Juicing

Last week, while looking for something to watch on TV, Vince came across Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2. While Joe’s eating habits/diet plans are somewhat controversial, I think after watching this, folks could not disagree that as Americans, for the most part really could use improvement in our diets. Since we eat almost all our meals at home, eat lots of veggies from our garden and wild game from the woods and game that a hunter friend shares, I feel like we’re eating better than we once were. But, we eat too much. I drink too much soda and though I’ve cut back by drinking Kombucha, soda needs to be eliminated completely.

After watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2, I got the juicer out again. I use a Breville Juice Fountain that I bought 3 years ago .. probably when we watched the first Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead documentary. There are TONS of juicers out there if you’re in the market for one. We’ve had several lower end ones in the past, as well as attachments for various blenders/food processors. Before making the purchase in 2012, I did a lot of research and decided on the juice fountain but if you’re looking for one, you may want to do your own research, simply because so much changes in 3 years. But, the juice fountain we have is still amazing.

A word of caution . . if you’re not used to eating LOTS of fresh fruit and veggies, start slow .. very slowly . . and give it a few days to see how your digestive system is going to react. Sometimes there’s a massive movement . . and it can come on quite suddenly and without warning!  🙂  We didn’t have any problems but we’re only having the juice for one meal a day and we’re used to having lots of veggies and fruits in our daily diet.

What we’ve decided to do for now is have our normal breakfast. Weekends aren’t healthy . . they’re just our typical weekend breakfasts – grits or hash browns, toast or biscuits, eggs, bacon or sausage. Weekdays, it’s almost always oatmeal with bacon or sausage or sometimes . . cereal with almond milk and fruit.

We’ll have a regular home cooked meal at lunch – meat, veggies and salad . . maybe a bread. For dinner, we’ll have juice and lots of water! Hopefully, we can do this for at least a month and see how it goes . . see if we have more energy and lose weight.

This was our “dinner” last night.

In the bowls in the back are kale (storebought already chopped and it didn’t yield nearly as much juice as does fresh kale from the garden), and honey dew melon. On the towel are:

• 1 beet
• 1 apple
• 5 carrots
• 1 stalk of celery 
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 cucumber

When you think of all that fruit and veggies in one meal, you can see why your system can suffer a bit of shock if that’s not something you eat on a daily basis.

I have never added a sweet potato to juice before but was reading that any of the veggies high in beta carotene are great for juicing. Not knowing what it would taste like, or how much juice it will yield, I only used one sweet potato.

It was more juice than I expected and it wasn’t overpowering. Beet juice and cranberry juice are overpowering. I also think celery is strong but it’s good for you so I almost always add one stalk of celery. Cucumbers produce lots of juice and I think they add such a fresh flavor to the juice. Carrots are always good because they are so full of tasty, surprisingly sweet juice. Most any fruit adds a lot of liquid and a good bit of sweetness.

Night before last I made a concoction that contained cranberries, one apple, 3 oranges and kale. I have a sore throat (how did that happen?) and that juice burned like crazy when it hit my throat so til my throat is better, I’m laying off the oranges. The cranberries were probably the main culprit and that was the end of my cranberry stash so I won’t be using those til they’re in our stores again . . probably next Thanksgiving.

These were our glasses of juice and the leftovers. You can see that the kale looks like it didn’t do much but everything else is almost powdered. This could be dehydrated and then run through the blender to make a powder and use a bit to thicken gravies and soups. If I were using only sweet fruit in the dehydrator, I would keep that separate from things like beet, kale, celery pulp but when I have a good mix, like shown above, I wouldn’t hesitate to add a few teaspoons of the dried powder to gravies or sauces.

At least once a week, the worms will get a big helping and the rest will go to the chickens. Soon I will begin mixing this with a little water and freezing it in zipper bags. In the summer, when it’s hotter than “you know what” out there, I’ll grab a bag, tear away the plastic and toss the contents in for the chickens and it will be a nice, refreshing treat for them.