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.

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.

The cold-buster

I hate being sick. Almost as much as I hate being sick, I hate it when people tell me to drink orange juice. Orange juice usually makes me feel worse, and it doesn't even have that much vitamin C in it — just a lot of sugar.

I made a typical combination juice with beet, red bell pepper, carrot and apple and a couple other things, but added twice as much ginger root and lemon as I normally would. Lemons are a decent source of vitamin C, and ginger root is a natural antiseptic: perfect for my throat after my sinuses/drained down it all night long.



This combination has approximately 494% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin C. Way more than a glass of orange juice. It's also readily absorbed and put to use by the body and therefore better than a vitamin C supplement, in my opinion.

Being dense is good

Nutritionally dense, that is. Green leafy things in particular are packing a lot.



1 whole unpeeled organic cucumber (from a friend's garden!)
2 stalks bok choy
2 leaves swiss chard
1 organic granny smith apple
1 whole lemon (rind removed)
1.5-inch chunk fresh ginger root

The above ingredients yielded about 16 ounces of juice, which according to my calculations contains the following "daily values based on a 2,000-calorie diet":

238% Vitamin A
216% Vitamin C
10% Vitamin E
1084% Vitamin K
13% Thiamin
20% Riboflavin
8% Niacin
28% Vitamin B6
34% Folate
25% Calcium
23% Iron
37% Magnesium
37% Potassium
8% Sodium
8% Zinc
18% Copper
43% Manganese
3% Selenium

And it doesn't taste like a liquified salad, thanks to the lemon, ginger and apple.

It only LOOKS like paint water

I usually do a green juice in the evening. At first it was hard to get myself to drink something that looks like I cleaned a paintbrush in it, but the taste makes up for the unusual appearance of juices comprised of mostly green and leafy vegetables. In this case it was kale, cucumber and green apple with a bit of ginger root.