The celery juice train rode in a while ago.

But I only recently hopped on. Why? Because I don’t do diets, and fads, and trends, especially when it comes to wellness and food. In the day of social media, and everyone and their mother thinking they’re a professional and pushing this, that and the other supplement, it can be easy to get caught up in the noise. Like, if this person says she swears by this supplement and she’s skinny, has clear skin, sleeps perfectly, etc. well then xyz product must work. It’s why, at times, I’m hesitant to even share supplements I take or things I eat or don’t. Each of those is only one small piece of a puzzle, and everything is based on me knowing my body and what is best for me, years of trying things, testing things, keeping notes and talking to my medical professionals, and growing up in a family where we’ve been doing many of today’s “fads” long before mainstream even knew about them. We are all so unique that diet and supplements can’t ever be a one-size-fits all. Case in point- collagen. I finally decided to jump on the train. And you know what it gave me? Not shiny hair or long nails or wrinkle free skin. Nope, it gave me migraines. But I digress…

Today’s post isn’t to tell you that you MUST drink celery juice, or that something is wrong with you if you don’t, or that you’ll magically get a 6-pack if you start having a glass every morning {Spoiler alert: you won’t.}. I’m not here to lecture you on why celery juice is the best thing you can do for your health {It’s not.} and that it’s the cure-all to every diseases and ailment on this earth {Also not a thing}. But I am here to tell you that we do in fact enjoy drinking it {enjoy might be too generous of a word, but we have started craving it almost the same way we crave pizza…almost}, what it tastes and looks like, the benefits we’ve seen from incorporating it into our morning routine {not opinions, not quoting articles, what we ourselves have actually felt}, what we notice when we don’t have it and the simple recipe we follow to make our juice. Again, this isn’t an opinion piece, nor are we doctors . This is just an article about our personal experience drinking celery juice, the research we’ve done, why we like to drink it, what we ourselves have noticed form drinking it, our observations and why we wish we hadn’t waited quite so long to hop on the celery juice train

WHAT WE NOTICE WHEN WE DRINK CELERY JUICE

• More energy {this is the biggest one}

• More regular, if you know what I mean, ha! It’s almost instantaneous after drinking a glass of juice.

• Feeling lighter/not weighed down/not heavy and bloated {even if we are still bloated, we don’t have that heavy feeling that usually comes with bloating}

• Less brain fog + better focus, especially in the afternoons when energy typically starts to fade

• Clearer skin {Dave doesn’t really notice this, but I definitely see the difference in my skin}

• More restful sleep

• Less headaches and overall body aches and pains

WHAT WE NOTICE WHEN WE DON’T DRINK IT

The biggest thing we notice on the days we don’t have celery juice is the mid-afternoon energy slump and feeling ready for bed at the totally reasonable time of 5pm {and by reasonable, I mean, maybe if you live in nursing home}. On the days we do have it, though, we have so much more energy, straight through until at least 10pm…ok, maybe 9pm, if I’m being honest. We also feel more weighed down and, personally, for me, if I don’t have the juice for a few days I notice my pores getting clogged up and my skin starts breaking out and my migraines start coming back.

CELERY JUICE RECIPE

1 inch nub of fresh ginger {we add to this to help with nausea}

1/2 a lemon {we don’t do this every day; also, there are claims that it negates the other benefits of having celery juice}

6-8 stalks of celery {we juice the leaves, but you can remove those for a slightly less bitter taste}

Add everything to your juicer {this is the juicer we have, which we love because it’s a bit more compact, making it great for smaller kitchens}. I like to juice the ginger and lemon first, then add in the celery. We make ours fresh every morning, but I’ve heard you can make it up to 24 hours in advance and store it in an airtight jar in the refrigerator until you’re ready to drink it.

NUTRIENTS + BENEFITS

Celery is full of vitamins and nutrients, such as vitamin K, potassium, folate, magnesium and vitamin B6. It also has natural electrolytes so it helps with dehydration. Outside of helping with hydration, benefits are claimed to include healing digestion, lowering blood pressure, healing eczema and psoriasis, helping to reduce acne, lowering inflammation, increasing hydration, keeping your liver detoxified and healthy, getting rid of migraines, making insomnia a thing of the past and so much more. For more information, a few articles to check out are this one, this one and this one. Obviously, I’m not a doctor, so please also do your own research {I’ve literally been researching this topic for over a year} and talk to your own medical professionals and doctors about any questions or concerns you may have.

WHY WE DECIDED TO START DRINKING THE JUICE

I’ve briefly mentioned some health issues I’ve had for the last couple of years, but for the reasons I’ve mentioned above, I’ve never really gone into too much detail. One of the symptoms I, and now Dave, have been dealing with, though, is serious bloating {I look like a pregnant elephant…on a good day}, so we’ve been eating a primarily LOW FODMAP diet {Please note- we do not stick to this while traveling, and celery is not considered LOW FODMAP. And if you want to lecture me about something we shouldn’t be doing, first re-read my intro. Secondly, just don’t, unless you’re a doctor}.

GETTING STARTED

We eased into drinking celery juice by starting with smaller amounts and working our way up. It initially made us a bit nauseous, so we started trying a few different combinations of things- plain celery, celery and lemon, celery with mint and lemon, adding ginger and ginger, lemon and celery. We eventually settled on the recipe I’m sharing below, though I want to note that experts say pure celery juice is the only way to achieve the full benefits.

And a little TMI {but you know I like to keep it real}, outside of some nausea, the first few days of drinking the juice also resulted in looser, almost diarrhea-like stools. This is the result of your system detoxify and cleaning itself so don’t be alarmed by this and know that it only lasts a few days.

WHAT IT TASTES + LOOKS LIKE

It’s definitely got a bit of a spicy kick from the ginger and a bit of sourness from the lemon, but outside of that, it actually tastes pretty salty, and, while, like celery.

As far as how it looks, its always a varying shade of green. Sometimes it’s darker, almost like the plant in these photos, sometimes it’s lighter, like it is here in these pictures {we notice ours is lighter if we use celery from the store versus the farmer’s market, and if we put in lemon}.