My name is boffer, and I'm a juicer.

LOL

Sometimes juicer is slang for a wino or an athlete who uses steroids. In my case, I'm talking about vegetable and fruit juices.

We've got so many carrots this year that we're tired of trying out new carrot recipes. So I bought a juicer machine so we would have yet another way of eating carrots. I have found that juicing 6 carrots and 1 apple together makes about 12 oz, and I find to be quite tasty.

I'm hoping someone has some favorite juicing recipes to recommend. Anyone?

I think Ward is an avid juicer...

For the longest time I thought juicing was a great idea. Thought I would try it out one of these days. I came across this article that makes some interesting claims about juicing. I was not expecting the negatives it claims to have on decreasing the vitamin and antioxidant properties. Hmm... so now I don't know what to believe!



http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2011/04/04/juicer-or-blender/

I know people who swear by juicing, and they look better in their 70's than I do in my 30's!

There is always a negative to everything...if you are eating other things and not solely trying to exist on veggie juice I don't see why there would be a problem. Moderation in all things my dear people.

Some of my favorite juices are:

Carrot, Kale or spinach, Cucumber, apple,pear


Kale, pineapple, cucumber, apple, pear


Tomato, spinach, carrot, sometimes a little bit of onion and some garlic

carrot, spinach, strawberry

kale, cucumber, carrots, blackberries

We were on a 2 week juice "feast" recently and tried a lot of different ones. Of course any fruit juices are good, but we tried to have something green in every juice. We had cantaloupe and grape this morning and it was good!

A few things we learned.

-cucumber is great for a filler very few calories, and goes with almost anything

-strawberries, or pineapple make almost anything better

-beets go a long way in juice

Hope this helps! We love juicing and can't wait for my own kale and spinach in the garden again!

You all are making me want a juicer, or at least to juice things in the blender - next summer. I'll put learning how to do that on my list, along with getting a dehydrator. Now of course I'm going to have to add carrots to my garden (can you do that in a 6" bed???) and of course, they have to be carrots of various colors for various nutrients.

Never a dull moment.

Oh, and I would think bananas would sweeten up a juice drink and give it texture?

I think juicers are great if you have lots of fruit and veg available for them and see it as an extra in your diet rather than a big part of it. A recommended 5 portions of fruit/veg per day can only include 1 of juice - more portions of juice can only be good for you but don't count towards the 5.

My juicer says don't use banana or mango in it but both of these can be whizzed-up with some juice in a liquidizer.

For juice I love carrot, orange and pear juice. And it is great to put about an inch length of ginger root in there too. That is supposed to be super good for the immune system.

My Pilates teacher juices a lot of beetroot too but I'm not so sure about that flavour myself!

How well do your gardens grow up there in Iceland? Is that an ultra-short growing season, or is it not as cold as one would think?

My wife worked at a "Health Food Store" for a couple of years. The best thing to come from that was a juicer. We loved the Carrot/Apple juice. I started calling it "CRAPPLE" juice for short. One thing to watch, people who drank too much carrot juice would get an orange tint to their skin. Josh might try to harvest you if you turn orange.

NHGardener wrote:How well do your gardens grow up there in Iceland? Is that an ultra-short growing season, or is it not as cold as one would think?

Funny thing is that ever since I came here in '83 the average summer temperature has been going up and the last few summers have been very good - which means that we have lots of days when it gets up to 60°F and the night time temp is above 50°F.

The growing season is usually (May)-June-July-August but thanks to the odd hurricane from you guys things have stayed growing a bit longer this year.

Haha - glad to help.

I didn't know too much would grow with highs at 60F tho. Huh.

Funny you should mention that. I have been juicing a lot lately.

My absolute faves:

Take that carrot and apple and go one better with a beet added. I absolutely love that one.

And in the evening I often enjoy a tomato and celery and a small piece of garlic (be careful, garlic can be overpowering) No vodka but very refreshing and very Bloody Mary like. Can add horseradish to that too.

Anything with melon or cucumber is very refreshing.

Next on the list is to try some more "green" juices. Using spinach, broccoli, cabbage, etc.

Adding an apple to almost any of them really does make it nice. And carrot juice itself is like candy - so sweet and delicious.

NHGardener wrote:
Oh, and I would think bananas would sweeten up a juice drink and give it texture?

Bananas don't "juice". But if you make the juice and add it to the blender with a frozen banana you have taken it to another level. Feels less like health food and more like dessert.

Watercress—Beet - It was an excellently tasty juice
2 beets, washed but not peeled
1/3 bunch watercress, washed
1 orange, peeled

Arugula—Tomato
1 cup canned tomatoes - using cooked or canned tomatoes provides more lycopenes
1/2 cup arugula, tightly packed
1/2 green pepper
1 tsp olive oil
black pepper to taste

Broccoli—Tomato
1 cup canned tomatoes
1/2 small head broccoli, with stem
1/4 fennel
5 springs parsley
1 rib celery
1 tsp olive oil
black pepper to taste

Watercress—Tomato
1 cup canned tomatoes
3/4 cup watercress, tightly packed
1/4 cucumber
1 tsp olive oil
black pepper to taste

Parsley—Tomato
1 cup canned tomatoes
1/4 cup parsley, tightly packed
1/4 fennel
1 tsp olive oil
dash of Tabasco

melons give sweetness and flavor, ginger gives a nice twist.
for a really healthy content greens are needed in juices.
Juicing is fine but in my opinion a smoothie is better in that there is really no wasted pulp and the phytonutrirents are not lost.
Save and freeze the pulp for dehydrator crackers etc.
Raw foods forums are good for many healthful uses of vegetables and some juicing ideas.

So can you just use a blender then instead of a juicer? I wouldn't want to miss out on the pulp.

NHGardener wrote:So can you just use a blender then instead of a juicer? I wouldn't want to miss out on the pulp.

Horses for courses I think.
I would juice carrots, not blend. Spinach you could do either I think. Bananas just blend.

NHGardener wrote:So can you just use a blender then instead of a juicer? I wouldn't want to miss out on the pulp.

This quote is referring to vegetable pulp.

This is from a book that somebody wrote: Pulp is merely fiber and fiber has no significant nutritional value because the body can't digest it. That's why the fiber then goes on to help cleanse the colon. No juice machine can extract 100% of the nutrients. However, the drier the pulp, the more nutrition / juice has been extracted from the vegetables.

The author also recommends not juicing fruits other than apples, so that the fruit pulp can be eaten.


Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Looking around the net, it appears that juicing can become a lifestyle focus worth fighting for! I don't want to go there. I intend to be an occasional, recreational juicer, just on weekends kind of thing!

If your blood sugar is not normalized, you want to be careful juicing. One of the benefits of fiber is that because it isn't digested, it slows down the digestive process. So when you eat the whole food, the fiber trickles the sugars into the bloodstream at a slower rate than if you juice. Carrots have the highest glycemic index of any vegetable, and juicing increases the glycemic load. So, for example, 80g of raw carrots are 16 on the glycemic index, 250 mL of carrot juice is 43. Raw carrots carry a glycemic load of 1 and juice of 10.

These numbers might not mean a lot to many people, but if you are a low-carb dieter or a diabetic, they are important numbers to understand.

On the subject of blood sugar, I remember reading that cinnamon was great at helping to regulate blood sugar (or whatever is the correct term for that, maybe it's glucose, I don't remember the details) - so it makes me wonder. Would adding some cinnamon to the juice help with the blood sugar surges?

Cooked carrots with cinnamon are delicious, so I imagine some sprinkled into juices wouldn't be so bad tasting...

Our juicer leaves the pulp pretty dry. We use the pulp to feed the worms or the dogs really love it too!



I have also heard that cinn. Is good for helpping to control blood sugar.

Mama is exactly correct that is why only occasional juicing is better for you and why I prefer to blend up some smoothies using petty much the same ingredients. Juicing done more correctly should include a lot of greens to give better glycemic balance. That makes the juice bitter but balanced. I put cinnamon in a LOT of my cooking including the morning coffee and nearly all cereals get a hearty dose of it too. A really nice healthful after dinner dessert smoothie is fresh home made yogurt, nuts, coconut bits and cinnamon all well blended.

Does it matter which sort of cinnamon it is?

(sorry for hijacking the juice thread, Boffer)

Any ground cinnamon I believe.

By the way, I also read that cinnamon is a great breath freshener, so you get two benefits.

I am not sure how many different cinnamons there are but I buy regular organic from Frontier spices. Get it in bulk but don’t buy large quantities of an spice so it stays freshest. Rather you get regular or hot cinnamon to me is just a preference I use regular because it goes into quite a lot of what I eat. The same sentiment goes with turmeric for me.

Oh yeah. Turmeric is another goody. And local honey. Of course, fresh eggs. The list goes on...