass."
Schilling cautions: "It's important to remember you get more calories from juices and less fiber than from the whole fruit." She also notes that in some of the smoothie chains, "many of the fruit purées and juices used are packed full of added sugars," bringing calories per smoothie around the "400 mark," with the sweeter, "more dessert-y" ones at "more than 600 calories." Schilling points out smoothies have a sort of "health halo" around them, giving consumers the "illusion that they are making a very healthy choice." While some smoothies can be quite healthful, not all smoothies get a high grade.
Making your own drink allows you to use less-sugary juices and control the calories a little better, Schilling says. She prefers blending the fruits and vegetables together like a smoothie, rather than extracting the juice from them and discarding the pulp. "At my house," says Schilling, "I use a Vitamix versus a typical juicer. Basically you get every great part of the fruits and vegetables." Bluer says a strong blender, like Vitamix, "helps break down the fibers" in the vegetables and fruits, so blended drinks include those "as well as the juice, so you get more nutrients."
While some say juicing fruits and vegetables speeds the absorption of nutrients because some of the mechanical breakdown has already been done, there doesn't seem to be much scientific evidence to support this. Schilling observes that while liquids do move more quickly through the digestive system, "it doesn't really matter that much if the nutrients are absorbed in 10 minutes versus an hour."
In fact, although she is all for folks getting more fruits and vegetables in their diet, her advice is to "chew your fruits and vegetables rather than drinking them" whenever you can.
Those who drink them often swear by the effectiveness of these fresh mixtures of fruits and vegetables.
"I've just been blown away by what it's done for my health," Caldwell says. "I have better energy, better moods and glowing skin," and she and Brewer both note fewer cravings for sweets when they drink green smoothies or wheatgrass juice.
"If I want a cookie," Brewer says. "I'll do a wheatgrass instead and it just stops my cravings."
0 comments:
Post a Comment