Friday, May 10, 2013


I am very proud to have a husband who eats kale, beets, celery, broccoli, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, etc. when I'm not home. John's string of Carl's Junior photos on Instagram might make you doubt that.. but it's true! We're both really into this whole juicing thing.

Juicing is fun. It's like being a kid again doing "science" experiments in the kitchen. We like trying different recipes, really just varying combinations of fruits and veggies, to see what tastes good... though we honestly haven't made a juice yet that we didn't like.

You start to get a feel for what combinations just work and which don't. We juice a lot of cucumber, apple, and celery as a base and then add whatever fruits or veggies we want to flavor the juice. We've juiced sweet potatoes, broccoli, watermelon, cantaloupe, orange, grapefruit, lemon, strawberry.

Trial and error is key. With our juicer we've learned that it's best to do the leafy greens first, followed by hard veggies and to finish off with apples (if we're using them). They tend to wash out everything else juiced before and leave the juicer relatively clean - which makes rinsing the mesh basket in the juicer a lot easier afterwards.

Cleaning the juicer is not difficult.  There is a mesh basket that needs to be scrubbed, but for everything else, it's more of a rinsing process than anything. We line our pulp bucket with a plastic bag for even easier cleanup.

My favorite combo so far is a very simple carrot, apple, and ginger juice. John makes a really yummy beet, carrot, kale, apple, pineapple and ginger juice. And the colors are so intense! It definitely adds to the whole experience.  I would recommend juicing to anyone who wants to start eating healthier, lose some weight, or who is just bored and needs a fun and productive hobby to occupy them!

In closing, my advice for the layman such as myself is this: don't worry about buying the most efficient, most nutrient preserving, easiest to clean juicer. Don't worry about juicing the absolute healthiest fruits and vegetables. Don't worry if you (like us half the time) can't afford to juice all organic produce. Don't worry about the sugar content of the fruits and veggies you're juicing. Just juice! It is far better to just juice and figure all that stuff out as you go - than to not juice at all and lose out because lets be real, no one eats all the fruits and vegetables in a day that you can easily and enjoyably drink!

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

One of my go-tos when I'm short on time is a simple orange, spinach, and apple juice. It quick and easy, and all of the ingredients are cheap!

Emma Marie Erickson said...

someday when we can afford to juice, we will. but for now, we stick with smoothies..much more filling. i can't bear to waste all that SUBSTANCE. we had some good friends last semester though that bought a juicer from costco (knowing that they could return it a few weeks later when they moved back to the mainland) and they loved it. once he juiced a straight onion....and threw up two minutes later. yuck