The Power of Green!

I have always loved the color Green.  I also have always had to paint my kitchen green in the places we have lived.  I looked up the meaning of the color green , and found this;

"GREEN – Heart Chakra (centre/left chest)

This uplifting, peaceful and serene ‘in between’ colour – neither warm and active nor cool and passive - is the healer and balancer of emotions, but also enhances creativity and focus. Green stimulates growth – be it mending broken bones or rejuvenating tissue – lowers blood pressure, alleviates sleeplessness and counteracts nervous disorders and muscle tension.

Green produces the image of stability and efficiency. We appear calm, controlled and at peace with the world. Green is also the colour of Mother Nature."

It makes a lot of since after reading this definition why I have always felt the need to paint my kitchen green.  When I am cooking I feel calm and creative and inspired to try new things. I also love eating green foods, except for boogers gross!( Just making sure you paying attention ;-) )

This leads me to one of my favorite green things to do in the kitchen, juicing.  Around this time of year, and working with children it is important for me to keep my body healthy.  I love to make green juice to keep my immune system thriving to fight off those pesky germs.  Plus it is really fun to go to work and watch the faces of pure shock that I am drinking something so green!  It is usually faces of ewww! but there is nothing ewwy about fresh green juice filled with organic vegetables that will jump start your immune system and make your head feel clear and give you lots of energy.  I have been juicing more and more lately, in fact just about everyday.  

So how do I do it? I eat a lot of vegetables every week, and I save the stems of things like, celery and broccoli and the end of carrots.  To make a truly green juice, you should only use green veggies and fruit, I like to add the ends of carrots but this does make the juice less green.  

My favorite things to add are;

2 handfuls of spinach

2 kale leaves

2 handfuls of romaine lettuce

1 green apple

1/2 cucumber ( I add a whole in the summer due to having them in my garden, but damn they are pricey this time of year! so a half it is)

1-2 celery stalks or your celery ends

Broccoli stems and carrot ends

What is even more amazing about green juice is how you feel afterward.  I have stopped drinking coffee this week, something I have done in the past and the caffeine withdrawals were intense! I had severe headaches and felt exhausted and I only drank 1 cup a day!  This time around I am supplementing my coffee by drinking  the green juice and some green tea in the afternoon.  Guess what! NO WITHDRAWALS! I have energy in the morning and no headache.  This morning I had a full glass of green juice for breakfast and ended up having a super productive day, wrote a paper, did laundry, chased my dog around the house, cleaned the house (including scrubbing the bathtub, which is something I never have energy for), read a few chapters in a book, now I am writing to all of you! after this it is time to make some dinner. Not to shabby.

Juice is powerful stuff and I do not mean the stuff at the grocery store. The juice at the grocery store is full of sugar because the fruit settles and gets all comfy and cozy in the nice little bottle, really the sugar content in these juices are the same as drinking a can of soda, you may think you are making a wise choice but its a no go.  You can save the juice you make for no more than 24 hours, I often like to supply myself for 2 days worth, I will juice and drink half that morning and then save half in a mason jar to have the next morning.  This is also something kids would love! Seeing the veggies turn into juice is pretty fantastic and better than giving your child a "can of soda" with their breakfast.

So there it is! I love GREEN and GREEN loves the body!

This mornings juice!

Peace, Love and JUICE!
                                 Ashley