If you are joining our 1st community challenge give this a watch 🫶🏻 HAPPY FRIDAY 🫶🏻

What's YOUR favorite juice? Today we are celebrating the most refreshing thing you can put in your body. I am a juice girl through and through. There is something about a cold fresh pressed juice that just makes everything feel better. And today we are talking about four of my absolute favorites and why each one deserves a permanent spot in your life. 🌿 🍎 🅰🅿🅿🅻🅴 🅹🆄🅸🅲🅴 First things first — fresh pressed apple juice and store bought apple juice are two completely different things. Store bought is essentially sugar water with the good stuff stripped out. Fresh pressed? That's where the magic is. 🌿 Fresh apple juice is loaded with quercetin — a powerful antioxidant that has been shown to reduce inflammation, support brain health, and even protect against certain cancers. It also contains vitamin C, potassium, and malic acid which supports liver function and gives you that gorgeous tart flavor. Green apples give you a sharper more tart juice. Red apples give you something sweeter and more mellow. Mix them together and you've got something really special. 🍎 🥤 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗝𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗲: 🍎 4-6 apples of your choice 🫚 Optional — thumb of ginger for a kick 🍋 Optional — squeeze of lemon to brighten it up Run through your juicer. Drink immediately. Feel fancy. 😄🌿 🍊 🅾🆁🅰🅽🅶🅴 🅹🆄🅸🅲🅴 Again — fresh pressed only. The stuff in the carton has been sitting in oxygen depleted storage tanks for up to a year before it hits shelves. A YEAR. 😳 And then they add synthetic flavor packs to make it taste like oranges again. Fresh pressed orange juice tastes like an entirely different drink and once you go fresh you SIMPLY cannot go back. PERIOD. Fresh OJ is one of the richest sources of vitamin C on the planet — one glass can give you over 100% of your daily needs. It's also packed with folate for cell health, potassium for heart health, and flavonoids that reduce inflammation and support immunity. 🌿 🥤𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗢𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗝𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗲: 🍊 6-8 navel oranges 🍋 Optional — half a lemon for brightness 🫚 Optional — pinch of turmeric for an anti-inflammatory boost.

Today's Watched & Rooted Wednesday feels extra special because today marks 7 years alcohol-free. 💚 For 25 years I was a horrible alcoholic. When I first got sober, I thought I was just quitting alcohol. Ditching the hangovers. I had no idea I was about to create a entirely different life. Annnnnd the greatest gift wasn't better sleep, more energy, or even better health. It was my family. I was given the opportunity to rebuild relationships with my kids and the people I love most. There were bridges I nearly destroyed forever, and over the years, one conversation, one apology, and one day at a time, those bridges were rebuilt. It has not been easy. Some days I wanted to throw in the towel and grab a bottle of Jack! BUT – my kids got their mom back. And now my grandkids get the Oma they deserve. And I was saved. Sobriety introduced to me Big Daddy J 🌱 That will always be my greatest victory 💫 Sobriety also gave me the clarity to rediscover my love of cooking, heal my relationship with food, BELIEVE IN MYSELF, and eventually create this incredible Rooted & Wild community. None of it would exist without that decision I made seven years ago. None of it. One of the biggest things I've learned is that healing isn't just about removing something. It's about creating the life that comes next. I think this is the part sober people struggle with the most! For today's Watched & Rooted Wednesday, I found a podcast that feels especially fitting. If you're curious about the connection between nutrition, cravings, brain health, and alcohol-free living, I think you'll really enjoy it. 🎧 No More Booze with Dr. Brooke Scheller: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ck5UGrj5j4Qv5M3p2m6bJ Whether you're alcohol-free, sober curious, supporting someone you love, or simply interested in how food affects the brain, I hope it gives you something to think about. Here's to healing, second chances, and showing up for the people who matter most. THANK YOU for letting me share this milestone with you. 💚

Okay so this one isn't really plant-based foodie related but it's important and honestly too good not to share. 😂 Grab something to sit on because these numbers might ruin your week a little bit. We spend so much time worrying about clean eating that we forget to think about clean KITCHENS. So today let's talk about the three things in your kitchen that are statistically dirtier than your garbage can. 🗑️ 🧽 #𝟭 — 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲 This one is the worst offender by far and the science backs it up completely. A team of German researchers led by microbiologist Markus Egert found 362 different species of bacteria living in kitchen sponges, with bacterial density reaching up to 45 billion per square centimeter. To put that in perspective — there's hardly any habitat on Earth where you'll find similar densities of bacteria, except for the human intestinal tract. Like WTF 😆😆 And here's the part that's going to ruin your day — Egert found that sponges collected from people who regularly microwaved or hot-soaped them did not contain fewer bacteria than uncleaned ones. In fact, cleaned sponges sometimes showed an INCREASE in two specific bacterial species — including one related to bacteria that can cause infections in people with weakened immune systems. The fix? Replace your sponge every week. No deep cleaning hack is going to save it. Just toss it and start fresh. 🌿 🚰 #𝟮 — 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗸 You wash your dishes here. You wash your produce here. You probably wash your HANDS here. And it's quietly one of the dirtiest spots in your entire kitchen. Research has shown that kitchen sinks and drains contain particularly high amounts of E. coli. Think about everything that goes down that drain — raw vegetable scraps, food residue, whatever was on your hands or your sponge gets rinsed right back into that basin. It becomes its own little ecosystem. 🌿😬 A quick fix — disinfect your sink basin and drain regularly, not just the dishes sitting in it. 🧺 #𝟯 — 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗹 The one hanging by your sink that you use to dry your hands, wipe a counter, and mop up the occasional spill. Yeah. That one.

My hubby spoiled me today. He asked what I wanted and I was like I really want nachos 🤣🤣🤣🤣 HE FOUND ME VEGAN NACHOS!!! These were the best damn nachos I have eaten! Chips, pintos, black beans, roasted red potatoes, baked tofu, THAI PEANUT SAUCE (instead of plant-based queso), corn salsa, cabbage, cilantro, and house made pickled onions! ( I'm totally re-creating this as a nacho rice bowl!!!!!!!!!!) She let me add pickled onions after she asked my hubby if he wanted any. And I was like did someone say pickled onions 🤣🤣🤣🤣 The gal who built these was incredible! I knew I was going to get a good plate as I watched her place each chip individually by hand. No joke. She wasn't building me a plate of nachos she was building me a masterpiece! Straight up. Turns out she works Monday-Wednesday. Now I know where to go for the best vegan nachos on the planet! It was a hole in the wall burrito shack! Been open for 50 years! And I can say I have NEVER stepped foot into a bathroom quite like this one. Of course I took photos 😆😆😆😆😆😆