In response to my post about reaching my goal weight, I’ve had several people asking about juice recipes, so I figured I’d whip up a quick post to give you the low down. This is my go-to juice, I drink it probably 5-6 days per week (makes 32 ounces):
1) 3 big handfulls of green leaf anything (kale, spinach, chard)
2) Handful parsley
3) 1/2 cucumber (peeled or not – I peel if not organic) + 3 stalks celery (with leaves) OR whole cucumber OR 5 stalks celery
4) Thumb size hunk of ginger – I peel the skin because it’s spicy (ginger treats inflammation – most of us are “inflamed” somewhere, so I consider this essential)
5) One lime, peeled (or lemon, which is more expensive but tastes better)
6) One apple (two if you can’t stand the taste – green apples, because they’re tart, kill taste of other stuff that is gross)
7) One beet WITH leaves (unless you have two apples! that’ll overload your juicer!) – I cut the tops off non-organic beats because supposedly pesticide builds up there (who knows)
8) 3 carrots
^^^ That’s a really typical juice around here – Hubs and I are good with only one apple now, whereas I used to use two. Beets have a shit-ton of sugar and are insanely good for you. I love having beets in my juice. (Why does that sound inappropriate?)
And here is a juice I love making and I consider it a real “treat” – it almost tastes GOOD!
1) 6-ish carrots
2) 3-ish oranges (or 4 if they’re tiny, 2 if they’re huge)
3) 1 beet
4) Add a hunk of ginger if you have inflammation anywhere (who doesn’t?)
Kiwi is another great sweet fruit to add if the taste of all the greens is making you gag. You can throw the whole thing in there, skin and all, and it will sweeten it up. But I caution you to keep track of your fruit-to-veggie ratio – you don’t want to just dump a bunch of sugar down your gullet. You can always save some fruit on the side, taste what you’ve juiced so far, then add more fruit if the taste is really unbearable.
If veggie juice tastes like arm-pit goo to you at first, take heart; it is very likely that your tastes will change. (Mine did! Though to be honest I’ve always been okay with the taste.) Since I’ve gotten rid of most of the chemical shit-storms of my life I’m more sensitive to sweet flavors. Most notably, I don’t use sweetener in my coffee anymore. Just a touch of creamer (yes, the “bad” kind – nobody’s perfect!)
If the idea of juicing every day is overwhelming (yes, cleanup is a bitch), try making one double-serving of juice every other day – drink half today half tomorrow. I do this sometimes; you just need to save what you’ve juiced so far in a separate container (I use thoroughly-cleaned old spaghetti jars), empty your pulp-catcher and wipe out the filter a bit, then get it going again with a new set of ingredients. Juice is better fresh of course, but I say some nutrient-depleted juice is better than NO juice at all!
Also, juicing is not a science; you can add or take out whatever you want. You will find that some veggies are more “juicy” than others, or that some flavors are preferable to you over others. I just ask myself, “is that veggie healthy?” and “would that veggie juice well?” and go from there. Sometimes I run out of a core ingredient and I juice anyway, even though the flavor is not ideal. I just chug it as fast as I can and try not to gag. Yes, my name is Kristen and I am a juicing-addict. And because cleaning your juicer can be a bit of a hassle, here is a video that shows you how to juice super-fast!
Let me know how your juicing goes!
Don’t have a juicer?
Use your blender and make a smoothie instead! Here’s my go-to smoothie recipe, which I do sometimes just because I want the extra fibers from the veggies, much of which is lost when you juice (four fairly-large servings):
1) First, put about a thumb’s height of water in your blender
2) FILL THE BLENDER TO THE TOP with spinach or kale (spinach is sweeter, kale is usually cheaper)
3) BLEND THE BAJEEZERS OUT OF YOUR GREENS, unless you like chewing chunks of raw kale; I’m not really a fan of that. You have to pulse the blender at first, and keep squishing the greens down to get the blades to catch.
4) One frozen banana, almost rotten (you’ll never throw away a banana again!)
5) A third to a quarter of a pineapple
6) One kiwi, peeled if you wish, though it doesn’t have to be
7) One apple, quartered (no need to de-core)
8) Strawberries, leave green tops ^^^This is insanely delicious, but quite frankly, it is high in sugar. I only do it if I’m craving it, or if I just need a good poo.
Another nice thing with smoothies is that you can add things that you can’t put in a juicer, like flax-seeds. If you’re constipated, those babies WILL make you poo! One word of warning on smoothies: Don’t try to make a smoothie with anything that is too fibrous or hard, like celery or carrots. Unless you’re just trying to break your blender because you want a new one. And here is the video that taught me how to make the smoothie I just described. (None of my ideas are original!)
I apologize that there is a part of the video about seven minutes in where he uses what appears to be an adult toy to do some really very inappropriate things to those poor fruits and veggies.Ah, well, ya gotta do whatcha gotta do to stay healthy, right?I’m so curious to hear what you all think – please keep me updated!
HAPPY JUICING! =)
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14 Comments
I’m super into blending/smoothies, but you’ve convinced me to dust off my juicer and give it another go. I’m going to trust you about eventually getting over the awful taste. Fingers crossed and nosed pinched. ;o)
Haha, you’ll have to let me know how that goes!
I did it at 9pm tonight. It was much better than last time and that’s probably due to eating 100% vegan for almost a month now and drinking a smoothie everyday.
I did kale, spinach, 1 carrot, 1 tomato, 1 cucumber, and 1 apple. Must admit that halfway through, I did pinch my nose.
Thanks for writing this and motivating me to try again. Going to put it back into my daily routine.
Oh man – you know the one thing I can’t stomach is tomato juice. HATE IT. Anyway, cooking supposedly brings out the antioxidant lycopene, so I eat a lot of tomato sauce. 😉
VEGAN! You go girl! I think I could eat vegan if it weren’t for hubs and kids. Other than a smidge of cheese and one tiny serving of meat per day, I’m pretty darn close. Veggies sure do the body good though, that much I know for certain!
BTW, as far as the nose-pinching – for me, a lime or a lemon does wonders to cut out the bitterness of some of the other veggies. Have you tried that?
Does Fruitopia Strawberry-Kiwi juice count? Because I had that with a little (a lot) Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, over the weekend! 🙂
It most definitely does NOT count for health… but it gets tons of points for fun! (Unless you barfed, then maybe not so much)
Have you ever considered using the fibers after juicing for muffins? it works incredibly well and then you can get ALL the goodness from the veggies. I’m guessing you have.
On another note, I am a vitamix addict.
Yes! I usually put the carrots in last so I can easily scrape the pulp out, and I use it for oatmeal cookies.
Vitamix, huh? I’ll have to look into that.
Ew. I mean, I see the good points here, and I know juicing is grand for you and all, but ew. No. I can’t do cucumber. Cucumber tastes like death to me and I don’t know why. I love making smoothies with greek yogurt, spinach and kale, carrots and flax/chia seeds… but I cannot do the straight veggie juicing thing. I’m jealous of those who can, though, mind you!
I gagged my way through drinking your nasty lemon-water!! LOL
But seriously, you don’t have to put cucumber in there. Add an apple and use some extra celery. Smoothies are great too though, and I like that you get the fiber along with the other good stuff. =)
I have a blender and like the sound of the recipe you have posted for that. If you make the four servings, how long can you keep the other three four for? Can you freeze them?
I believe you CAN freeze them! I’ve even heard of some people using them as frozen treats for their kids. The smoothie recipe is really quite sweet. I wouldn’t save it in the fridge for more than a day. The bananas get gross. Plus they say that the longer it’s exposed to air, the more the nutrients break down. Let me know how it turns out for you! =)
I just bought a juicer for 12 Bucks at the Salvation Army and it actually works. I have been looking for good recipes I cant wait to try yours!
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