Meals - Breakfast: Orange Juice; Snack: Banana; Lunch: An ugly concoction I made and explain below; Snack: handful of nuts; Dinner: Huge salad (with plum tomatoes, yum!) with raspberry vinaigrette, grapes, carrots; Snack: Orange
I made another batch of juice today, including the Mean Green Juice everyone raves about. Juicing went a lot easier today and a lot less messy. I believe Charming and I have a good system down now. The juices I made had a lot of good vegetables in them, like kale and spinach, so I feel a little better about my veggie intake. I am very excited to try one I made that has peaches, apples and broccoli stalks in it. I do believe it is going to be important that I find recipes that include a fruit or two in the veggie juices to take the edge off. And if today's experimentation is any indication of what just throwing things into a juicer can do, I am sticking like glue to those recipes.
When I was done making the juices I had selected I decided to make one more using what I had left over. In my mind, the idea of juicing spinach, celery, half a lemon and a bunch of raspberries sounded like a good idea. Like a spinach salad with raspberry vinaigrette, my favorite kind of salad, just in liquid form. Delicious, right?
Wrong. So, so very wrong.
The end result was so vile and gag inducing I will be running away from that juice in my nightmares for months. I can still taste the bitter disgustingness on my tongue. However, with the high expense of the ingredients used in this juicing journey I promised Charming I would eat whatever I juice, no wasting allowed. Even if what comes out that juicer reminds me of what was in the swamp behind my childhood home. So I bit the bullet and swallowed the green sludge with bits of raspberries to choke me, the horror of my own creation. It took me over an hour to get it down and not throw it up. My gag reflex was in full on revolt mode. So from now on, no more deviating from what either people tell me is good or what is written in a book.
And speaking of books, I picked up what is surely going to become my bible for the next few weeks at the recommendation of my good friend Lisa.The Big Book of Juices is a tomb filled with every kind of juice combination imaginable! I can't wait to flip through it and label the ones that sound good. I am actually excited to try out some new ones. And since this two thirds of my meals I guess that is a good thing. I also have a bunch of recipes from friends and online that I scouted out, so I can't wait to get into the kitchen and start juicing! (On a side note, I am totally sad that Barnes & Noble is my only choice if I want a book for right now and can't wait on Amazon. I miss my beloved Borders!)
My only concern now is about how to store my juices. With everything I have been reading online and from what people have been telling me, I should be drinking whatever I juice right away. However, this is highly inconvenient for me since I don't have the time to juice every day, twice a day. I am juicing every other day and store the juices in my fridge. "They" also say you shouldn't keep a juice past 24 hours. But I make a lot at one time and divide it up over two to three days. I do need to get some glass mason jars because the plastic ones I have been keeping my juices in are supposedly a big no no. I have read a bit about freezing the juice but I'm not sure if that would be good either. I am worried I am not getting the nutrients out of the juice like I should if I leave them in my fridge and don't drink them right away, but I just can't juice every single day. I have other things I must do and I really don't want this whole juice thing to become the only thing, besides work, in my life. I have tried hard to balance it and find a good system and now if that isn't going to be good enough, I am going to get discouraged which would probably lead to me quitting. and I don't want that.. Any suggestions or advice will greatly help. Since I'm new to this juice world I need some help from those who have done this and can lead me to a happy solution. In the meantime I will keep doing what I'm doing. As long as nothing makes me sick I don't see the harm.
3 weeks ago
2 Sprinkles:
I'm so happy you're getting that Big Book of Juices book! I had to wait on it since it was backordered on Amazon, so yes-- Barnes & Noble is the better way to go for sure. (I really miss Borders, too! All the time.)
I can keep some juices for 24 hours, as long as it's in a glass container. I actually use empty Snapple bottles, and there is a brand of organic lemonade called Hubert's Lemonade-- they have the cutest bottles with a little smiling lemon! They make me happy. I funnel the juices into these bottles and bring them to work for lunch sometimes. (Check Whole Foods and any other grocery stores that sell organic foods to look for Hubert's Lemonade-- they have several varies, too, like strawberry, raspberry, honey and lime. Yum!)
The BBOJ book mentions something called citric acid/vitamin C as a preservative. It's apparently a powder or a liquid you can drop into a juice to help it stay fresh a bit longer. I have yet to find this in the store, though. And I'd only get an organic version of it, of course. Adding chemicals to a juice would ruin it! (When I was little, I remember my Mom having this little container of powder that she would use to sprinkle on sliced apples so they wouldn't turn brown by lunchtime. I'm pretty sure that's the stuff, but I wonder if they still make it!)
That green juice that we all love? I'm psyched for you to try it! Are you using a little bit of fresh ginger in yours? If so, here's a tip-- bury the ginger in the middle of the kale when you put it in the juicer, or cut a slot into one of the apples and slide it in there. The reason is, I've found if I don't add it with some other ingredient, the ginger kind of bounces off the juicing blades and flies into the waste bin without being juiced.
See, all these little things you learn as you go... it's amazing. I never knew as much about different natural ingredients and how to combine them as I do today! I hope you're having fun with it.
I wonder if you could have added an apple to your nightmare juice -sweetness- and saved it?
Some stores carry citric acid in the vitamin/health food aisle (not the pharmacy's vitamin aisle). I had to go specifically to a health food store to find mine (It's used in making cheeses). You can order it on Amazon, as well. I use the NOW Foods brand. You might also try Fruit Fresh or Fruit pectin, which you can find in the canning aisle, used to preserve jams & jellies.
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