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The health benefits of juicing during a pandemic is enormous. This is the perfect time to flush the body of toxins, strengthen your immunity, increase energy and heal the mind and body more quickly and completely.
Although many people worldwide experienced tragedy in their lives, others have experienced an awakening. We're now forced to take healthy actions in our lives. Healthy eating during the COVID-19 is vital. It can support your physical and mental wellbeing. Take time to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.
"Time And health are two precious assets that we don't recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted." ~ Denis Waitley
A couple years ago I bought my first juicer. Before that I had been a big fan of the green juices you can purchase at high end grocery stores. But, my first juicing experience converted me quickly. Homemade juice is a thousand times more delicious than store bought--not to mention cheaper!
Today, I put together a few of my favorite juicing tips and solutions.
The Juicer
There’s a juicer for every almost budget. If you don’t have one yet and aren’t ready to make the investment, I suggest using a blender to make healthy smoothies instead. But, if you’re in the market for a juicer, I suggest reading up on them and learning from people who juice regularly.
With that said, here’s a little about the juicers I’ve tried: My first one was a Jack La Lane. It’s inexpensive for a juicer, but pretty powerful and I got a lot of wear out of it. It’s pretty hard to clean and a little dangerous because of the sharp blades. The juicer I’m using now is the Breville Juicer. It’s powerful, safe, and easy to clean, which works for me. What do you guys use?
The Produce
The fruit and vegetables are the most important part of juicing. Here a few tips that work for me to reduce waste and make the healthiest juice possible:
When you shop for ingredients you’ll need a base, these are fruits and vegetables that produce more liquid and add volume. Carrots, green apples, cucumbers and celery make great bases. After you have that you can also add things that add a lot of vitamins or color like leafy greens, beets and other fruits. Last, you might want to add something flavorful like herbs or spices. My favorite flavor additions are mint leaves and fresh ginger.
Have you heard of the dirty dozen? It’s a list of the twelve most contaminated (with pesticides and herbicides) fruits and vegetables. It includes: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, imported grapes, spinach, lettuce and potatoes. When shopping for these items, it is always best to buy organic. Things that are safer to buy non-organic usually have a rind or peel like oranges, melons or onions.
The more leafy green vegetables you can get into your juice the better! Green juice is an acquired taste just like coffee or wine. The first time you taste it you might think you’d rather drink mud, but the more you try it, the more you will like it. So, if you’re brand new to juicing you might want to add a lot of fruit to your juices, but over time you’ll be able to enjoy it with less and less which reduces your sugar intake. Moral of the story: Don’t feel bad adding lots of fruit to your fresh juice in the beginning, but keep challenging yourself by shifting the proportions over time!
One thing I was surprised to learn was how many ingredients it takes to make a good glass of juice. It’s kind of intense.
Also, when you juice something that has a rind or peel you need to remove it before juicing.
When you juice something coarse and leafy like kale or collard greens, you need to remove the leafy part from the stem before juicing.
Storing Juice
You can store juice in airtight containers in your refrigerator. Although the best time to drink juice (for nutrition benefits) is immediately. Still, sometimes I make extra to use for a few days because it’s so time consuming, and it still tastes great the next day.
Recipes
Here are 3 juices that I love: The first one is an intense green juice (for that acquired taste I was talking about before!) It has a whole bunch of kale, half a batch of celery, two cucumbers, a lemon and a lime. It’s intense, but awesome. The second juice is 10 carrots, 1 lemon, 2 apples and ginger to taste (I always use too much, and it’s crazy spicy, but still really good!) The last juice is a refreshing morning juice. It’s not as “green tasting” as it looks. It has 6 cucumbers, half a celery bunch, 3 apples and 2 limes.
A few other combinations I love: fresh orange juice + ginger, green apple + collard greens + cucumber, pineapple + cucumber and pomegranate + pineapple + coconut milk.
I’d love to hear about your juicing experiences too! I’m excited to learn more.