January 2013
One of my goals for 2013 is to drink fresh juice every day. Every day! Most resources on juicing suggest drinking the juice immediately after preparation, as the juice begins to lose nutrients with time. While increased fruit and vegetable intake is my goal, morning after morning of cleaning a juicer is not, so I compromise ever so slightly. Once a week, I fill my table with produce, and I make two 32-ounce jars of juice to last me through the week. Am I losing some nutrients through this process? Probably. Am I gaining nutrients by drinking fresh(ish) juice every day? Yes! This brings up an interesting point about building habits I recently learned through reading Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.
How can you create a habit that supports the change you’re trying to make?
1. The habit needs to advance the mission
2. The habit needs to be relatively easy to embrace
Consider a one-year study of dieters conducted at Penn State University. A baseline diet condition led to weight loss of 17.8 pounds over the course of the year. That’s an impressive result, but the drawback of many diet programs is that once the program ends, the dieters’ old habits start to reemerge and their weight begins to creep up again. In this study, one warning flag was that only 36 percent of the people in the baseline condition rated themselves as “very full” or “extremely full” on the diet. How sustainable is a diet that doesn’t make you really fully?
Other dieters in the same study were asked to eat two cups of soup each day, in addition to their regularly scheduled meals. The two cups of soup were bonus food. These dieters lost 15.4 pounds over the year, and 55 percent of them rated themselves as “very full” or “extremely full.” They didn’t lose quite as much weight, but their odds of feeling full went up substantially. Eating two cups of soup is a classic supporting habit. It was an easy habit to implement- the researchers were simply asking the dieters to eat more. And it helped the broader mission- it helped the dieters to feel full, which made it easier for them to control their portions at meal time.
There you have it! Sometimes you have to make life a little easier, wash your juicer a little less and reap more rewards [nutrients] than you would if you didn’t implement any of the desired habit at all. Once you do that, you can have your juice and your muffin too (because you’re going to have a lot of pulp)! Stay tuned for more juice-of-the-week concoctions as I drink my way through the year and instill healthy habits!
Fresh Juice
apple, beet, orange, lemon, carrot
Juicer Pulp Muffins/Scones (Vegan)
Makes 18 muffins/scones
Ingredients
1 cup juicer pulp (I used the apple/beet/orange/lemon/carrot combo)
1/2 cup organic blue agave syrup
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup local apple butter (sweetened with apple juice)
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup almond meal
¼ cup organic golden roasted flax seeds
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 Tsp. Cinnamon
1 Tsp. Sea Salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a muffin pan with olive oil.
In a large bowl, add the juicer pulp, making sure to remove any large pieces.
Add the agave, coconut oil, and applesauce. Stir to combine.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. The batter will be very thick.
Transfer the batter to the muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow to cool slightly, top with jam, and enjoy!
