An easier way

Maybe I actually think of things nobody else has tried? I have watched too many videos and seen too many people do this the wrong way in person — at home and in commercial environments. The problem: juicing leafy greens in centrifugal juicers. It doesn't work well if you just shove them in and expect juice. They are leafy, rather than dense solid items. They hit the spinning teeth and mostly get ejected because there's not enough mass to really get any juice out of them. Yet all these people are pushing greens into their juicers, then saying "you need to follow after with something harder." This approach really doesn't help because by the time you add another ingredient, most of your greens have been shredded but not juiced, and are spun out and now in the pulp container. The answer? Put your leafy greens between other, harder items. Cucumber is perfect for this but you could also use stalks of celery or bok choy (or any other long item that you can surround the greens with — I just happen to prefer using only green items for green juices). By surrounding your leafy greens with something more dense, you are getting all of both to juice successfully.

In this photo there are two halves of a cucumber, with kale leaves wadded up between them. Push all of this gently through, pausing briefly as you go to not overload the juicer's motor. This has become my standard method for juicing leafy greens like kale and swiss chard, because it's so effective.

Tried and true vs. trying new

Although I have my tried-and-true favorite juice combinations, trying something new keeps it interesting. The grocery store had organic bartlett pears on sale for $1.79 a pound, so I thought "why not?" I've never used pears before, and suspected they'd go well with cucumber, ginger and lacinato kale. I did not add my usual lemon because lemon and ginger tend to dominate other flavors. The resulting juice was sweeter of course, but I could distinctly taste the pear and cucumber.

2 small organic bartlett pears (I cut them after taking the photo)*
1 seedless cucumber
3 lacinato ("dinosaur") kale leaves
1 chunk of ginger root (1-inch diameter, 2+ inches long)

* Like apple seeds, pear seeds when crushed or ground and ingested can apparently create trace amounts of cyanide when mixed with stomach acid. Although smaller apples and pears can go into some juicers whole, I don't recommend doing so for this reason.

Organic vs. Conventional Produce

Although eating conventional produce is better than not getting enough fruits and vegetables in your diet, there are many items that you really should strive to ONLY buy organic. If you're juicing daily, you're consuming a lot more produce than you probably had previously. That's great, but if you're consuming non-organic produce that also means you're ingesting more pesticides, fertilizers and fungicides. That's not good.

The Environmental Working Group has two lists that they publish, known as the "Dirty Dozen" and the "Clean 15." You guessed it, items on the "dozen" list should only be purchased when organic is available, as they contained the highest levels of pesticides. The "clean" items you don't need to worry about as much. EWG's web site has updates these lists here.

The current "Dirty Dozen" (and the top three are the worst offenders):

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Strawberries
4. Peaches
5. Spinach
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes (imported)
8. Sweet bell peppers
9. Potatoes
10. Blueberries (domestic)
11. Lettuce
12. Kale and collard greens

(Although not on this list, I still only buy organic carrots as well.)

The current "Clean 15":

1. Onions
2. Sweet corn
3. Pineapple
4. Avocado
5. Asparagus
6. Sweet peas
7. Mangoes
8. Eggplant
9. Cantaloupe (domestic)
10. Kiwi
11. Cabbage
12. Watermelon
13. Sweet potatoes
14. Grapefruit
15. Mushrooms

Grapefruit goodness and making the time for juicing

Every now and then I like to try new combinations, even though I have my tried-and-true favorites. This morning's juice featured grapefruit, red bell pepper, granny smith apple, lemon, carrot, ginger, golden beet and tomato. I used one large and one smaller grapefruit. You could really taste the grapefruit over the other ingredients, which was the goal. As you can see below I also used a rather large chunk of ginger root.

The approximate nutritional analysis of this combination (which yielded over a quart of juice, enough for two people) per-person:

Percent Daily Values

Vitamin A: >600%
Vitamin C: >230%
Vitamin E: 14%
Vitamin K1: 40%
Thiamin: 15%
Riboflavin: 14%
Niacin: 15%
Vitamin B6: 27%
Folate: 30%
Calcium: 8%
Iron: 8%
Magnesium: 12%
Potassium: 30%
Sodium: 12% (mostly from the carrots)
Zinc: 5%
Copper: 7%
Manganese: 24%  

Making the time for juicing
I hear people complain that it takes a long time to prep for juicing. I don't think it takes long at all. I don't peel organic carrots or cucumbers. In this morning's juice I peeled the beet and ginger root, and cut the rind off the grapefruits and lemon. Everything else required a minimal amount of rinsing and prep. If I know I will be pressed for time or have to leave earlier than usual in the morning, I'll prep my juice ingredients the night before and store them in a bag in the fridge overnight. To keep apples from turning brown, rub the flesh with the rind-less lemon before putting them in the bag. In the morning, just pull the bag out and you're ready to go.

Martha Stewart does a green juice every day

Martha Stewart Starts Every Day With Green Juice, Seriously Digs Asparagus Season
from Grubstreet New York

"Every morning I drink a green juice made from fresh spinach, parsley, pear, ginger, orange, and cucumber from my farm."

Feeling Good

I'm feeling good. Physically because I've been working out, still juicing every morning and also In the past couple of months I've eaten almost no meat (more on that later*). I'm also feeling good about the happy fact that since I started adding fresh vegetable juice to my diet last summer, I've directly or indirectly inspired more than 6 people to start doing it themselves. Whether because I talked their ears off about all the nutrition they could be getting, or because they can see a big difference in how I look compared to last year, or maybe because they'd thought about doing it and just needed someone they know to evangelize just enough to be the push required to get a juicer and start doing it themselves — whatever the reason, I'm glad they did and I think they are too!

If you're one of those people who started juicing because of me blabbing about it, or because you stumbled across this blog or whatever, how has your experience been? Have you seen or felt a noticeable change in yourself or your partner/spouse? Do you see this as something you'll permanently add to your life? Please, share your thoughts!


* I've all but stopped including meat (beef, pork, chicken, lamb, etc.) in my diet; instead I'm consuming more fish/seafood than I did before.