Not feeling a pricey juice cleanse? Try a homemade one instead

 

 

By Natalie Dressed

LOGISTICS
Last week Seth and I decided to do a 3-day juice cleanse. The cleanse was Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and we I prepped by eating as raw as possible the 2-3 days before that. I didn't have the dedication to go completely raw, but I didn't notice any negative effects on the cleanse despite that. We used the recipes found here, which are based off the BluePrint Cleanse.

I went to the farmers market on Sunday to get the majority of the ingredients, which I highly recommend as you can get fresh, organic produce for really great prices (and you're supporting local farmers). I made sure we had enough to make all of Wednesday's juices on Tuesday night. On Wednesday evening, we had to run to the grocery store to grab more apples, beets, and lemons for the last two days. I didn't want to get all the ingredients at the same time because when there's two people doing it, it's a lot of stuff and our kitchen isn't that big. (For example, one person needs 15 apples for all 3 days. Since there were two of us, we decided not to buy 30 apples in one day, but instead split it up a bit so we didn't have to worry about storing 30 apples.)

I'm not sure exactly how much we spent because we bought some other things we needed and lots of fruit for the few days before the cleanse, but my guess is that we spent somewhere between $100-$150 for both of us for all 3 days (between the farmers market and grocery store), which is way cheaper than buying a cleanse. Also, I highly recommend buying a case of standard 16 oz water bottles. I bought a case of 24 for around $5 thinking we would just use the bottles for our juices, but you need filtered water for the cashew milk and spicy lemonade so we ended up using the water too. It worked out perfectly.

Making the juices at home was significantly cheaper, but it was also a lot of work. The first night I juiced everything by myself and it took about 2.5 hours total. Seth helped me the following two nights and since we had already done it once, we got the hang of it and cut the time down to about an hour. Not bad at all. I can see how buying a cleanse would be worth it in terms of convenience though. It's really just a matter of what you can afford and how much time you're willing to put into it.
  

 

 

The chart above shows the recipes in a more visually appealing way and varies just slightly from the original recipes based on what we did.

Please note: We doubled all of these recipes since there two of us. When we doubled the green juice recipe, it actually made 4 juices instead of 2. So if you're doing this solo, you probably only need to make 1 green juice and will get enough for 2. Of course this isn't a perfect science, but it's something to note.

We both liked all of the juices. The P.A.M. is nothing short of delicious and would make a really good cocktail. The spicy lemonade was tart for us, but it helped take our appetite away. The cashew milk is delish! It could totally be a milkshake substitute.

Here's a shopping list for you so you don't have to add everything up!