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Food As Medicine

November 25, 2018 by ApothecaryNurse Leave a Comment

What’s The Best Juicer?

As a nurse and wellness coach, I’m always working on my own journey. It’s important to me to work on the “core” of my health and wellness, not just symptoms. Food as Medicine is one of the best areas we have within our ability to change and improve our well-being.

Juicing is one way to get power packed nutrition in a cup or bottle! It’s best to make it ourselves, since juice in the store really is not fresh. I buy organic foods when possible when making juices. I mean… who wants all those pesticides in our bodies. That does not sound very nourishing, right?

What’s The Best Juicer?

When you start juicing, the first thing that come to mind is what’s the best juicer? Honestly, this really depends on what you are looking for. A lot goes into ensuring you get the right juicer that will work for you. But first, you need to understand there are essentially two types of juicers. I have both types and I use them for different results. The main two types of juicers are: cold press juicers, and centrifugal juicers. There is a difference in cost, but a difference in my opinion in quality of the juice when you compare the two. There are also manual juicers for things like citrus juice and a wheat-grass juicers.

A Brief Overview

* Citrus Juicer – Either a manual or electric counter top juicer is something that you can use every day without pulling out the often hard to clean cold-press or centrifugal juicer.
* Wheat-grass Juicer – If you plan to do a lot of green juices, you will want to invest in a special wheat-grass juicer. It’s really difficult to juice leafy vegetables and herbs but not with a wheat-grass juicer.
* Cold-Press Juicer – Sometimes called a masticating juicer, there are many different ranges of prices for these juicers. Choose one within your budget, and you’ll be sure to love it. Choose one that’s outside of your budget and you may not be happy with it. In the case of juicers, more expensive varieties don’t always mean they are better.
* Centrifugal Juicer – One of the least expensive and most popular juicers, these juicers are easy to use, and easy to find at prices you can afford. With these you can also make use of the pulp in recipes.

Cold Pressed Juicers

A cold-press juicer has a process that grinds up the produce, and then presses it through a filter of some kind to separate the juice from the pulp. A cold-press juicer is said to produce the most flavorful and best textured juices. It is also widely accepted that cold-pressed juice preserves enzymes and vitamins since there is no heat involved in the process of extracting the juice.

I have a Champion Juicer. I highly recommend this type of juicer if you are looking for a sturdy juicer that will last you for years. My juicer is about 15 years old, and still works very well. I have purchased a replacement blade. As a side note, you can make amazing fruit “ice cream” with it! I LOVE my banana ice cream. Nothing but frozen bananas. You cannot do that with a centrifugal juicer. I’m not sure if you can do it with other cold-pressed masticating juicers, but I know you can with the Champion.

Centrifugal juicers

A centrifugal juicer pulls the produce through a higher powered center whereby it grinds it and forces it through a filter where the pulp and juice are separated. A centrifugal juicer offers a less expensive option that many people are perfectly happy with. It also produces a higher volume of juice and does not take as long to get your juice as the cold-pressed juicer. (at least in my experience)

I have a Jack Lalanne Juicer as my centrifugal. It makes juice really quickly and I love to use this when I’m in a hurry of a morning before heading out to work. I have my heart set on upgrading to a Breville Juicer (made famous by Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead). I’ve had my current centrifugal juicer for many years now, and I need a new one. So this is my next purchase for the kitchen!

If you don’t feel like buying multiple products you can also use your blender as a juicer. Just blend the produce with some water until liquefied, then strain with a mesh strainer, cheese cloth or a nut-milk bag into a serving container then wash the strainer immediately. (that’s a lot of work in my opinion though)

So what’s the best juicer? It really depends on what you are looking for! Do you want quick and easy, healthy juices? Are you looking for a juicer that produces the best nutritional benefit? There is no reason why you can’t get started today with juicing. Everything you want can be found at local department stores like Walmart and Target and online on Amazon. Read online reviews of various juicers, watch YouTube.com videos about what it takes to clean and use the different types of juicers mentioned. I’m a home shopper, so Amazon is usually my choice. I have Amazon prime, so I get free 2 day shipping if I chose a Prime product.

One thing to pay close attention to is how hard it is to use and clean. If any equipment takes a long time to use and clean it’s less likely that you’ll actually follow through. Juicers are particularly unforgiving if you don’t clean them right away. Therefore, leave no stone upturned when checking out the different types of juicers available so that you can ensure you get the right one for you. For me, it’s a toss up on the Jack Lalanne and Champion as far as clean up. It doesn’t take any longer for one over the other.

What’s the best juicer? Honestly, my top pick is my Champion because of the ability to make nutritious “fruit cream” and you can also make nut butters with it. (yea, I forgot to mention that nice benefit. Fresh nut butters are awesome)

Here are examples of each kind of juicer I talked about:

 

Manual Citrus JuicerManual Citrus JuicerManual Citrus JuicerManual Wheat-grass JuicerManual Wheat-grass JuicerManual Wheat-grass JuicerBreville JuicerBreville JuicerBreville JuicerChampion JuicerChampion JuicerChampion Juicer

So What’s the best juicer? Whatever juicer you decide meets your needs and lifestyle and intent!

Enjoy!

Be Well,

Joyce

Filed Under: Food As Medicine Tagged With: food as medicine, juicing

June 30, 2018 by ApothecaryNurse Leave a Comment

Eating Vegan for Beginners

Eating Vegan For Beginners

I’m a vegan newbie, so I thought I’d share my journey and give my tips on eating vegan for beginners. I’m not a dietitian. I’m a registered nurse. You will not find regulated meal plans from me, but I will share resources for good information. The bottom line is, I needed a change in direction for my life. Through the years, I’ve tried several eating lifestyles and to be honest…I’ve never been a huge “meat” person. Even my husband agrees. So I’m here to help you understand how to add more plants to support your nourishment. That’s it! I think the Keto Lifestyle is awesome. My hubby is losing weight really well on it.  I believe it works well, but there were things about the way I was eating that needed to be changed. I’m really enjoying just eating more plant-based.

 

 

Food As Medicine

Keeping in line with my belief in “food as medicine”, I began to explore exactly what my body was craving and I decided it was time to just dive in this vegan lifestyle. I will go ahead and share that my vegan lifestyle is about the food. I’m not an animal activist and I don’t have religious beliefs which would have me abstain from eating meat. My change is for the sole purpose of nourishing my body with good things. Eating vegan for beginners can be confusing and overwhelming at first.

I also want to share that I am not “anti-meat” eating for others. What I am is “pro” whole food plant addition. Does that make sense? I’m not here to bash eating meat, but to encourage the addition of living foods. I don’t believe there is only “one way” to living healthy. What I do believe as a hard fast rule on ANY healthy lifestyle is:

  1. Ridding your eating plan of sugar (I’m not talking about avoiding sugar naturally occurring in foods)
  2. Increase the amount of pure clean water consumed daily
  3. Use organics as much as possible (especially those fruits and veggies which hold on to pesticides)
  4. Processed foods: have to GO!
  5. Reduce dairy (or eliminate it as I have done)
  6. Choose healthy whole grains (unless you make it yourself, whole grain bread is NOT whole grains)

If I think long enough, there are probably more eating guidelines, but you get the “gist” of it with those few ideas.

I tried eating a “keto” lifestyle for a time. I believe it’s a great way to lose weight quickly. For me, I ended up hating that if I didn’t go completely “on plan”, I would end up being thrown out of ketosis, and all my hard work was down the toilet for a few days. Even though eating keto is not based on meat, I found it was still too much meat for my liking.

Time For A Change

While I have believed for a very long time that our food is our medicine, I had a difficult time living my belief. Until you are motivated to make a change, it’s a very difficult thing to do. I knew I needed a change. It needed to be simple though. Really simple! I needed clear concise explanations with good supportive recipes and ideas. So I thought eating vegan for beginners is where I needed to begin looking. I needed to find a program for the NEWBIE! Simplicity. Just make it simple for me!

I found Nutriciously! It’s an awesome easy program created by a husband and wife team! They are super nice people and they’ve created a beautiful and easy plan to follow.

Are you familiar with this? Do you get frustrated with the overwhelm of learning a new way? I think we’ve all been there – going from one diet to the next, hoping to fix our weight problems once and for all. The less we ate and stricter we got, the worse became the rebound. Because let’s face it: we cannot go on and count calories, portions, or macro nutrients and keep cutting back forever. I needed something simple.

What would you think about eating as much as you care for (of the right foods) and just slim down effortlessly? What if there was a way to never starve yourself again but instead nourish your body with beautiful, colorful food that can support all your natural healing processes?

Nobody wants to be crazy around food, yet we keep coming back to the same old junk items, asking ourselves what’s wrong with us for not getting it “right” this time… but, you see – it’s not YOU, it’s the undernourishment of your cells combined with the hyper-palatable foods everywhere in our environment.

Explore Plant Based Living

If you’d like to discover which meals can fill you up while losing weight sustain-ably and in a joyful way, this Plant Based Weight Loss Bundle is exactly what you’re looking for! And it’s not about the same regime of restricting yourself and fighting against yourself because you’ll simply learn to not let yourself get hungry, rewire your brain to start craving healthy food, while letting self-love lead you in the right direction. Eating vegan for beginners is no problem when you find a simple plan.

The Nutriciously Weight Loss Bundle comes with a comprehensive ebook, over 30 quick and easy recipes (because ain’t nobody got time for preparing complicated meals each day!) as well as 5 actionable worksheets that’ll support your changes each step of the way. This whole plan is valued at $63 but currently on sale for only $24!

 

See for yourself what’s inside here: The Nutriciously Vegan Weight Loss Bundle

 

Hopefully you’re as excited about this as I am! It’s helped so many people already and I’m sure you will be one of them. I’ve lost 23 pounds already! 

I’ve got a group on Facebook called the Whole Food Plant Based Wellness Community. It’s non-judgmental and a nice simple laid back place to hang. Hop and over and ask to join it!

Be Well,

Joyce

PS:  Don’t forget to check out the Vegan Weight Loss Bundle. Even if you don’t want to be 100% Vegan, this is a wonderful sustainable way to learn to “add more goodness”

Filed Under: Food As Medicine Tagged With: food as medicine, nutritiously, plant based, vegan

June 12, 2017 by ApothecaryNurse Leave a Comment

How to Make Tea with Fresh Leaves

Have you ever thought about how to make tea with fresh leaves? It’s SUPER easy. In the summer of 2016, I went to Europe for 2 weeks to study aromatic palliative care as a nurse. My tea in a restaurant I visited was served using fresh mint leaves. Using fresh leaves to create a tea is honestly something which had never occurred to me. Here in America it’s standard to buy boxes of dried tea bags, and steep for a few minutes before drinking. In the South, we make a large pitcher of tea, add tons of sugar, and then drink it chilled or over ice.

As much as I LOVE studying herbs and essential oils, somehow it had never crossed my mind there is another way to enjoy the taste and even health benefits when making tea. While I was in Europe, I had hot tea everyday and several times a day. I totally loved it!

How to Make Tea with Fresh Leaves

It’s such a simple concept. The mint tea I was served in the Netherlands was honestly the best hot drink I had ever experienced. They really use so much fresh food there. I knew our we have processed foods in the United States, but I hadn’t realized how processed our foods are here. The push seems to be for processed foods. I really loved my time in Europe as it showed me what I didn’t realize I was missing out on.

I have a spearmint plant growing right now. You can use many things though. One of my experiences in the Netherlands was to visit a city garden in downtown Rotterdam. We were given the opportunity to pick whatever we wanted in our tea. What a lovely experience. Lavender buds are wonderful in fresh tea. Make sure when you pick your leaves or flower buds, you are not using plant material sprayed with pesticides.

Another thing I loved in the Netherlands was the use of the clear glass cups. The plant material whether leaves or flowers, was just so beautiful using clear cups, similar to these glass cups.

Also, don’t heat your water up in a microwave. It’s lovely to have a stovetop tea kettle. Yes. I fell in love with making tea like this. Here’s a lovely glass stovetop teapot, or one similar to what I found at TJ Maxx near my home like this. Mine is blue though.

This is a gentle way to add nourishment naturally. Food as your medicine. If you use fresh spearmint leaves like I have in my backyard right now, here are a few health benefits of this wonderful plant! Livestrong.com shares a few benefits of spearmint tea in their article here.

  1. Supports occasional nausea.
  2. May have antibactial properties.
  3. May help with unwanted hair in women.
  4. May have an affect on an anti-inflammatory process.

Always remember to research safety issues when using or suggesting even supplemental food products.  This is not an in-depth look at Spearmint for all potential benefits or safety. This article highlights my experience using fresh plan material in my tea.

Here is the tea I created when I went to a inner city garden in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

=

It was SO yummy!

Well. I hope I’ve interested you to use fresh leaves/flowers in your next hot tea!

Apothecary Nurse™

Filed Under: Food As Medicine Tagged With: spearmint, teas

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