The Cost of Cleansing

As I've chatted with folks about the cleanse, many have shared with me their concerns.  Some people think they won't have enough time to do so much cooking, some have never eaten some of the foods in the recipes, some don't have a juicer or blender, some are concerned that they won't be able to cut out some of the foods/drinks that they love out of their life, some have stuff going on in February that will make it hard to be on a cleanse.  I'll probably address some of these concerns in other posts, but Sophie was curious to know if being on the cleanse would cost more money than not being on the cleanse.  So...

Yesterday I went shopping with my cleanse list for Week 1.  I went to Stanley's because I know that going to a produce market is going to be way less expensive than your average Jewel or Dominicks.  I ended up getting all of this food for $28.16.  The most expensive item that I bought was arugula for $2.98, which was one of the two items (I also bought 7/10ths of a pound of cherries for $0.88) I purchased that are not actually ingredients included in the cleanse this week.  Unfortunately they didn't have any kale, so I headed over to Trader Joe's.  They too didn't have kale, but I did pick up some of the ingredients for snacks like olives, frozen peas, and trek mix.  The trek mix that I usually eat is pretty much the same thing as the trek mix recipe for the cleanse.  Maybe I'll throw some sunflower seeds in there.   Plus I had a TJ gift card (thanks mom and dad!) so I got myself a little bonus, which made me happy.  I did stop at Target earlier in the day and picked up a bottle of pomegranate juice for $4.50, yikes.  Once I got to TJ's I realized I could have bought a bottle there twice as big for about the same price.  That being said, all in all it was a good shopping day.  I got a whole bunch of goods that we'll need for the next week and a half and only spent about $35.  Because I wasn't spending money on processed goods, there wasn't a whole lot at TJ's to buy.  We did already have pretty much all of the basic spices and condiments at home and there's still a few things I'll need to buy, but I think my conclusion is that being on the cleanse might cost us less than not being on the cleanse as long as we're doing some smart shopping and being organized.  


Being organized.  Doing this is definitely going to take some forethought (I've thought about creating an Excel spreadsheet, but haven't moved to that level of nerd just yet.).  As I was looking at the recipes, I decided to spend a little time this weekend making soup.  I put them in the freezer so that I don't have to worry about making them during the week and they'll be an easy grab and go meal.  Plus there's no worries about that produce going bad. Matt and I could potentially take that Butternut Squash soup for 3 days of lunch.  If we get tired of it though, it can just stay in our freezer for the future (or if any of you are doing the cleanse and want a serving, let me know!).  Another little tip is that I saved the seeds from the B-Squash and I'm going to toast them and use them in the Kale Slaw with Red Cabbage and Carrots recipe this week because I didn't bother buying pumpkin seeds.  Yay substitutes! 


Ok, I'm off to make the second soup recipe while we watch the Bulls game!