Alive Juices

I'm officially on a raw, cold-pressed juice kick. By cold-pressing fruits and vegetables, the nutrients are made more bioavailable as they are not pasteurized using heat. Fresh juices can deliver a variety of vitamins, nutrients, and enzymes directly to your body in a wholesome way. I don't have my own juicer because I just don't trust that I will juice that much on my own so I buy expensive cold-pressed juices regularly. Recently, I was contacted by Alive Juices, a Maryland-based juice company, to see if I'd be interested in trying their juices. Why, yes, of course I would!

Alive Juices was started by Rachan Malhotra, who was inspired when he saw the effect of fresh, Ayurveda-based juice as a healing mechanism for his father after he suffered a stroke. Today, he is virtually back to normal and now Rachan is on a mission to bring his magic juices to everyone.

In fact, all of the juices I tried were delicious. They offer eight different recipes of juices in several different juice plans that can be ordered online and delivered to your home. All of the juices contain what they call "the big 4," that is, garlic, lemon, apples, and ginger.

I got to try Recipe #1, the Positive Karma, that had the big 4, cucumber, celery spinach, and cilantro. This was your typical green juice that was well-balanced and loaded with celery and cucumbers.

Recipe #4, Detox Mantra, is made with carrots, beets, kale, and cilantro and was really bitey, perhaps from the ginger or garlic, but had a nice smooth texture. Bitey or not, it was still pretty good.

Recipe #5, Guru's Green, was another green juice made with romaine lettuce, bok choy, collards, and fennel. This one was really good as well.

Lastly, Recipe #8, Morning Sunshine, was a fruitier juice made with squash, cilantro, and pineapple. I definitely tasted the pineapple, but who would ever think there was squash in this?!

They recommend you drink one juice daily for breakfast and even include a mix of powdered Ayurvedic herbs that they say have powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and cleansing effects with every delivery.  They also include a snack mix of dried kiwi, banana chips, pineapple, walnuts, and peanuts.

They offer a variety of juice plans that are detailed here. Three daily juices for seven days (21 juices) are $179. That's about $8.50 per juice and is in line with the higher priced juices you see at Whole Foods. The benefit to getting them delivered fresh and from a local company is that they haven't been pasteurized at all so you are able to absorb even more nutrients. So, if you are skeptical, why not give it a try and see if juicing makes you feel more energized as many people say it does.

Full Disclosure: Although the products were provided to me for free to review, that in no way influenced my veracious opinion.