green juice – Chef V's Blog

Omega 3s: Can You Get Enough of this Critical Nutrient From Plants?

November 11, 2022 admin

Omega 3’s in veggies such as those in my Green Drink are an excellent source of this critical nutrient. Lots of people know that certain fish are rich in omega 3’s. But did you know there’s plenty of excellent vegan and vegetarian sources as well?

Before I became “Chef V,” I was–and still am–a certified nutritional therapist. A nutritional therapist works with people to alleviate (and prevent) diseases through food, and believes that the best way to correct imbalances in the body is through diet.

Out of any nutrient or topic in my nutritional therapy program, omega 3 essential fatty acids was perhaps the biggest bulk of the curriculum.

And for good reason. Most people eating a Standard American Diet (SAD; how appropriate is the acronym, by the way, right?) consume far too little omega-3s. And far too many omega-6s.

Both 3s and 6s are important for health. They are both essential, which means you have to get them from your diet; your body can’t manufacture them on its own.

But junk, processed and packaged foods are made with cheap cooking oils. These oils (the most common in packaged/prepared foods are cottonseed and soybean) contain way more omega 6s than 3s. And the problem with having too much processed forms of omega 6s is that it causes inflammation

Omega 3s in Veggies: Powerful Inflammation Fighters

Inflammation can manifest in several different ways, from weight gain to joint pain.

But Omega 3 essential fatty acids can help reduce inflammation in the body. They also help lower cholesterol levels and normalize blood pressure, and increase insulin sensitivity.

Moreover, 3s can help prevent heart disease, prevent memory loss and even help women have a less painful PMS.

There are several other health benefits from omega 3s.

But what I want to focus on here is omega 3s in veggies. That’s because most of the attention given to this topic is from one food in particular: wild salmon.

Now, don’t get me wrong, as a nutritional therapist, I strongly believe wild salmon is indeed one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. I’ve created several recipes featuring it.

What to do, though, if you’re vegan or a vegetarian who doesn’t eat fish?

For one, begin your day with 16 oz. of Organic Green Drink.

There is no exact recommendation for how much omega 3s you should get from either supplements or food everyday. But experts believe you should have at least 500 mg. Organic green drink contains a very decent amount of 3s, over 20% of that amount per 16 oz serving.

If you have any health complications, you should probably have way more than 500 mg per day.

Omega 3s in Veggies: Good For Your Skin!

It doesn’t take a degree in nutrition to realize that eating a diet consisting of mostly plants is better for your skin.

It turns out that omega 3s are an important nutrient for skin. These essential fatty acids help with skin hydration, and normalize the amount of oil. DHA is one of the three fatty acids in omega 3s. It’s the most important of the three for skin health, as it also can help prevent acne, wrinkles, and blemishes.

EPA is another omega 3 fatty acid. It also plays an important role in skin health. If you worship the sun like I do, you’ll be glad to know EPA prevents collagen damage when you’ve been in the sun too long.

Omega 3s in Veggies: As Good As Fish

Mainstream nutrition courses teach that EPA and DHA are more potent sources of 3s than ALA, the third fatty acid. Unfortunately, if you’re vegan, the conventional point of view is that ALA does not convert well into the more potent EPA and DHA.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t get the health benefits of 3s if you’re vegan. It might mean, however, you just need to eat more variety of foods rich in ALA.

Besides the veggies in my green drink, great sources of ALA are chia seeds, walnuts, flax seeds, hemp seeds, and spinach.

You can get sufficient omega 3s in your diet from vegan sources. However, if you do have a compromised immune system or other health problem, you might want to consider taking a supplement.

That obviously means that if you’re vegan, you’re not going to take cod liver oil or other fish oil supplement.

However, what you can take is an algal oil supplement. Marine algae is a sea vegetable, which makes algal (or algae) oil one of the best omega 3s in veggie sources on the planet, if not the best.

According to Berkeley Wellness, algal-oil supplements can produce similar improvements in blood DHA levels to fish-oil supplements. This was true both in vegans and had low levels of DHA to start and in omnivores, who had higher levels of DHA at baseline.

The only bummer about algal oil supplements is that they are more expensive than fish oil. But in the long run, the money that you’ll save preventing disease will be totally worth it.

Omega 3s in Veggies: Can You Get Enough Without Fish

If you’re not vegan and are able to eat wild salmon a couple times a week, you’ll probably consume enough 3s in your diet.

However, for those who consume no animal products, ALA is inactive in the human body. And as I say above, it doesn’t convert that well into EPA and DHA, the two other omega 3s that, in studies, have shown positive impacts on health.

That’s why if you are vegan or strict vegetarian, your eating philosophy should not only be not eating meat, but also eating plants an overwhelming majority of the time. Just like people who do eat meat should do as well.

I personally believe Mother Nature provided us with all the nutrients we need from plants. But EPA and DHA, which are abundant in salmon, might be my exception to the rule.

For this reason, if you avoid animal products, eat a lot of flax-, chia- and hemp seeds. To be on the safe side, splurge on an algae oil supplement.

And don’t forget to start your day with Green Drink!

Consumer Reports on Green Juice: Chef V Excels

August 30, 2022 admin

Consumer Reports on Green Drink

What’s the healthiest green drink? According to an article on Consumer Reports, some of the most popular brands fail to meet their strict criteria for what constitutes a healthy green juice. And according to what Consumer Reports says, my recipe has all the features they regard as healthy, and none of the unhealthy. My Green Drink passes with flying (green) colors!

Recently, the hugely influential consumer advocacy research entity, Consumer Reports, investigated the health claims of leading brands of green juices. Although Chef V wasn’t specifically mentioned, I want to show you how my recipe stacks up against the most popular green juices. Does my Green Drink meet the stringent criteria of what Consumer Reports considers a healthy green juice? Actually, scratch that. We don’t merely want to meet the criteria. We want to blow it out of the water…. And we do.

The report paints a picture of the green drink health craze. What was once a niche product not even a decade ago is now a mainstream product. But as Consumer Reports cautions, not all green juices are good for you.

The Consumer Reports says you should check for sugar, a high veggie to fruit ratio, fiber, and level of sodium when purchasing a bottle of green juice. And we meet or excel in all of them! Just check out the calorie and sugar comparison chart below!

Green Drink Comparison

Healthiest Green Drink: watch out for sugar

We’re not into naming names and pointing fingers when it comes to our competition. But Consumer Reports does. So we’ll let them do the dirty work. And the first brand that Consumer Reports mentions is Naked Juice. Naked Juice is owned by PepsiCo. You don’t need to have a Ph.D. in nutrition to know that consuming lots of sugar is bad for you. However, Naked Juice Green Machine contains a whopping 53 grams of sugar. That’s even more sugar than in a bottle of PepsiCo’s regular Pepsi soda, which contains about 40 grams of sugar in a can.

When a product is named “Green Machine,” the consumer probably assumes there’s lots of healthy, high-fiber green veggies. However, one may regard the name Green Machine as false advertising. That’s because there’s far more fruit than low-sugar green veggies in Green Machine. And it’s the fruit that gives Green Machine its high sugar content. Eating a small portion of whole fruit won’t skyrocket your blood sugar levels, which ultimately results in a sugar crash. But drinking lots of fruit sugar will.

Moreover, the case for false advertising is strengthened when considering what it says on Naked Juice’s Green Machine label: “no added sugars.” This gives the consumer the impression that it’s a healthy product. But if you were to swallow a quarter cup of table sugar, which is the same amount as in a bottle of Green Machine, you’re also not consuming any “added sugars.” Does that mean it’s healthy? Of course not. In fact, Consumer Reports cautions about the label on Green Machine, “don’t be misled.”

Green Drink comparison nutritional labels

Healthiest Green Juice: high veggie to low fruit ratio

How does Chef V Green Drink fare in Consumer Reports’ criteria for being low in sugar? One 8 oz. serving of Green Drink contains only 3 grams of sugar. Go ahead if you want: drink a whole 16 oz. bottle. That’s only 6 grams of sugar.

The reason Chef V’s Green Drink is so low in sugar is because it contains a lot of vegetables and a minimal amount of fruit. As Consumer Reports explains, “Green drinks that are heavy on apple or other fruit juices have significantly higher levels of sugars than those that are mostly vegetable juice. Although the sugars in fruit juice are naturally present (not added) and fruit juice provides some nutrients, the sugars are processed by your body in the same way the added sugars in soda are.”

Green Machine is not the only Naked Juice offering to be slammed by Consumer Reports. In Naked Juice Pressed Citrus Lemongrass, three of the four top ingredients are fruit juices. Although there’s almost half the sugar in this juice in comparison with Green Machine, it still contains a whopping 33 grams of sugars per 12-ounce serving.

In light of this, Consumer Reports warns, “Beware of drinks that look green but are essentially fruit-juice blends.”

That’s no problem with Chef V Green Drink. It contains seven certified organic green leafy veggies. And it only has a tiny bit of just one fruit (apple).

Healthiest Green Juice: contains fiber

Fiber is a nutrient that helps you feel full. It also helps push waste out your colon. And fiber also helps slow down the rush of sugar into your bloodstream. But most green juices don’t contain any fiber (bad news if you’re drinking a green juice with 50 grams of sugar). Consumer Reports explains why:

“When you press vegetables to extract their juice, you usually leave the fiber behind.”

We had this fact in mind when we came up with the processing method for our Green Drinks. Instead of pressing the veggies, we cold-blend them. The cold-blending method preserves the fiber contained in the skin of the veggies.

“Unfortunately, most bottled green juices contain less than a gram of fiber,” says the report. But each 16 oz. serving of Chef V Green Drink contains two grams of fiber. That’s a pretty healthy way to start each morning by drinking 7 certified organic green leafy veggies that help you detoxify and contain fiber.

And if you eat one salad for lunch with greens and cook a dinner with them, you’ll get more than enough fiber in your diet.

Healthiest Green Juice: low in sodium

Most green juices aren’t very high in sodium. That’s because fruits and veggies are naturally low in sodium. Most of them. But some brands of green juices contain as their primary ingredient veggies that contain the most sodium in the plant kingdom. Celery comes to mind. Consumer Reports says Starbucks-owned Evolution Fresh’s Essential Greens contains 300 mg of sodium per serving. In comparison, Chef V Green Drink contains less than a tenth of that amount: 24 mg.

Sodium from natural sources aren’t that much of a health concern. However, considering most Americans consume far too much of it from heavily-processed foods, it’s probably prudent to eliminate extra sources of sodium.

Healthiest Green Juice: final verdict

The Consumer Reports article on green juice contains a couple other factors to consider: serving size and label claims. As for the former, we already mentioned that even if you have a 16 oz serving of Chef V Green Drink, you’re only consuming 6 grams of sugar. And as for the latter, we’ll let our customers’ success stories speak for themselves.

Of course we wish Consumer Reports would have mentioned Chef V in their article. It’s definitely our goal that Chef V Green Drink becomes a household name. In the meantime, we take pride knowing that our Green Drink would far exceed the criteria put forth in the Consumer Reports article.

Lunch in a Hurry

July 30, 2021 Chef V

Lunch in a Hurry

Lunch in a Hurry
I’ve built my little Green Drink and Cleanse/Detox empire over the last decade in part by telling people what to eat. A big reason why I created my Making Cleansing Easier E-Cookbook along with all the other Healthy Eating Resources you get when you’re on a Green Drink Plan is because when I first started Chef V, I was asked the question so many times, “Hey Veronica, what should I eat?”

But I can’t believe that in all this time, I haven’t really addressed the more specific question, “What should I eat if I’m always in a hurry?”

I’ll provide you with some healthy on-the-go eating tips in a bit. First, though, let me start with the obvious….

Healthy Lunch For the Type A Corporate Go-Getter

I have dozens of healthy recipes in my cookbook, Making Cleansing Easier, which you get as a bonus when you purchase a Green Drink plan or do one of my Cleanses or 21 Day Detox.

But let me just give you some general guidelines for what I consider a healthy lunch. Before I give you some concrete ingredients, let’s cover the key elements of a healthy lunch. As a certified nutritional therapist, here’s what I consider essential criteria for a healthy lunch:

It’s nutrient dense
It keeps you full for hours (no snack needed in between lunch and dinner)
Fills your belly but doesn’t bloat it
Doesn’t make you feel tired after eating
Doesn’t make you crave carbs or a sugary snack after eating

In order to achieve all these goals, here are the 4 general things that you’ll need:

A low-starch grain
Low-starch vegetables
Lean, high-quality protein (organic, grass-fed, wild)
Healthy natural fat

Although everybody is different, most people do well when they have the following ratio of the above 4 components of a healthy lunch:

2-3 fist-size scoops of healthy grains
Half a dinner-plate size of veggies
1-2 fist-size portions of lean protein
1-2 tablespoons of oil and/or a quarter of an avocado (the healthy fats)

Now then, let’s create a simple recipe:

Quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, 100% whole wheat couscous, millet, amaranth, buckwheat
Steamed or lightly stir-fried broccoli and/or any other low-starch veggies like asparagus, cauliflower, etc.
Organic chicken, wild salmon, free-range bison, etc.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Herbs and spices to taste

Check out my Super Food Power Salad from my book, below.

Lunch in a Hurry - super food power salad

Making Lunch Healthier & Easier

OK, so maybe by now you’re thinking, “But Chef V, ain’t nobody got time to make lunch like that every single day!” And you know what? You’re absolutely right. Hopefully, though, you have at least some free time just one day a week to make a huge serving of this healthy lunch.

Devote a certain time to cooking on the weekends, say Sunday afternoon. Listen to your favorite music, or a podcast, or get your Netflix on. It shouldn’t take you more than about a half hour to make this meal. Store it in a reusable container that you can take to work and quickly heat up.

In a perfect world, you’d eat your lunch slowly, concentrating on nothing but the repeated act of chewing, meditating on how each bite tastes. But again, ain’t nobody got time for that, right? Well, if that’s the case, it’s better to chow down for 5 minutes with this healthy lunch than it is to shove some PFAS-laden fast food down your throat.

The truth is that the answer to the question, “What should I eat for lunch if I’m in a hurry,” is the same as for the question, “What should I eat for lunch?”

In addition to my E-Recipe Book, I have tons of recipes for you on my blog.

To your health,

Veronica
Founder, Chef V

Chef V

What Are The Benefits Of A Blended Juice Cleanse?

July 14, 2020 Chef V

Veronica's blended juice cleanse

Everyone knows a blended juice cleanse can benefit weight loss. But that’s just the beginning. For example, did you know a blended green juice can benefit your digestion, energy levels, and brain function?

After our recent vacation, I did a 5 day Chef V cleanse (natch!). I’m feeling revitalized, and lost a couple of pounds. Read on to learn about the many benefits of my cleanse.

Veronica's blended juice cleanse

Weight Loss

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the main benefits of a cleanse is weight loss.

Doing a blended juice cleanse or detox for a couple of days helps clean out the digestive system. This helps kick-start your body to get into weight loss mode. You’re burning more calories than you’re ingesting.

A recent study showed that weight loss was not only possible on a juice to cleanse, but that the weight loss is maintained weeks after. The participants lost about 3lbs on average after a 3-day juice cleanse. These same participants two weeks later had maintained a 2lb weight loss.
Another main reason people lose weight after a juice cleanse is because of a lack of appetite – especially on blended juices.

The body is getting all the vitamins and minerals it needs from the blended juices – this is because all of the produce and its fibers are still in the juice when it is blended vs just juiced. To the shock of many, they find themselves being perfectly satisfied during their cleanse. Maybe not the first time around as it can feel a bit odd, but if you begin doing regular cleanses you will find it easier and easier.

While juice cleanses and detoxes can help you lose weight, the best way to maintain a healthy lifestyle is to incorporate blended green juice into your diet combined with healthy eating and being active.

weight loss with mixed juice cleanse

Gut Bacterial Changes

Another benefit of a blended green juice cleanse is mitigating gut pain and digestion problems.

A blended vegetable juice cleanse is meant to help clean up our digestive system and improve digestive health. The study mentioned earlier concluded that cleanses increased the amounts of some health-promoting bacteria and lowered the number of bacteria that cause illness.

There are around 40 trillion bacteria in your body, most of which are in your intestines. This bacteria is called the microbiome. The more healthy bacteria the better. Different bacteria help break down different foods and aid our body in being able to absorb the nutrients, minerals, and vitamins that we need.

Fruits and vegetables are the best sources of nutrients for a healthy microbiota. This is because they are high in fiber, which can’t be digested by your body. However, fiber can be digested by certain bacteria in your gut, which stimulates their growth.

digestive system

Give Your Digestive System a Rest

Our digestive systems work extremely hard all day long digesting our meals. An organic juice cleanse offers our gut a bit of a break.

Not having to exert energy to break down food offers your body all that extra strength for properly digesting and absorbing nutrients. Chef V green drinks are jam-packed with nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. These nutrients will benefit your metabolism and ensure you look and feel slim.

reduce bloating

Reduce Bloating

Many of us struggle with bloating on a regular basis, especially women. This can be caused by eating too many inflammatory foods. This includes dairy, gluten, and alcohol. When doing a 3- or 5-day liquid cleanse you are detoxing your gut from these bloating triggers.

While you do lose between 1-3 pounds on a 3-day cleanse, you will feel like you’ve lost 10! This is because you’ve debloated and are now enjoying a tighter tummy.

Mental Health & Sleep Improvements

You will experience a bunch of different slight changes when you’re detoxing on an organic juice cleanse.

Mental clarity is something that you will benefit from on our cleanse. This is mostly due to there being more room in your brain! No more meal planning, shopping, or dedicating hours of your day to cooking. Your next meal is already planned to eliminate mealtime stress.

Many people who do the Chef V cleanse have also reported better sleep. Toxins, high blood sugar, and too much caffeine can disrupt natural sleep patterns and prevent you from getting a solid night’s rest. A one-day blended juice cleanse is just enough time to allow your body to remove these disruptors and focus on resting.

Even doing a one-day cleanse can put you to bed faster and you will wake up feeling detoxed, fresh, and energized. You will no longer experience a ‘crash’ from eating too many carbohydrates and can also help stabilize your sugar levels.

Is a Chef V Organic Cleanse Right for Me

Whether you want a 1-, 3-, 5-, or even 21-day cleanse, Chef V has you covered.

If you’re just starting a major weight loss journey or just want to debloat for an event, we have a cleanse plan for you. Including our signature green drink, blended vegetable soups, and protein shakes. We help people accomplish all different types of goals.

Chef V