Recently I have been feeling soooo tired. Not as in lazy – I really really want to get all of my things done – just down right tirrreddddddd. That incredibly heavy feeling, where one’s very fingers seem weighted by lead. Sound familiar?
This all came to a culmination during the course of last week. It got so bad that I had a mini breakdown – and decided to take a nap. For someone who works from home, napping on a weekday is totally not cool. Working from home sounds super efficient and with it – when you get a lot of stuff done. If you do not get much done, then within the space of a few hours it can make one feel like a failure. Bizarre!
Anyway, when I saw my poor man freaking out saying things like “You are not allowed to be not okay!” I realised it was time to take action. I was pretty sure that it was an iron deficiency. +20% of women have lower than recommended levels of iron. We need about 18 mg per day, as opposed to the 8-10 mg a day that men need! Take into account that they usually eat larger quantities of food, and we of course lose blood every month as well, and it all makes sense.
So – iron supplements… Did you know that iron supplements should only be used if you have had your blood tested and the results show that the iron levels are low. Then the supplements should be administered with weekly monitoring. Which means you need to trundle off for a blood test. All the time.
So I decided to go all natural and juice!
I ticked off spinach and hemp leaves as my two top sources of iron. Because neither of these yield up much juice in a juicer – just a lot of cleaning of components! – I decided to do a ‘cold infusion’. This is my special term for banging a bunch of leaves in a bucket of water, and giving a half a dozen whizzes with my stick blender. : P
Very complicated as you can see.
How Long to Blend
The only consideration here is how long to blend. Now the reason why I did not go with just a regular green smoothie for this iron fix is because I want to be able to drink it all day long like a tonic. Not like a liquid meal!
So I just give a light blend, and then sieve out the leaves.
If you want to do a longer blend for a thicker consistency, by all means try it. With spinach I think this might work fine, but not sure about the hemp leaves, they tend to have a more fibrous consistency.
Health Benefits
We all know how healthy spinach is! Loads of iron – enough to keep even Popeye going. But hemp leaves?
As it turns out, the juice from hemp leaves is not only high in iron, but also a kind of a health reset for cells. Yes, I want to have healthy cells! Yay! The nutritional data on hemp products is a bit vague, but if I ever find out more I will update.
Taste
I love the taste! Its pretty mild, and combined with a some lemon and ginger, and I can drink this stuff all day. Thank goodness, because I have to lol.
I am busy tweaking my spinach juice recipe at the time of publish. As soon as it is done I will post that too – seeing as spinach is easier to get at the grocer than hemp products!
Isn’t it pretty?! And no I am not stoned, I do NOT smoke pot. In fact I was a little dubious about this project, but I am so glad I tried it – because I prefer the taste to spinach juice! Hence the ‘still working on spinach recipe’…. If you guys have any suggestions for me – please don’t hesitate to comment.
Canna Juice -Hemp Water
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Ingredients
- 10-15 medium large hemp leaves
- 1 gallon purified water
- Fresh ginger
- 4 fresh lemons
- Honey (optional)
Instructions
- Combine the water and ginger together in a suitable container and blend until the ginger is macerated. Then add the hemp leaves and blend lightly – 12 or so whizzes with a stick blender, or similar with a food processor or ordinary stand up blender.
- Squeeze in the lemon juice. Do not bother to remove the pips.
- Pour the liquid through a strainer into large bottle.
- Mix in honey if desired.
- Voilà
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