Thursday, November 6, 2014

Let them Drink Juice

Juicing, detoxing, juice cleansing, juice fasting, all these trends around simple juice. Juice detoxes have become so trendy that we have a new trend called soup cleansing/detoxing!? Those same fancy, expensive companies that shipped bottled, organic fresh pressed juices to you if you were willing to sell an organ, are now offering to send fresh organic soups for all of your detoxing needs, and I would imagine the soups are no cheaper than the juices. In my opinion soups are easier to make than juices, and can be made ahead of time in most cases so not sure why this newest trend/scheme is working, but what do I know? I'm digressing, back to juicing. Years and years ago, way before juicing was a "thing", and certainly before souping, I saw Mr. Jack Lalanne talking about the importance of juice, and he was of course selling a juicer, but regardless this amazing energy ball of a man caught my attention, and I got a Jack Lalanne juicer within that week. It came with a recipe booklet, and I remember carrot apple ginger was and still is a favorite. Thanks Mr, Lalanne, I had a lot of fun with that juicer. I remember that what I really dreaded about making the juice was the cleanup. This thing was the biggest pain in the arse to clean. I ended up not using it as much as I would have liked because it was such a time consuming pain to clean! Through the years I have often thought of that juicer, and wished I would have used it more, especially when I wanted to journey towards health. And then, juicing became a trend, and according to everyone, I was going to age, get fat, and carry around toxins and be depressed if I didn't juice. But, juicers are not cheap, and my old juicer was sold at a garage sale years ago. Well, I learned you can make juices in your blender, and use either a fine mesh strainer, or a nut milk bag!! And, here's another way they like to get you, you can go to a hardware store, and buy paint straining bags, which are almost identical to nut milk bags, and you will gag at the cost difference. I bought my mesh strainer at a grocery store over a year ago for under ten bucks, and it is still going strong, and it gets used daily, sometimes more than once! I don't even have a super high speed blender, and I am able to blend even sweet potatoes and beets! You have to add some water, so I'm sure juice purists would say something about that, and I know juicers are made with special "technology" to lose as little nutrients as possible while processing, but I still feel pretty great, so I'm satisfied. And it takes practice like anything else. When you use certain fruits and veg, such as cucumbers or pineapples, the it takes less water, and I blend for maybe thirty seconds at the longest, remember your not making a smoothie! So in my non expert opinion I don't think I'm losing to much. And I guarantee that my blender juice has more nutrients than pre made, over priced juice that is delivered, as that is taxing to the environment, and juice starts losing enzymes and nutrients as soon as it's made.
If you want to try it, just stare with about half a cup of water, and then start layering, I start with cucumber as it has a high water content, then harder veg, like carrots, beets, sweet potato, then I do fruit such as apples or pears, or pineapple which goes really well with beets, then my green layer, such as kale, romaine, etc,  The pulp should be pretty chunky, your just abstracting the juice, not all the way blending. It's very hard to strain when you blend it too much, trust me, I've made that mistake quite a few times. When I pour my juice through my strainer, I press down to make sure I get every single drop of juice that I can. Clean up is so simple, and I like feeling like I can have green juice in my life, even if I'm not able to afford a juicer
Cheers!

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