Juicer Recipes

Here are some of my favorite juicer recipes that we’ve been enjoying over the past few weeks. It’s amazing how good fresh juice tastes when compared to the store bought stuff. If you’re just starting to juice fresh produce, I really recommend juicing just one type of fruit or vegetable and drinking that by itself to experience the difference that fresh juice has. Here are some of our favorite “singles”.

- Apples – You’ll need 3 or 4 for a full glass of juice. Fresh apple juice tastes absolutely nothing like store bought apple juice. You’ll be amazed!

- Oranges – Again, 3 or 4 will do you. Peel them and get as much of the pith off as you can before juicing them.

- Celery – Try just a bit of this at first. It’s remarkably spicy. Weird, huh?

- Romaine lettuce – Quite yummy!

- Sweet potatoes – I’m not kidding with this. It tastes just like candy.

- Greens – Put a bunch of any greens in the the juicer and give it a sip. It’s probably going to be a little bitter, but it’s good too.

- Grapes – Fresh grape juice is another one that doesn’t taste anything like the stuff from the store. You can peel the grapes if you wish, and it will also help to get the seedless variety too.

Now that you’ve tried some individual juices, we can start mixing things up a little. The first juice recipe is really quite simple and you don’t even need your juicer for it. Take a glass of water, cut one lemon in half and squeeze the lemon into the glass with your hand. This makes a very tasty drink and is a great way to start your day.

Here are some more of our favorites:

Carrot-Apple
- 3 or 4 carrots
- 2 or 3 apples

These two ingredients go very well together. If it’s too sweet for you, try adding a few leaves of kale or spinach.

Grape-Watermelon
- 2 or 3 slices of watermelon
- A medium sized bunch of seedless grapes, off the stems

These two fruits also go very well together. A very unique taste.

Greens-Orange-Carrot
- Handful of greens – We like kale, collard greens, and spring greens. We’re not too fond of mustard greens.
- 1 or 2 oranges
- 2 or 3 carrots

We tried just orange and carrot juice but it was too sweet for us. Adding a few greens into it the mix made it much better and much healthier.

Celery-Carrot
- 2 stalks of celery
- 2 carrots

This is not a juice I recommend for juicing beginners, but it’s great for people who have a bit of experience and don’t need juices to be so sweet to drink. Celery juice is a bit of an acquired taste but it’s great once you get used to it. In this juice, it balances the sweetness of the carrots nicely.

Once you’ve got a few juicer recipes under your belt and have a good idea what the ingredients taste like by themselves, it’s time to start experimenting! Just pick any two or three of your favorite fruits or vegetables and throw them in together. Chances are good that you’ll enjoy it, and if not, you’ll know what to steer clear of. Have fun!

August 11th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Category: General | Leave a comment

Power Juicer Trial – What to Do?

We’ve had our Jack Lalanne Power Juicer for several week now and while  we’ve really enjoyed the juices we’ve made,I haven’t figured out how to incorporate juicing into our every day diet. I gave this a lot of thought this past weekend and realized that my beliefs about food are holding me back. Let me explain.

If you are trying to obtain a goal, but you consciously or subconsciously do not want to obtain that goal, then you won’t have any success. For instance, if you want to get a promotion at work, but your subconscious mind knows that you hate your job and getting a promotion will only make it worse, then you won’t do the things you need to in order to get the promotion. The same rules apply if you don’t believe that the strategies that you’re using will be effective. If I am trying to lose weight and think that juicing is not healthy, then juicing won’t be an effective weight loss method for me.

Part of my struggle is my belief that the fiber in the fruits and vegetables is an essential part of a healthy diet. The fiber, especially in green leafy vegetables, helps fill you up while eating less calories.  Filling up with less calories helps you lose weight. And losing weight is a high priority right now since our youngest is only two months! With juicing you don’t get that fiber – or you don’t if you have a really good juicer.

The other thing that is holding me up is a doubt that juice fasting is a healthy practice. I knew from reading Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease by Dr. Joel Fuhrman that you actually damage your body if you consume any calories while you’re fasting.  If you don’t take in any calories while fasting (i.e. a water fast) your body quickly begins to use your stored fat for fuel. However, if you keep eating or drinking a minimal number of calories your body will burn your muscle (including your brain and heart) for fuel. That’s not good! It seemed to me that juice fasting would equal a minimal calorie input, and would thus not be a good choice for my body.

For now, that leaves us with the option of adding juices on top of our normal diets or replacing a daily meal with an equivalent caloric amount of juice. We’ve experimented with both, but I still don’t feel like I’m fully behind either option. I’m going to do some more reading on all of this and see if I can figure out exactly what I want to do for my 30 day trial.

June 12th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Nutritional Benefits, Our Experiences | Leave a comment

Tips for Juicing with the Jack Lalanne Power Juicer

We ordered our Jack Lalanne Power Juicer through Amazon and it came with a book titled, “Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer: Recipes for Healthy Living”. I’m not sure whether this book comes with the juicer when you order it during the infomercial, so I thought I’d share some of the tips that are included in the books. This list is not all-inclusive; I’ve just included the tips that I’ve found helpful thus far.

1. Wash all fruits and vegetables before juicing: This one is easy to forget since you can put most fruits and vegetables into the juicer without any prep work. But washing your produce will help prevent dangerous bacteria and chemicals from getting nto your body.

2. Remove all stems: This seems to contradict the infomercial in which they feed entire bunches of grapes into the Power Juicer without removing the grapes from the step. Perhaps that is an exception. I think that it is probably wise to remove the stems in order to prolong the life of the blades and motor.

3. Do not try to juice bananas or avocadoes. Bananas and avocadoes do not have any juice – they will just clog up the machine. If you want to make a smoothie, add the banana to the fruit juices in a blender. Other “no-nos” include coconut, eggplant, leek, rhubarb and winter squash.

4. Put a plastic grocery sack in the pulp collector. The pulp collector is much easier to clean if you can just remove the bag and throw the pulp away. I like to tie the bag up before I put it in the trash can so that animals and insects are not attracted to it.  However, if you’re planning on using the pulp in other recipes, I would skip the bag or use a zip-top bag so that you can be sure that the pulp is clean.

5. When using leafy greens, roll the leaves into a ball before juicing. Greens do not contain a ton of juice, so getting them into a compact form before they go into the Power Juicer improves the efficiency of the process.

6. Alternate soft and hard produce. For the best results, always follow a soft item, like peaches or mangos, with hard produce like a carrot. The soft produce tends to create a thick juice and it sometimes needs the harder produce (and the resulting thin juice) to help it come out of the machine.

7. Peel citrus fruits before juicing. Citrus fruit peels are very bitter. You don’t want that stuff in your juice. You do not,however, have to remove the thin, white membrane that separates the individual segments of fruit. That membrane is called the pith and it is perfectly okay to eat/drink.

May 27th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Our Experiences, Tips and How To's | Leave a comment
 
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Latest Juice Combo

Orange, apple, romaine, celery, mango, carrots