This post is sponsored by Naked Juice and the #DrinkGoodDoGood campaign, working to bring awareness to America’s food deserts. All opinions are my own.
I grew up in the opposite of a food desert, a place so abundant that friends visiting for the first time would often call it the Garden of Eden. This oasis, nestled into the slopes of Haleakala Crater on an island filled with mineral-rich volcanic soil, shaped the way I see the world.
Here in LA, I pluck plumeria flowers from the streets in Silverlake and rosemary from the winding roads in the Hollywood Hills. No matter how far I am from Maui, I always have my eyes open to what’s growing on the land nearby. Which is why I got super excited when I found out about Naked Juice’s Drink Good Do Good campaign.
Drink Good Do Good is working to raise awareness about America’s food deserts—urban areas and rural towns with little to no access to fresh, affordable food. How many of you (ahem ME) get anxious without a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods in a 5 mile radius? Yet almost 24 million Americans live in areas deemed food deserts—in south LA alone, there is only one grocery store for every 22,000 residents.
It’s easy to grow complacent amidst the beauty and abundance of summer, especially when my weekly farmers market is just a block from my house. I have access to plentiful fresh produce, to those pricy and obscure fruits and vegetables that have, in recent years, become status symbols (find a young, upwardly mobile hipster who doesn’t like kale salad). Most days, I take this abundance for granted.
This week, though, I have the opportunity to change that. And so can you. Each time you post a picture of yourself holding a fresh fruit or veggie, tag a friend, and use the #DrinkGoodDoGood hashtag, Naked Juice will donate 10 lbs. of fresh produce to Wholesome Wave and communities in need.
And here’s a little something you can whip up while you’re snapping pics to share for #DrinkGoodDoGood! It’s a juice so bright and summery that it’ll make you feel like you’re on Maui (even when you’re actually in LA, blasting your AC within an inch of its life to take the edge off last week’s heat wave).
Tangy passion fruit is swirled through a blend of orange, more passion fruit, ginger, and fresh turmeric. All of these goodies remind me of my Maui home—a place where three types of passion fruit (lilikoi in Hawaiian) and at least five types of citrus grow just feet from my door. Today, I want to do my part to help those in food deserts come just the tiniest bit closer to such abundance.
PASSION ORANGE COOLER + DRINK GOOD DO GOOD.
Ingredients
- 3 ripe oranges peeled and deseeded
- 2 cup fresh passion fruit or 1 roughly chopped pineapple
- 1 inch ginger root
- 1 inch turmeric root
- 8 ice cubes
Instructions
- Place flesh of oranges, ginger, turmeric, and ice cubes in blender. Add pulp of one passion fruit, or half the pineapple. Blend until completely smooth (the juice will be flecked with black from the passion fruit seeds).
- Open the remaining passion fruit and place a spoonful of the fruit in the bottom of two glasses (same goes for the pineapple, if you’re using that instead). Pour in the juice, and divide the rest of the passion fruit over the top of the juice, swirling as you like.
- Take a pic with your fruit and your juice and use #DrinkGoodDoGood to donate 10 lbs. of fresh produce!
