Preparing for the Produce Onslaught

After the New Year, I will begin something called the GAPS Diet. (GAPS = Gut and Psychology Syndrome). For the first month or so, I'll subsist on meat and seafood broths and soups made with meat and seafood broths. After about the third week, I'll be allowed to add in some meat, so long as it isn't barbecued or fried. Roasted or boiled is the only way to go, apparently.

Also, I'll be drinking juices, because they're super-important in making sure I get all of my nutrients, and they also help with detoxification. Needless to say, these aren't the Welch's Grape Juice variety of juice. No, these are serious, kale- and spinach-based juices meant to alkalize your body, which apparently removes toxins lurking in your liver.

Lurking... in... your... liver...

Right.

My kitchen has a whopping 12 square feet of counter space, which probably sounds like a lot, but isn't. When you account for the fact that I have hardly any undercounter storage (three narrow drawers and two cabinets with doors, plus a ridiculously tiny and inefficient pantry), and so I have to store my kitchen towels, utensils, and blender on the countertop, it's reduced down to about 2 square feet of prep space.

I am not exaggerating.

In order to do the GAPS Diet properly, I have to make my own juices, and NOT in a blender, because the first two weeks requires a reduction in fiber to give your intestines time to heal. Or something. So I have to get a juicer.

Do you have any idea how expensive juicers can be? Particularly the kind that are required to handle leafy greens?

They're expensive. The *best* ones are in the $250+ range.

I'm a grad student. $250 juicers are not an option, at this point in my life. And they're also enormous.

So I bought a smaller juicer - $99, hooray! - that was recommended by a few "juicing gurus" as a good starter model. Hopefully, they made good recommendations.

I've also been researching juice recipes. Specifically, juice recipes that fall in the "Green Drink" category. Some of them have names like "Mean Green Drink," "Mean Green Drink #2," and "Mean Green Drink #3," because f**k creativity, amirite?

But then there are those that tell you exactly what their purpose is - and their purpose reaches beyond being mean and green. They have names like "The Liver Scrubber" and "Celery Detox," neither of which conjures happy mental images.

+

Well, not exactly "happy" mental images... But boy, are they ever mental images!

I've also purchased a hand-held immersion mixer-thingy, because they're easier to use than pouring everything into a blender and dealing with all of that nonsense.

So, in the future - the very near future - I will be living on a liquid food diet. Only for a couple of weeks, though, and then I get to move on to mushy over-cooked vegetables. Hooray! Also, some overcooked fruit, too, which should be a little better-tasting, I hope...

So, liquid foods. Well-done meat and seafood. Mushy veggies (I intend to just puree them and pretend I'm a 12-month-old again).

... ... ... ...

Did I mention I get to drink ginger tea?