Juice

Juice, originally uploaded by hezro.

A few months ago, my sister-in-law mentioned that she was trying something called "juicing" (which immediately makes me think of a gym rat but no, this is a different kind of juicing). That very same weekend, I was looking for a movie to watching on Netflix streaming and I chose one that Netflix recommended to me called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  It turned out to be the same movie that had inspired her. After watching the movie, I really wanted to try a cleanse but I was about two weeks ot from a triathlon so it didn't seem like a good time to try it.

In the meantime I purchased a fancy shmancy blender. My hope was to get more fresh fruits and veggies into our diet. (I've already used it almost 50 times in the fews weeks that I've owned it - it keeps track).

Recently my friend Bryan tried juicing and posted about it on Facebook. He's had amazing success and once again, the idea was back in my head. A few years ago my mom gave me a Champion juicer so yesterday I decided to give it a try.

I printed off Bryan's recipe and went to the store. This is the juice I intended to make:

5 cucumber
5 carrots
12 stalks of kale
12 stalks celery
1/2 bundle of spinach
1/2 bundle of parsley
1 beet
1-1/2" ginger root
5 apples
1/4 of a whole pineapple
1 mango
1 banana

Unfortunately, when I got started juicing, I realized that my juicer is missing its tamper, which was a bit of a problem.  I tried using a cucumber as a tamper, which worked a lot of the time.  But it didn't always work so I was using a wooden spoon to shove stuff down, but unfortunately once it got away from me and I completely destroyed my beloved Pampered Chef spoon.  :(

I wasn't able to get all 12 stalks of celery into my juice but I think I got pretty much everything else in there.  This was not really a full fledged jump into juicing.  This was basically a trial run to see a) how the juicer worked and b) whether the juice was palatable.  

The results

It was quite a lengthy process. I think it would have been much easier with a tamper so I've since purchased one online and I'll try it again after that arrives.  But I have to admit, the juice was much tastier than I expected it to be.  Because of my troubles with the juicer, it was a little pulpy but the taste really was not bad.  Having said that, I'm amazed that Bryan can drink it day after day. I'm pretty sure I'd have to switch things up.  But all in all, I'd say the experiment was a success and I definitely want to try a cleanse, when I've got all the right equipment.