Last night, I went to the grocery store to stock up on ingredients, including carrots, kale, fennel, romaine lettuce, apples, pears, spinach, cabbage, ginger, and lemons. With my last supper in my belly (baby spinach, tomatoes, and avocado, followed by a banana and handful of almonds) I went to bed and said sayonara to eating for the next 10 days. I woke up this morning bright and early, completely prepared for my first day of juicing.
After finishing a nice cup of hot water with lemon, I was ready to begin. With a little trepidation about jumping feet first into green juices, I decided to take it relatively easy this morning and make a fruit juice with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and a gala and granny smith apple. It was DELICIOUS. I am a huge apple lover, so to be able to drink this was amazing.
I went out to Target at 9:30 a.m. which I have to say is a completely different world than the one I normally experience at 2 p.m. I found some perfect Rubbermaid one-pint jugs. reusable ice packs, and a cute pink insulated lunch sack for carrying my juice to work. This morning, I had a fairly normal energy level and did not feel super hungry.
For my mid-morning snack, I decided to try something a little bolder. A little greener. I made a fennel, cucumber, and pear juice. 
The juice was actually pretty delicious! The only problem was that toward the end of my glass, I began to be very aware of the fennel and it overpowered my palate. I had trouble finishing and am not sure if I will be including fennel again.
After taking a nap, it was obviously now time to try a juice of the REAL GREEN variety, a mean green if you will. Fruit juice number one was excellent. Moderately green juice number two was fine. I think you know what’s coming nex
t…Super green juice number three was…interesting. I started off by putting some kale into my juicer. The smell that came out of that beautiful handful was so off-putting that I could barely put a drop of the emerald-colored juice on my tongue. After an internal sad trombone, I scrambled through the fridge for any and everything else. I used some baby spinach, a quarter wedge of green cabbage, 2 carrots, a head of romaine lettuce, a granny smith apple, half lemon, and thumb-sized portion of ginger root to create this sea sludge pictured to the right.
It’s not that it tasted terrible. It didn’t actually. It tasted like a thick and slightly grainy gingered apple cider, with a big spoonful of dirt mixed in. Oddly enough, I just watched TLC’s My Strange Addiction where a woman loves to eat the really moist, earthy dirt. I am pretty positive she would have loved this juice.
The strangest part of this day is how hungry I am NOT. I had to force myself to “eat” my afternoon snack of coconut water and am now prepping myself to make a dinner juice. I think that I made extra-large juices during the day — 20 oz. instead of the 14-16 oz. — so perhaps that is why I am not desperately craving anything now. I am sure my appetite will not remain this way throughout the next 9 days, but I can only hope that the fact that I feel no different than a normal day on this first day of the cleanse is because 
my vegan pre-cleanse did something to help with the “detox symptoms” I have read about.
Here’s a little treat to leave you with (that I had to desperately RUN AWAY from at Target) and here’s to hoping for more delicious green juices in the future.
xoxo,
the happenstance gourmande
The Happenstance Gourmande 