If you’re interested in juicing but don’t know where to start – this post is for you.  This is a collection of the first questions that often come up when someone is looking to get started juicing, with all the answers wrapped into one post.

What Kind of Juicer Should I Get?

Breville Juicer

There are basically two different styles of juicers out there: a Centrifugal Juicer (pictured above) or a Cold Press (Masticating) Juicer.

The two pros and cons that are most often compared between these two types of juicers are price and nutrition.

In my post about Zak’s juice fast, a couple of you asked about some of his favorite juice recipes.  Let’s just say that there has been a lot of experimenting on his part lately.  He often makes what he calls “Kitchen Sink Juice”.  I’m sure this title needs no explanation (but here I go anyway.)   He basically piles together whatever he finds in the fridge and then proceeds to shove it into the juicer.  From where I stand there does appear to be some rhyme and reason to what he makes for himself – often adding greens, carrots and beets for the nutrients, plus some apple, pear, lemon, lime and/or ginger to help with the flavor.  But then there was that time that he juiced an onion.  And that day when he juiced 4 cloves of garlic.  We’ve put garlic in juice before – but not 4 cloves.  And not until we had that vampire problem.

Have you heard of Cuppow?

Cuppow

It’s a drinkable lid that you can use with a canning jar.

(I think I’ve made it obvious that we like to drink out of canning jars here?)

I love canning jars as glasses mostly because they’re so sturdy – when the girls were really little I was frustrated with how frequently regular glasses were breaking.  I soon noticed that the few small and wide mouth canning jars we had hanging around were the only glasses that were holding up.  I eventually stopped replacing our broken glasses altogether and just used canning jars and old almond butter jars instead.  Soon, our entire glasswear collection consisted of glasses with threading at the top.  Oops.

The Fountain of Juice

April 3rd, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (4 Comments)

Yesterday was my 34th birthday.  Thirty four.  What a perfectly ordinary age.

Although I think I’m officially in my “mid-30’s” now.  How about “early in my mid-30’s”?  That’s a little easier to swallow.

Getting older isn’t so bad, it’s the looking older part that doesn’t thrill me.  There are more gray hairs sprouting from the top of my head than I can/should pull out now.  I’ve been noticing more fine lines around my eyes lately too.  And there is definitely less distance between the floor and my butt these days.  Hmmm, what other embarrassing things about myself should I admit here?  I think I’ll stop now.

Fresh juice!  It’s time to haul it all out of the fridge and run the numbers.

Fresh Green Juice Ingredients

Today I made green lemonade from:

1 bunch of dinosaur kale
Beet greens from three beets
1/3 of a head of celery (3 – 4 stalks)
2 gala apples
2 lemons
1/2 seedless cucumber
a hunk of ginger about the length of my pointer finger

Kale juice with a splash of red from the beet greens? So pretty.

Juicing in Progress Add Beet Greens

Until you mix it all together, that is. Then it more closely resembles black lemonade.

How Much Fresh Juice

A Few Juicy Details

March 25th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (8 Comments)

I am definitely on a green juice kick right now.  Let’s chat a little bit about juicing today.

We’ll start with a quick primer on the differences between fresh juice and smoothies because this is a question that many people have.

Fresh Juice

(This was Carrot Apple Ginger Juice – it’s one of my favorite non-green juice combos!)

Carrot Juice

Juicing extracts the liquid from fruits and vegetables, bringing much of the plant’s nutrients, vitamins and minerals along with it, while leaving the pulp behind.

First Day of Spring Greenery

March 20th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (2 Comments)

It doesn’t look like spring outside, but for now it can look like spring in my kitchen.

My forsythia exclamation mark was dotted with today’s green juice breakfast.

Forsythia

Good morning Greener March Challenge Day 20! Here in the northeast we’re all reeaaally ready for some greenery outside too.

Bright Green Juice

Today’s juice was so bright green it almost looked like kool-aid.

(Rest easy, it was NOT kool-aid.)

Today’s noteworthy green lemonade ingredient was fresh parsley.

Parsley in Juice

Have you seen Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead?  It was released in 2011, but I just watched it over the weekend.

Holy Mother of Green Goodness this was an inspiring film!  If you’ve never seen it or haven’t heard about it – Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is about Joe Cross, an overweight Australian man with an autoimmune disorder.  It’s a documentary about Joe’s 60 Day juice fast which lead to his losing 82 pounds and completely turning around his unhealthy lifestyle.

Gimme Green Juice

March 10th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (3 Comments)

We’re 10 days into The Greener March Challenge. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?! Greens today came in the form of green juice that I made and drank 45 minutes before I left for a run.

We’ve had the Breville Juice Fountain Plus for about three and a half years now. I still love this little appliance, even with the addition of the Vitamix to our kitchen appliance family last year.

Breville Juicer

It’s sort of like children I suppose. I don’t love my food processor or juicer any less now that we have a Vitamix. I have room in my heart (and my appliance cupboard) for all of them.

The most exciting thing to report on around here would be the fact that I’ve been eating breakfast cookies all week. After Linda left a comment on an old post, I was reminded how much I use to love this odd yet fabulous oatmeal concoction.

Breakfast Cookie

It’s been a long time! Good thinking, Linda.

I went to my favorite active yoga class for the first time in nearly five months on Monday night, and I don’t think the instructor recognized me.  I wanted to go up to her and say “hi, remember me?” but then I thought she might take one look at my swollen stomach and remind me of the importance of not doing yoga right after you’ve apparently been stuffing yourself for hours on end at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.