While juicing may look like the newest trend, this is an age-old way of getting your daily fruits and vegetables. Juicing has several noteworthy benefits and can be a way to keep your family healthy, especially as the temperatures drops and our immune systems take a hit from the chill.
When attempting a juice-only diet, it can be helpful to remove all processed foods from your house first. Having a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, or some candy bars staring you in the face while you can only have juice is an easy way to cut your diet tragically short.
When making large amounts of juice at once, make sure to take breaks to clean out the pulp and let the juicer rest. Not only will the pulp start slipping in after a while, but you’ll also prolong the life of your juicer. One break every couple pounds of produce is a safe bet.
Juicing needs to be the base on which you grow your entire healthy lifestyle. Make it a point of having juice every day to start you off with energy, nutrients, and a tasty breakfast. If you rely on juicing as your morning pick-me-up, you’ll be sure to get through your day!
Buying fruit and vegetables for your juicing can be easy by using all five senses to find the freshest produce to bring home. Sniff the item and make sure it smells good, like you would want to eat it. Squeeze it and feel if it’s too hard or too soft. Look it over for imperfections, and then take it home and taste a bit. Enjoy!
Juicing doesn’t have to involve eleven different items preselected based on every single vitamin and nutrient contained within each! You can just make fresh juice in the morning to go along with your breakfast and perk you up. Juice is a healthy way to get energy through fresh produce, and it’s super tasty, too!
If you can’t afford to juice with organic fruit and vegetables, don’t worry about it. It’s nice to have pesticide-free items, but you can only work with what you have available. Wash your produce in a mixture of 8 cups of water with 3 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide and 3 tablespoons of baking soda to get all the nasty stuff off. Rinse your produce well before using.
Some items just aren’t made for the juicer, especially if they’re soft and mushy. For example, you’ll never be able to make a juice that is mostly banana, but you CAN put a half of a banana in a juice made with other firmer produce. Peaches tend to give the same result.
A little bit of pulp with your juice is often unavoidable. However, you can use a coffee filter to strain the juice. Some people do not like having pulp in their juice, and you may be one of them. You can always strain the juice using a cheesecloth; this will get rid of a lot of the pulp.
If you have any questions about juicing you can always ask online. There are many juicing groups and forums available and their members will typically have the answer, or at least know how to find it. Draw on their collective years of experience to make your experience a positive one!
Let color be your guide for variety. You will want to keep your juicing varied so as to not get bored with it. Incorporate a variety of colors in your fruits and vegetables as a sort of juicing palette from which to create. Just remember to know the nutrient content from each source and enjoy the rainbow.
Start juicing with the softer items in your ingredient list and then follow them up with the harder items. This will help clear the pulp from your machine to facilitate an easier clean up later. You want to work your machine in the easiest way possible to give it a long life.
Reading the instruction manual that came with your juicer will help you make the best juice possible. The manual will advise you of which fruits or vegetables that may require the skin to be removed. It will also tell you which produce does not juice well, such as bananas and avocados.
When it comes to juicing, one thing that you want to keep in mind is that a great way to add sweetness to all kinds of juice is through the use of apples. This is important because you can avoid using pure sugar or artificial sweeteners and use something that has its own health benefits.
Once you have your juicing materials, they should be of good quality if you want good quality juice, it is of utmost importance that you know how to function your juicer to it’s fullest extent. If you delve into making juice before you really know what you are doing, you will just be wasting your juicing materials.
One of the best juicers that you can use in order to have high quality juice are masticating juicers. These juicers operate on a more gentle process and therefore preserve the juice’s valuable nutrients. Another advantage of using this kind of juicer is that it enables you to store the juice for a much longer period of time.
When storing the juice you’ve made, make sure the container is opaque. Sunlight and even indoor light, can cause the nutrients in the juice to convert or break down, so having it in an air-tight container that permits very little light to enter will ensure peak freshness when you drink it.
Whether for drinking or as part of a recipe, juicing your fruits and vegetables can liven up your diet and be an easy way to help your family stay healthy. Whether you’re sneaking your kids some vegetables or wanting something refreshing after a hard day, you have only healthful rewards to gain.
