Juice Cleanse Review: Suja Juice

By Chef Amber Shea on February 18, 2013

Today’s post is the twelfth in a series of reviews of juice cleanses from companies that offer home delivery on their fresh, raw juices.

Last week’s juice cleanse came to me courtesy of Suja Juice, based out of San Diego, CA. Suja Juice cold-presses their 100% certified organic juices and packages them using a unique procedure called High Pressure Pascalization, which not only keeps the vital nutrients intact, but dramatically extends the shelf life of the raw juices. From Suja’s website:

High Pressure Pascalization (“HPP”) uses high pressure instead of heat to inhibit microflora growth in fresh food and therefore naturally extend its shelf life. Unlike pasteurization, pascalization is an external process; the raw product itself is never touched. After the products are in their final packaging, our pressurizing method uses only evenly distributed pressure of cool water (44°F) to short circuit any potential harmful invaders, such as Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, lactic acid bacteria, yeast and mold. Pressure drastically reduces the overall microbiological contaminant flora and pathogens, eliminating the possibility of recontamination. Because of the chilled temperature at which the juice is treated, alongside the minimal impact that pressure has on the structure of the components responsible for nutrition and flavor, the juice remains raw and the taste remains the same.

Organic, raw, unpasteurized Suja juices are beginning to appear in Whole Foods stores all across the U.S., even here in the Midwest, but they also sell drinks and cleanses via their website.

Last Tuesday through Thursday, I completed their 3-day juice cleanse program.

Arrival: The package was delivered around 9:30am, having been sent with overnight shipping in an insulated box. The contents of the box were securely packed, and everything arrived well-chilled.

Suja‘s branding is beautiful, with their eye-catching yet informative bottles and rainbow-hued drinks. One cool thing to note is that the side of each bottle tells you exactly how much of each item of produce went into the juice; for example, the Fiji says “The juice in this bottle was made with 2 apples, 6 celery stalks, 1/2 of a cucumber, a handful of spinach, 3 collard greens, 3 kale leaves, a squeeze of lemon and a hint of ginger.” There’s also a nutrition facts label on every bottle, which I appreciate.

Options: Suja Juice offers one 3-day program containing a pre-selected set of six daily juices. The cleanse comes with a “menu” indicating the order in which you should drink them. Beyond that, you get to decide how quickly and at what times of day you drink each of them.

Variety: Every drink of the day is different (though the selection doesn’t vary day-by-day).

The Juices…

GLOW: apple, cucumber, celery, mint, kale, spinach, collards
Each day of the cleanse begins with this green juice. The mint was barely detectable to me (which I consider a good thing); the whole drink was pleasantly green-tasting, yet cloaked with just enough apple to sweeten the deal.

FUEL: carrot, orange, apple, pineapple, lemon, turmeric
I expected this to be an orangey carrot juice, but it was more like a carroty orange juice! It was very sweet, thanks to all the fruit it contains, but I enjoyed the sweetness level. I give it bonus points for containing inflammation-quelling turmeric, too.

PURIFY: carrot, apple, celery, cucumber, beet, lemon
This blood-building juice is very, well, beety. It’s sweet, but not in a saccharine sort of way, and has nice root-vegetable undertones.

FIJI: Fuji apple, cucumber, celery, kale, spinach, collards, lemon, ginger
This was the sweetest of the green juices, but I didn’t find it overly sweet—it was just right. The lemon/ginger/Fuji apple flavor trio was delicious.

GREEN SUPREME: apple, kale, lemon
This green juice is definitely the simplest of the three offered…yet not necessarily the least sweet. It took me a few sips to get used to it, but I quickly came to appreciate the elegance of the fruity apple + bitter kale + zingy lemon combo.

VANILLA CLOUD: coconut, almond, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla
I just knew this drink would be love at first sip, and it WAS. I’d seen the ingredient listing for it on their site and heard rave reviews from a few other people, so I had high hopes, and I’m happy to report that it’s everything it’s cracked up to be AND MORE. I mean, ohmygawd. I can taste the luscious fresh coconut meat clear as day, cut with the alkaline smoothness of almonds. This is my first time ever encountering a HONEY-sweetened nut milk in a cleanse, and while it wouldn’t be suitable for strict vegans as a result, I absolutely adored it. The flavor of the honey along with the vanilla and cinnamon just about made me want to cry. So. Freaking. Good.

Extras: Suja Juice keeps it simple, delivering all juice and nothing but the juice.

Cost: Suja Juice cleanses cost $54 a day plus shipping (which costs about $63.18 per 3-day cleanse for delivery to all states except CA, NV, and AZ, where it’s cheaper, and HI, where it’s more expensive). This brings the total price of a 3-day cleanse (for residents of most states) to $225.18, or about $75 per day.
(Full disclosure: Suja Juice sent me this cleanse “on the house.”)

Support: The Suja Juice website is packed with information, tips, and guidelines, and they offer email support with your cleanse.

How to Order: Online. They deliver nationwide.

Final Thoughts: Most of Suja‘s juices are on the sweeter side, making them a good choice for anyone new to juicing. Although no single juice really stood out to me (they’re all tasty), the Vanilla Cloud coconut-almond milk absolutely blew me away! I like that the nutrition facts for each drink are printed right on the bottle, and that Suja‘s cleanses are on the lower end of the typical price range for juice cleanses. Perhaps most importantly, I’m impressed with Suja‘s commitment to using 100% organic produce and their pioneering of the High Pressure Pascalization process that allows the raw juice to stay good so long. Now, I’m a little leery of the idea of keeping fresh juice in my fridge for 30 whole days, but it’s nice to know I have the option to save a drink for a few days without fearing that it’ll spoil. You could even buy a cleanse and “stretch it out,” drinking juice till dinner for, say, six days instead of drinking nothing but juice for three days. Finally, with the rate at which Suja Juice has been expanding to Whole Foods stores around the country, you may not even need to order a cleanse online and pay for shipping—if a store near you sells Suja juices, you could assemble your own cleanse that way, and save yourself the cost of delivery. Nice!

P.S. Are you interested in cleansing, but not keen on living on liquids for 3 days—or looking for a more inexpensive alternative? Try my Real Food Cleanse!