What has worked, what has SO NOT...

For someone who does art and is working on a new healthy life... what's not to love about this beautiful bowlfull of goodness ready to juice!?  The natural pigments in some of this stuff blows my mind...  I'm such a newbie...

What's worked (and not) as far as juicing - now a morning (proudly DAILY, almost!) ritual:

• Apples go in almost everything - they cut the dirt taste or the bitterness of some of the dark leafies
• Carrots and celery have a very strong taste, so if you're concerned about the taste...
• Regarding the taste - I kind of crave it now, like this morning I didn't have my juice.  BUT if you have an aversion to chugging a glass of green goop with some froth on top and might smell (see below in the list), a straw is brilliant, gets you several servings of so-good-for-you veggies FAST, and you don't taste much!
• Regarding the smell - broccoli doesn't juice real great.  And it will smell up the fridge if you have juiced enough for 3 days.
• Ginger, fennel, and aloe gel are good cleansers (from my research and verified by the girl at Natural Grocers ringing me up the other day asking if I was juicing for a reason - I mean they know all of this already just by what you're buying, love that - I mentioned a detox/cleanse.  Her response was "Ohhhh, that explains the ginger")  By the way, you can freeze ginger (I wash it and cut it into 1" chunks), but it needs to be thawed prior to juicing, otherwise it becomes a bullet as it shoots straight at you bouncing right out of the juice shoot.

What's worked (and not) as far as planning a healthy diet:

• Buying organic is expensive, so I make every root and leaf count.  Because most of it is juiced, I buy what's on sale and just toss it all in, worrying (or not!) about the taste later.  And to not waste a bit, I'm composting all the left over pulp - planning for my home-grown veggies started in the window sill soon to be in the ground.
• I'm in Kansas City here and there and stock up on the organic offerings of Trader Joe's, prices are much better.  I have heard some interest in making a big buy with orders from individuals when I go, can't imagine the amount of bags and transportation that would require...  I heard about someone doing that with IKEA, taking orders from several people a few weeks before going to shop in person...  Hmm.  Another business venture?
• I don't mind that my fresh produce rots within a few days - it tells me it has not been coated with preservatives to make it last.  And it forces me to use it up - sauces, juices, salads, SOME produce and herbs freeze okay, still trying to learn what does and what does not freeze well.  As always, open to suggestions.
• I'm attempting to compile all my new knowledge of food into a concept (a book by the same name) "Once a Month Cooking" - my first go at it lasted about 4 and a half weeks, with leftovers for lunch on several days.  My 2nd go hasn't really gone yet, I did meals last weekend for about 5-7 days but need to PLAN a big shopping trip and assembly day.  PLAN is the key word here, also a rather new concept for me, and a flat-out foreign word for my family, bless them.
• Juicing makes a big mess, and it's a pain to clean out all the parts, but you have to to keep the juicer juicing, new juicers are really expensive.  So I have tried juicing enough to last 3 days or so and storing it in the fridge in a sealed big bottle.  Seems to work okay, but I seemed to have some un-necessary "cleansing" this week, so I may have ingested some expired concoction.  *Sorry to be so out there, but that is partly the name of this game I'm learning*

Don't Believe Everything You Read

Not to start off on a negative note, but I think my judging books by covers started at a young age.  When my peers discovered Guess and Pepe jeans, Hypercolor and Nautica (giving away the era and my age...), I found my hard-earned baby-sitting money went further on already broken-in garage sale Levi's.  My love for shoes and limited budget lead me to the clearance section at Crown Shoes and Leeds for some interesting kicks marked down.  My method of stretching my dollar has ocassionally back-fired and sometimes I would learn later why these things were on the clearance rack, the ill-fitting style or faulty finish that would rub off on everything...  I was raised in a creative family and learned to sew young, and appreciate art, patterns, textures.  When it was time for a trip to Wal-Mart, I'd end up in the fabrics, getting a yard of some cool fabric to go home and make a new shirt.  Then the thrill of having something like no one else lead me to be pretty big-time interested in fashion design, and I sewed prom dresses, everyday pieces, home decor pieces. 

Back to my original thought, the labels on clothes back in the day revealed nothing about the person in those clothes.  Many in that time of my life would wear a certain label hoping to project something they weren't.  As I've worked with a variety of tools, countless artistic mediums and tried lots of different hair and body products, sometimes recommended because of the name brand, I've learned that sometimes a name is just a name, and sometimes a name stands for something.  My experience running things at Keeping Good Company for a few years exposed me to some name brands that stood for something - the Justice furniture for example stood for hand-made, Missouri-made, real people running that company, and although it was a little pricey I felt great about representing that company and sharing their creations (Mary Moss Furniture by Bright City Lights is carrying Justice now).  And the Archipelago candles didn't quite have the personal touch from the company headquarters like Justice, and their shipping and billing was a little bit of a hassle, but the quality of that candle was unlike any other - those are at Kent's Floral Gallery now...

My attention to food labels is where this has taken me more recently.  I have learned a lot in a relatively short amount of time, but years of bits and pieces finally coming together and I'm taking charge, making choices, feeling GREAT.  Join me, share your tips, let's make lots of little changes that add up to big differences in our health, in our kids, in our whole wide world.