Fresh Juice Overload?

June 3, 2004 1:10 AM

Fresh juice overload? I just bought a juicer the other day and this morning I made up a delicious blend of 3 granny smith apples, 3 carrots and about 2 cups of orange juice. I blended in Spirulina and enjoyed every drop. Later, I felt bloated, hot, and a little light headed. Another blend in the afternoon did pretty much the same thing to me again, as well as my gf. Nothing dire, but I'm wondering if I should be taking more precautions with this, or educating myself more, etc. Are we taxing our livers or something?

One possibility is that we brought on a little dehydration. Does it take a lot of water to metabolize this kind of concentrated fruit/veggie goodness?

posted by scarabic to Food & Drink (16 answers total)

AFAIR spirulina has a crapton of B vitamins, especially the B6 and B12. That'll get you pretty wired if you're not used to it.

And yeah, spirulina will make most people kind of bloaty.
posted by loquacious at 1:24 AM on June 3, 2004

Apples can generate gas. Try peeling them first. And that's a big shot of sugar to put in your system all at once, even if it is fruit sugar.
posted by fuzz at 3:07 AM on June 3, 2004

If the recipe you listed is for the two of you, it sounds very reasonable. If each one of you is ingesting that much, that's too much sugar and you're probably getting a glycemic rush.

Juice won't dehydrate you unless it gives you the runs, which it very well might at first. But it doesn't take water out of your body when you're adjusted to juicing.

The bloating may be from the spirulina. Some people (myself included) don't digest it well. You might substitute a little soy protein and juice some wheatgrass on the side if you're looking for chlorophyll. (DISCLAIMER: wheatgrass takes some adjusting to as well)

So cut that out of a couple of servings and see if the bloating subsides. Even if it does, you can try to reintroduce it because this could just be your bodies adjusting to regular juicing.

You're really going to like juicing once you get past this initial hurdle.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:24 AM on June 3, 2004

The sugar really kicks you in the ass if you're not usually big sugar-eaters. I usually moderate this by making the juice part beet juice and part carrot/apple. Adding more apple and minimizing the orange juice can also help with this. You can also mix the juice you make with some water, iced tea, or drink it with a lot of ice. Home made juice is also really fairly concentrated. The biggest thing I had to adjust to was not drinking a pint glass ful every time I made freash juice, but having smaller glasses over a longer period of time. We would take extra juice and freeze it into ice cubes that we'd toss into glasses of water or tea later on [this is extraplusgood with watermelon juice and lemonade]
posted by jessamyn at 6:12 AM on June 3, 2004 [1 favorite]

Dictionary.com has no entry for spirulina .

So wtf is it?
posted by dash_slot- at 6:23 AM on June 3, 2004

Good ol' Wikipedia
posted by mkultra at 6:42 AM on June 3, 2004

it's sometimes known as "super blue-green algae" - it's a tiny plant life skimmed from the ocean that is meant to be full of all kinds of vitamin goodness. I didn't know people got bloat-y from it, though. I use it off & on in my juice drinks.

I often go with apple carrot beet ginger juice, myself. I don't know if using beets and ginger would really cut down on sugar though... I think different people digest things differently; an ex of mine used to run into stomach trouble when she ate too many fruits and veggies, while I (pretty much literally) live off of them, without difficulty.
posted by mdn at 6:47 AM on June 3, 2004

Aren't beets packed with sugar? I know a lot of sugar comes from sugar beets...
posted by five fresh fish at 9:04 AM on June 3, 2004

Response by poster: I tolerate the spirulina pretty well. I've been putting it in smoothies for a while now. It must have been the sugar OD. I need to branch out of fruit a little bit and try beets, sweet potatoes, and greens. I guess going easy on the OJ is a good idea, as is holding the honey.
posted by scarabic at 10:00 AM on June 3, 2004

You had honey in there too? Yeah, I'm betting on the sugar overload.
posted by agregoli at 11:42 AM on June 3, 2004

Yeah, OJ is often an issue for people. i'd make the base apple. Carrots are definitely heavy in sugar, too. And as I implied above, I think beets are - as fff says, a lot of sugar is from sugar beets; dunno if our regular old beets are of the same stock or what, but beet juice is pretty sweet. Try a little kale or spinach to even it out a bit. And maybe celery? You also may want to try a blander apple than granny smiths... macintosh are lovely, still tart but not as harsh. Or rome... fuji may be a bit sweet...
posted by mdn at 12:03 PM on June 3, 2004

i'd make the base apple.
Most bought fruit drinks & juices have the same, check the ingredients next time. For cost savings, apples can be disguised easier then sold as whole "that" juice.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:43 PM on June 3, 2004

Another apple-carrot-beet(root)-ginger vote here. Ginger is good for settling the stomach.

I always dilute my juices with water - up to 1:1

You might want to try substituing the apples for pears as an alternative.
posted by i_cola at 2:34 PM on June 3, 2004

substituting
posted by i_cola at 2:50 PM on June 3, 2004

Juice lemons, and substitute beer for the apple juice.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:22 PM on June 3, 2004

It's the sugar, guaranteed. The thing about juicing is it concentrates the sugars with no buffer so they go right into the blood stream. Your insulin levels get shot up you feel great then the trouble starts. It's not like the juice you buy in the store from concentrate, where the natural sugars and nutrients are removed then artificial ones added back in. I always drink juicer juice like food, chew it, drink it very slowly over an hour or two, maybe with some other food. Helps a lot.

Also dont drink carrots or whatever every day you will create an allergy that way with such concentrated quantities of the same food.
posted by stbalbach at 9:24 PM on June 3, 2004