Drink the rainbow: Making colourful juices

If you haven’t heard already, juicing has become a bit of a “craze.” I want to mention right now though that I don’t use a juicer for my juices. Instead, I use a vitamix blender for my juices because I like that you can drink up the fibre from the fruit/veggie peel as well as the nutrients from the fruit/veggie flesh itself.

I love juice

I absolutely adore juicing and wish I had the time to have one every morning because it makes you feel amazing. Sometimes I wonder how I could of gone so long without juicing. Like most people out there, I was hesitant to have my first glass, especially because I decided to try a cup of green juice first.

I mean it looked like a glass of bright green goop! I’m sure anyone would of been scared to try it. But after my first glass I was hooked because even though it wasn’t a lot, I immediately felt like I was glowing from the inside out. It was like a nutritional boost I’ve never felt before and I couldn’t wait to have my next glass. Except, I couldn’t because I was so full from even just one! Who knew fruits and veggies could be so filling? See, that’s the fibre doing it’s stuff and that’s why I blend my juices.

Don’t add too much fruit

Now that I’ve been juicing for about a year, I’ve gotten a much better handle on which fruits and vegetables go well together to produce something of my liking. I tend to like my juices to be more veggie packed than fruit packed because I don’t want to overload on fructose but it’s really up to you what you like in your juice. As a rule of thumb, I try to put at least one fruit into all my juices so that they still have some sweetness to them.

I tend to put apples into my juices too because they’re always in season and they’re my favorite fruit. I’ve put together a rainbow coloured compilation of my go-to juices and smoothies below and I hope you try some of them. I don’t usually have smoothies but I decided to throw some lil’ bun approved ones in there so that the juicing beginners could have them if they’re not ready to venture into full on juice mode yet. Like I like to say, having a rainbow a day keeps the toxins away!

Radiant red

• 1 banana
• 3/4 cup strawberries
• 1 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1 tablespoon flax seeds

Outstanding orange

• 1/2 grapefruit
• 1 orange
• 1 carrot
• 1/4 lemon
• 1 cup water

Yummy youthful yellow

• 1 apple
• 1 cm thick slice of ginger
• 1/4 lemon
• 1 cup water

Gleaming green

• 1 apple
• 1/4 lemon
• 1/3 cucumber
• 1 stalk celery
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 cm thick slice of ginger
• 2 – 3 cups water
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (optional)
• 1 tablespoon hemp hearts (optional)

Berry blue

• 1 cup spinach
• 1 cup blueberries
• 2-3 fresh basil leaves
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
• 1 1/2 cups milk

Powerful purple

• 1 banana
• 3/4 cup blueberries
• 1/4 cup blackberries
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 3/4 cup acai berry juice (or more milk)

Why you should make juice at home

Okay enough about me and my story, here’s why you should start yours. Fruits and vegetables are jam packed with phytonutrients that are full of benefits for your body that you can’t get anywhere else.

Sure you could just go to your pharmacy and gobble down a few “supplements” and call it a day but those aren’t easily absorbed by your body. I mean think about it, your body wasn’t built to break down the coating of vitamin tablets and all those chemicals, it was built to break down the natural products of mother earth.

When you drink a glass of juice you can pack nutrients from all sorts of fruits and vegetables into your body all at once and since it’s in liquid form, it gives your digestive system a much needed break. Plus, each cup of supercharged goodness gets absorbed by your bloodstream super fast so you can feel the benefits of it right away! Now I’m not telling you to go out and buy a super powerful blender or a juicer, I just hope that this post was enough to convince you to just give juicing a go because trust me, it’s worth it and you’ll notice that your body will love it too.

Love healthy recipes? Check out my healthy cookies!