Day Seven

Breakfast this morning was great. Tresa and I each had huge glasses of juiced fruit cocktail:  grapefruit, orange, lemon, ginger, green grapes, strawberries, rhubarb, apple, mango, and kiwi.  It made a good sized batch, so I was energized and my stomach was full until I had my first lunch around 10.

Lunch juice was made from 4 carrots, 4 apples, 6 roma tomatoes, large handful of spinach, 3 leaves of collard greens, 1 cucumber, a big chunk of ginger, 1 lemon, 4 radishes, and 5 stalks of celery.  I saved the pulp.  We'll get to that later.  So this batch of juice made almost 60 ounces, so Tresa and I both had nearly full bottles to last us through the midday.  I felt great.  Flushed and warm, but I had plenty of energy.

Tresa keeps telling me how much she has noticed a difference in how I look.  She says my face looks thinner and can tell that my belly is smaller.  I think I'm doing alright.  I feel better, my pants seem looser, and yeah, I guess I see my cheeks getting thinner.  All of it is encouraging.  I got to see my daughter for the first time since I started juicing.  When Tresa asked her, "doesn't your dad look like he's lost weight?" her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, "yeah, he does!" and gave me a big hug.

So, the pulp from this morning.  Guess what I did with it?  Broth.  I simmered it for an hour or so with plenty of water, some seasonings and fresh herbs.  I strained it really well and was left with a liquid both the color and consistency of stagnant pond water.  Yum!  To this I added a couple carrots and a couple stalks of celery and half an onion, all diced up small.  When my back was turned, mama added another large carrot and about 4 more stalks of celery.  "I looooove celery," she told me.  (Poor girl.  Tonight's soup probably seemed like a banquet after all our juicing lately.)  My last soup ended up a little bland, so I made sure to add some chili pepper flakes and ground black pepper to this batch.  Still no salt, and man, did it need it!  We each had a full bowl and I froze the rest for another night when we can't stand to look at a glass of juice and are craving something hot to eat.

In related news, our compost bin is filling up fast.  It had been looking good before we started tearing through all these fruits and veggies.  Now, with all the peelings, stems, cores, seeds, rinds and juice pulp we've been adding, it's clumping together in wet balls, which is not good.  I need to get ahold of some dry leaves or something.  I shredded a few newspapers into the bin.  That'll have to do for now.  Just one more drawback to juicing that a lot of people don't think about, I guess.

Tomorrow is Day 8.  Weigh-in day.  Wish me luck.