Befriending your juicer

Here’s the deal

We bought a juicer last summer after watching the popular Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead documentary on Netflix. To be honest, we’d been wanting to try juicing long before we watched the show, but after watching, it definitely solidified our choice to invest in a juicer. There are many brands and models on the market now, but we have probably the second highest quality juicer from the Breville brand. We decided to purchase the Breville juicer not only because this is the juicer used in the documentary, but mostly because it was on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond and we got a free copy of the documentary on DVD with it!

Why do we like to juice?

Well, after a long, excited, fun filled weekend (like we had this past weekend), sometimes it’s nice and refreshing to detox after one too many treat meals or beverages. Juicing allows you to add multiple nutritious vegetable and fruit sources into a tasty drink without any added unnecessary fillers, sweeteners, or artificial ingredients.

Our favorite juice blend

Our favorite juice blend to mix up consists of:

• 1 lemon (or inch piece of ginger)
• 1 cucumber
• 2 stalks of celery (or more if you’re more of a fan than we are)
• a handful or 2 of spinach
• 4-5 stalks of kale (depending on the size of your bunch)
• 1 granny smith apple

We love this blend because it’s filled with detoxifying and vitamin-packed ingredients.

Basically, shove all of your ingredients into the juicer and it will separate the fibers and produce the juice into the container that comes with your juicer. All of the ingredients above will only make about barely one of these containers, but by adding more of each of the ingredients, you can produce more juice. We recommend storing your juice in the refrigerator for a while after you make your juice so it will be chilled when you drink it. We usually make juice in bulk and store it in a pitcher to drink as we please!

Juicing benefits

(From Reboot with Joe – from Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead)

 “Making fresh juice a part of a well-balanced, plant-based diet is an important tool for achieving good health.

Juicing offers many life-enhancing health benefits including a faster, more efficient way to absorb immune boosting nutrients naturally found in fruits and vegetables.  It provides a way to access digestive enzymes typically locked away in the fiber matrix of whole fruits and vegetables.  Most commercial juices are processed and lacking in nutrition while freshly juiced fruits and vegetables are loaded with an abundance of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients.

Drinking fresh juice can help us adopt healthier eating patterns.  For those of us who do not traditionally consume many fruits and vegetables, incorporating fresh juice can be a fun and different approach to increasing consumption of these important plant foods for improved health and wellness and reaching your weight loss goals.

How does it work? Juicing removes the insoluble fiber from vegetables and fruits. While fiber is an established, important part of an overall healthy diet, removing the insoluble fiber allows for increased absorption of specific health promoting phytonutrients including enzymes, while the soluble fiber persists into the juice.  By removing the fibers and consuming fruits and vegetables in liquid form, we are providing a nutrient delivery system to our bodies that allows individuals who would otherwise have difficulty consuming whole vegetables, the opportunity to reap the numerous benefits vegetables have to offer.”

We’re not health experts and we definitely do not have degrees in nutrition, but we do believe in consuming wholesome foods to nourish our bodies to be the best we can be. This is not a professional opinion.