The Path To Clean Digestion?
April 28, 2013 § 2 Comments
The end of the semester is nigh! You can tell that I’ve been busy because I haven’t posted here since February(!!); where did the time go?! Oh, right, I was doing two internships and taking an intensive writing & reporting class. What is life??
This past month, I’ve almost lost my mind from stress a few times, and sleep deprivation has been high. There were a few weeks where I wrangled my diet into shape (salads for lunch, brown rice + vegetables for dinner) — I even started going to the gym again! — but the rest of the time was filled with Pommes Frites and ice cream, thus my body has not been feeling its best. Getting a massage helped, but I’ve still been fatigued and irritable, and my skin is not happy.
An article I recently read in Marie Claire has been stuck in my mind. The piece was about the dangers of becoming addicted to juice cleanses, which, you know, first world problem, but apparently these cleanses augment the potential for eating disorders in an easy-to-disguise way.
One unfortunate side effect of these cautionary articles is that they basically function as a sales tactic to impressionable people … like me. In high school, I read a story in W Magazine about the hazards of non-ADD patients who take Adderall to supplement productivity, and my immediate reaction was “That sounds awesome; where can I get some??”
When you highlight a fad with that kind of pull quote, it’s going to sound like the best thing ever, no matter how perilous you forewarn it to be. So after obsessing about it for a week, I’ve decided to try a three-day cleanse at the beginning of May before going home for the month.
Does it seem like I’m just jumping aboard a trend? Sure, this movement is just gaining traction in the U.S., but detoxing is de rigueur at many of the spa retreats we covered in AsiaSpa Magazine, so it doesn’t seem like such a crazy concept to me. I’m no stranger to the occasional fast, so I figure it won’t be too difficult. What’s the harm (apart from a serious dent in my bank account)? It’s a quick fix with all the necessary vitamins!
Juice cleanses are unsurprisingly expensive; as a beginner, my criteria is simply to find the cheapest one that’s liquid-only (no additional salads or puddings or whatnot) and locally made, so I can pick it up instead of playing tag with the delivery person.
My options, in no particular order:
Liquiteria (170 2nd Ave.)
$147 for 3 daysBluePrint (closest pick-up: 18 Ninth Ave)
$195 for 3 daysGingersnap’s Organic (130 E. 7th Street — right across from my apartment!)
$180 for 3 daysCooler Cleanse (closest pick-up: 69 Prince Street or 97 Greenwich Avenue)
$174 for 3 daysJuice Press (70 E. 1st Street or 279 E. 10th Street)
$180 for 3 daysOrganic Avenue (1 W. 8th Street)
$180+ for 3 days
Liquiteria was the obvious winner by $30, so I plan to save a week’s worth of intern’s wages and get my toxic body over there. At six bottles per day, the pricing comes out to around $8 per bottle. Would it be cheaper to make my own juices? Of course. Do I own a blender? No. So. If this works out well, I might invest in one, though I’d probably do so after moving out of my current apartment. We don’t even have enough kitchen space for a rice cooker! I’ve had to burn cook my rice on the stove for eight months :(
All this talk makes me miss China, where you can pick up a freshly pressed juice on the street for $1!
auradis 
[…] A juice cleanse isn’t meant to be taken lightly. Not only is it expensive, it’s also not as delicious as one might imagine (though maybe I’m the only one delusional enough to imagine such things). Such is what I learned on the first day of my Liquiteria cleanse. […]
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