November 28, 2016
As anyone who juices knows — juicing is a time-consuming process from start to end. So unless you’ve cleared your schedule in order to roll up your sleeves and get messy in the kitchen, it’s tough to get motivated; but when you do, the reward is pure joy in a mason jar.
Ask most people and you’ll discover they have a juicer but don’t use it; even my own super dooper trustworthy Breville tends to gather dust from time to time.
But I leave it on the counter in full view, all assembled and ready to go, for those times when the pledge to juice creeps back into my brain. At which point I’ll load up on carrots, apples, lemons, celery and kale in the grocery store (my last juice pledge started when I spotted a 10-pound bag of Bolthouse Farms organic juicing carrots — I took it as a sign), which I then store in the fridge, procrastinating until I grow concerned the apples may be turning a tad soft, the lemons brown and my kale yellow, at which point I haul out all the goods and prepare for the act of making delicious fresh, organic, homemade juice.
Don’t let perfect foodie photography fool you — juicing is messy!
I was first turned onto juicing when my health took a debilitating turn in 2014. I was weak and practically immobile from a parasite in my bloodstream, courtesy of a trip to Costa Rica. The experts at the tropical disease centre knew what it was but couldn’t treat it until a biopsy came back positive. As the weeks went by, my energy disappeared, the symptoms worsened, and I was in a whole lot of pain, assured only by the promise that my condition wasn’t fatal and the ordeal would be over soon.
Around that time, a friend told me about the documentary “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead”, about a man who juices his way back to health, clearing up his chronic health problems while losing a lot of weight. Since I was spending all my time watching Netflix anyways (I didn’t have the energy to do anything else), I settled down one evening and proceeded to become quite amazed by his story. Curious, I flipped to his website (www.rebootwithjoe.com in case anyone is interested) and came across a number of juicing programs — 3 days, 5 days, 10 days, etc. — and I thought, heck, what do I have to lose? I was feeling sick and nearly dead, and had gained some weight through inactivity because of my illness. So I dove into the 15-day program (the longest one they recommend you do without the watchful eye of a doctor).
Long story short, I didn’t last the entire 15 days and definitely cheated by eating frozen blueberries, but the results were incredible: my symptoms eased off, my energy shot up, and I found myself capable of doing more within a short amount of time. The quick absorption of phytonutrients and enzymes felt like someone had thrown me a life raft, and gave my exhausted immune system the boost it so desperately needed.
Now, two years later, I’ll pull out my juicer whenever my energy levels start to sag, or I feel the need for a little pick-me-up cleanse to help me shine from the inside out. If I had the time, I’d juice every day.
Here are a couple easy juicing combinations courtesy of Reboot with Joe that I swear by. After a few batches, you’ll start to figure out what you like and will begin to throw together combinations that you make up as you go along based on what you have in the fridge! You can store the juice in the fridge up to 24 hours, and there are lots of recipes online that can help you make use of all that yummy organic pulp you’ll have leftover — my favourite is homemade veggie burgers.
Tip: don’t include lemon pulp in any recipes otherwise the taste will be too sour; so remove the rest of the pulp before juicing lemons and juice your lemons last, and ginger too if you don’t want a strong ginger taste; I also sometimes separate out the fruit pulp altogether. Make sure you core your apples and peel the lemons (while keeping as much of the white pith on as possible). Then chop everything up so it fits in the chute and juice away!
Easy OJ
- 4 apples
- 4 carrots — hence the OJ for orange juice 🙂
- 2 lemons
Or
- 6 carrots
- 4 apples
- 2 inches of ginger
And
Lean Green
- 2 apples
- A few handfuls of kale
- A few handfuls of spinach
- 1 cucumber
- 4 celery sticks
- 2 lemons
