about the gather juice co. cleanse
So, you're thinking about a juice cleanse. Awesome!
First and foremost, we want to be clear that we do not believe a juice cleanse is a weight loss plan. While you might drop a couple of pounds, this is a byproduct, not the end goal. Without getting into the science-y details too much, significant caloric restriction over time actually changes your metabolism in such a way that the restricted calories become your body's new "normal" and this can actively work against any weight loss efforts.
cleanse structure
our juice cleanse is structured intentionally to make the process as easy and as enjoyable as possible. each cleanse includes 4 juices + 1 nut milk per day for a total of 5 bottles. our 3 day cleanse includes a total of fifteen 16 oz bottles. our 5 day cleanse includes a total of twenty five 16 oz bottles.
Breakfast (Dense Nutrients): Pick your greens. Choose between OG Greens (kale, spinach, cucumber, celery, lime, cilantro), Goldilocks (kale, cucumber, celery, Granny Smith apple, lemon ginger) or Sweet Greens (kale, chard, spinach, parsley, fuji apple).
Snack (Detox): Not Only Celery (celery, cucumber, lemon). This is a functional juice intended to support your body's natural detoxifying pathways. But if it's too veggie forward, you can choose to substitute Sunrise (fuji apple, Granny Smith apple, lemon, ginger).
Lunch (Energy): Night Vision (carrot, fuji apple, lemon ginger) or Pineapple Express (pineapple, cucumber, granny smith apple, mint).
Dinner (Grounding): Roots (beet, fuji apple, carrot, lemon, ginger), OG Greens (kale, spinach, cucumber, celery, lime, cilantro), or Goldilocks (kale, cucumber, celery, granny smith apple, lemon, ginger).
Post-Dinner (Sleep Support): Cashew Mylk Dreams. We've intentionally included a nut milk as the healthy fats from the milk will help ensure your sleep is not interrupted due to the very low calorie nature of a cleanse. If you're allergic to cashews, we can sub Oat Milk. Or, if you've cleansed before and prefer to substitute an additional green juice, that's an option too.
Optional Add Ons
Our optional add ons can make a cleanse easier and more enjoyable if you're worried about being hungry. Since our philosophy on cleansing is focused on resetting eating habits and listening to your body, eating during a cleanse is absolutely not failing at a cleanse.
Add a Daily Wellness Shot: A daily 2 oz. shot of our Ginger, Lemon, Turmeric Wellness shot.
Add a Daily Smoothie: Pick up a discounted daily smoothie from the shop each day during your cleanse.
Add Salads: Add one Winter Kale Salad as a backup snack or a salad each day during your cleanse.
Add Meal Bars: Add one Off the Farm Meal Bar as a back up snack or a bar each day during your cleanse. Pick your flavors when you pick up your cleanse.
Cleanse benefits
Reset
First, cleanse can be like a reset button. Sometimes, due to the busyness of life, we all can get just a little off track from eating in a way that makes us feel our best. It starts with a couple of pieces of birthday cake at a kid's part and can quickly devolve into eating takeout and drinking a soda every night and washing it down with a dessert of milk and cookies. Don't get us wrong, if you're doing exactly that right now and you feel great and you're happy about it, by all means continue. But if you feel a little off track, we find that a cleanse can help. A juice cleanse provides a sort of hard stop to what you're doing now and some time without thinking too much about current meals to plan what you want to be doing around food. Many people also find that, after three to five days of drinking clean, nutrient packed juice that they feel like continuing with healthy food, that it's what they're craving.
examine your relationship with food
Next, a cleanse can be a way to examine your relationship with food. If you've ever found yourself unconsciously snacking on the peanut butter filled pretzels and red vines in the break room at work when you intended to have a salad for lunch and skip sugar for the day you might understand what we mean. Sometimes it goes deeper than that and we eat emotionally instead of eating to nourish our bodies. By removing the option of food and snacking for a few days while providing your body with plenty of vitamins, enzymes and nutrients from juice, it's possible to take a step back and become more conscious of your patterns around food. And, by becoming more conscious of those habits you can actively decide whether they're habits you want to continue.
Other Benefits
The concentrated nature of juice (you’re unlikely to eat a half pound of kale but you can easily drink a half pound of kale in a single juice!) means that you’re getting tons more vitamins, minerals and enzymes that you likely consume in a regular day of eating.
A cleanse can help rid your body of toxins. This happens two ways. First (and this is especially true if you’ve been eating a lot of highly processed foods from bags or boxes), simply consuming the juice from raw fruits and vegetables instead of these highly processed foods means your body can really focus on ridding itself of toxins. Second, since no significant energy is focused on digestion of the most recent meal, your body can go into what you can think of as a sort of spring cleaning mode.
A cleanse can also help reduce chronic inflammation, help with autoimmune diseases, and help to determine food sensitivities. We’re definitely not doctors and you should talk to your doctor if you have concerns around autoimmunity or chronic inflammation, but we’ve linked a few articles from sources we trust at the bottom of the page.
What makes the Gather Juice Co. Cleanse different?
A cleanse from Gather Juice Co. has two significant benefits over other cleanses you may find.
First, our juice is cold pressed. This is important because cold pressed juice has a higher nutrient content immediately after juicing.
One test found that Vitamin A in carrot juice was 15% higher, Folate was more than 16% higher and Vitamin C in Kale was 13% higher in cold pressed juice vs juice made on a centrifugal juicer right after the juice was made. See those results here.
Another test found that cold pressed juice retained it's higher nutrient content better than juice made on a centrifugal juicer. In that test, Vitamin A in a green juice blend dropped 35% by 48 hours after juicing on a centrifugal juicer and remained basically unchanged in the cold pressed juice. Vitamin C also remained unchanged in the cold pressed juice while dropping 20% in the juice made on a centrifugal juicer. By 72 hours, Vitamin A had dipped just about 10% in the cold pressed juice while the centrifugal sample lost 46% of it's Vitamin A. See those results here.
Juicing is all about maximizing intake of key nutrients, so we think it's important that you know you're maximize the nutrient bang for your buck.
The second significant benefit of a Gather Juice Co. cleanse over other available cleanses is that our juice is raw and unpasteurized. Juice for our cleanses is made fresh for your pickup (which is why we require 3 days lead time) and no juice in our shop was made more than 72 hours prior. A pasteurized juice -- that's any bottled juice that you can purchase at the grocery store, it's cleanses that are delivered from non-local vendors, and it's even bottled juices that you can purchase from some juice shops and coffee spots -- is considered by the FDA to be shelf stable for 45 days! First: yuck. Second: if you take into account the nutrient loss outlined above at just 72 hours after juicing, that says some pretty rough things about how much good stuff is still left in that juice.
As a third point, when you purchase a cleanse from Gather Juice Co., you're supporting a local Tacoma business. We're a little biased and think that's pretty important 😉.
Please note that we require 72 hour prep time for standard juice cleanse orders (for example order on Tuesday to pick up Friday). We do this to ensure you have every option available for each juice. if you need your cleanse sooner you can choose the quick pickup cleanse, ready 3 hours from the time you place your order, but limited to available inventory on hand.
Still have questions? keep scrolling for a list of frequently asked questions.
frequently asked questions
What's included in the cleanse?
Our standard cleanse is 4 juices and 1 nut milk per day. Start the day with a nutrient dense green juice, choose a detoxifying juice for a midmorning snack, pick something on the sweeter side for midday energy at lunch, enjoy a grounding root-based juice for dinner and have a delicious nut mylk with healthy fats before bed.
Do I need to do anything to get ready for a cleanse?
It depends. You can absolutely start and complete a cleanse successfully without any preparation at all. If you want to go hard and get the absolute most out of your cleanse, here's what we re commend: if you eat meat, try to phase it out starting about three days before you start your cleanse. We'd also recommend that you tart to phase out any caffeine, alcohol and sugary beverages. The day immediately prior to your start day, try to lean into soups, smoothies, raw fruits and veggies.
Can I eat during the cleanse? What if I feel like I'm going to gnaw my arm off with hunger?
You can literally do whatever you want. There's no wrong way to cleanse. Trust you body.
If you're ravenously hungry, a big green salad without meat or dairy with a clean oil and balsamic dressing is a good option. So is broth or soup.
That said, we'd encourage you to be conscious of wether you're actually hungry or if maybe it's a time that you're used eating so you're "hungry" out of habit. Another possibility is that you're emotionally "hungry". Are you spontaneously starving after a tough conversation with your partner or a stern talking to from your boss? What might that mean for you?
How often can cleanse?
This is really about listening to your body.
Some people like to cleanse once a year, some once a quarter, some once a month. Others really like to cleanse after a time when they know they may have a tendency to over indulge in foods that don't make them feel great (we're looking at you Thanksgiving).
Can I exercise during a cleanse?
By all means! Our only recommendation is to be aware of the signals your body is sending you.
If you're a hard charger, be aware of the fact that you're consuming fewer calories on a cleanse than you would otherwise. If you start to feel tired, maybe slow it down a little.