Storing Juice

When you juice vegetables and fruit, it is always best to consume the juice immediately after making it.  This way you are enjoying 100% of the vitamins, enzymes, minerals, proteins, fiber, carbohydrates, phyto-nutrients, chlorophyll, and lipids.  Minutes after making your juice some of this beneficial goodness starts to degrade.  When you juice fresh fruit and vegetables you are breaking open the cell walls, and many of the nutrients are very sensitive to light, air, heat and time.  So the best thing to do is to make only the juice you will consume, and consume the juice that you just made.

That said, often I find myself making an extra serving.  Instead of wasting this, and assuming my wife isn't home to drink it, I want to save it for later.  Granted like I said above it will never be as nutrient dense as it was when it was made, but there are ways to store the juice to limit the loss or degradation of the nutrients.

The best way to store your juice is to find yourself some glass Mason Jars.  Get the appropriate size.  You want to fill the jar right to the top.  I mean RIGHT to the top!  This is important as you want to eliminate any air in the jar.  Seal the lid on the jar and put it into the fridge.  Don't store your juice at room temperature it won't last, and will oxidize quickly.  If properly filled, and no air is present, your juice will last up to 8 hours if juiced with a centrifugal juicer, and up to 24 hours if juiced with a twin gear or single auger low RPM juicer.  Don't try to store them longer, they will essentially be just water.

So there it is.  No more wasting your left over juice.  I tend to make one for myself in the morning, and then store one away for when my wife gets home from work so she has one ready to go.

Power of Juicing

"Juicing is the 15 minute nutrient express to health" - Jason Vale

Juicing is something you can benefit from immediately. Both my wife and I started juicing probably 6-8 months ago, and right away realized a difference in digestion, energy, sleep pattern, and overall feeling of good health.

Check out these benefits of juicing:

1. Juicing allows you to take a large amount of fruits and vegatables into your body in one go. Many more than you would be able to sit down and eat.
2. Many of us have impaired digestion. Juicing bypasses digestion allowing the nutrients to go straight to the blood stream, which carries them throughout the body wherever they are needed.
3. Juicing allows you to enjoy a wider variety of vegetables you may not eat whole. This allows you to rotate the food you eat and reduces the risk of developing a food allergy. Don't eat the same salad everyday, mix it up.
4. Green juices are high in chlorophyll, so concentrate on those. They are a great way to cleanse the body of the daily toxins you ingest. Chlorophyll attaches to toxins and heavy metals and helps remove them from your body, it also stimulates red blood cell production.

Watch this quick recipe by Jason Vale

Tropical Punch

A great tasting juice for the morning or evening out on the patio.

• 1 mango
• 1 peach or nectarine
• 2 oranges
• 2 apples
• 1 lemon

Add some flax oil or chia seeds for your omega fats. Makes 2 servings.
ENJOY!

BTW - don't forget to remove the pit from the fruits unless you want to buy a new blade for your juicer.

Red Citrus

This one is really good and easy to make!

• 2 oranges
• 2 lemons
• 3 carrots
• 2 beets

As always try to use as many organic ingredients as you can.

ENJOY!

Sweet Beet

An easy and tasty beet juice recipe. A great way to include beet juice in your diet. Never juice and drink straight beet juice. Always mix it with an apple or other veggies. Plain beet juice can temporarily paralyze your vocal chords.

• 1 apple
• 1 Beet
• 4-5 carrots

After Vee Eight

Remember those yummy After 8 mints? What was the best thing about them? The chocolate or the mint? Myself, I say the mint. Who doesn't like the fresh taste of mint?

I don't know! But I do know a lot of people who don't like the taste of vegetable juice. Why not freshen it up a bit with a hit of mint?

Blend in your juicer following the order below:

• 1 tomato
• 1 lemon (peeled)
• 1 orange (peeled)
• 3 collards
• 3 kale
• Handful of spinach
• Handful of mint
• 1 beet
• 4-5 carrots

The mint and citrus mask the earthy flavour of the beet, kale and collards and leave a fresh tasting vegetable juice that incidentally is way better for you than the shelf brands.

Minty Mean Green SuperJuice

Many people just can't get used to the earthy tasting Mean Green Juice. For those people, I've created a new variety that takes all the earthiness flavour out and leaves a drink that tastes exquisite, while still retaining the green goodness of the original Mean Green. You should also try to include as many super foods in your diet as possible. Chia seeds are one of those foods, and for that, I have added them to this drink.

Mix in your juicer in the order below:

• 1 lemon (peeled)
• 1 orange (peeled)
• 3 stalks of Kale
• 3 collards
• Handful of parsley
• Handful of cilantro
• Handful of mint
• 1 large apple

Once it's poured into your glass mix in some sprouted chia seeds.
What your left with is all the green goodness with a minty citrus flavour.

ENJOY!

Vee Eight Juice

Store Bought V8 has a TON of sodium in it, not to mention preservatives. Really, there is no point in drinking it since the negative out weighs the positive.

A homemade V8 is much healthier and very easy to make.

Blend in your juicer:

• 3-4 Stalks of celery
• Bunch of parsley
• Bunch of cilantro
• 1/4 Green pepper
• 1/4 Cabbage
• Whole tomato
• 3-4 Stalks Kale
• 1 Small beet

Add a lemon if you want to sweeten it up a bit.

Add some hot sauce and Worcester sauce for heat.

Morning Juice

A great breakfast juice, to boost your energy and wake you up.  I don't care what you think of beets, this juice is a really sweet tasting blend, you'll love it.

• 1 Organic beet root
• 2 Organic apples (your choice on variety)
• 1 Organic orange
• 1 Organic lemon

Juice the citrus first at medium speed, then the beet at high speed, and finish with the apples also at high speed.

Pour and ENJOY!

Sweet Vision

A juice that keeps the eye doctor happy (or unhappy since you won't be going as often).

Carrots are full of Vitamin A, which among other things is great for your vision. Carrots are also full of antioxidants, fibre and minerals. Add apple, orange and ginger and you get a full complement of vitamins, as well as a great digestive aid with the ginger.

This is an excellent morning drink to replace your morning orange juice.

• 4 to 6 organic carrots (tops off)
• 1 organic apple
• 1 organic orange
• 1 slice of organic ginger (optional, if you like a little spice)

Juice it all up in your juicer, starting with the orange and ending with the carrots to flush out the juicer. (Always finish with the juiciest vegetables/fruit to flush out the remaining juice and pulp from the collector.)

Bay Days Sale

Bay Days are on and they currently have 25% off small kitchen electronics. This includes the Breville juicers. They only have the 2-speed Juice Fountain Plus online but I would imagine that in-stores they have others. Even so, the 2-speed is a great juicer and for $134.99 on sale you can't go wrong!

http://www.thebay.com/eng/home-baydays25offsmallkitchenelectrics-Juice_Fountain_Plus-thebay/158232

Mean Green Juice

Now that you've seen the trailer for Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, it's time to get on the green juice kick.

Here's my recipe (there are many variations online):

• 3 to 4 stalks of organic green kale
• 2 stalks of organic celery
• 1 bunch of organic spinach
• 1 organic green apple
• 1/2 organic lemon, peeled
• Slice of ginger
• A few sprigs of organic parsley and/or cilantro (optional, for chlorophyll)

Pink Lady Chia Juice

I created a great-tasting morning juice yesterday so thought I would share it with you. I call it Pink Lady Chia Juice and it's super easy to make with your juicer.

Chia seeds are a superfood and they're easy to include in almost anything, I've quoted Food Matters below with more information on them:

"Chia literally means strength in Mayan and can be traced back over 3,000 years to Central America where the Aztecs utilized it as one of their primary plant sources of food. Chia seeds are rich in plant based omega-3s containing 64 percent alpha linolenic acid (ALA). Flax, another popular source of ALA, contains 55 percent. The omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is also highly auspicious in chia, representing a healthy balance of 3:2. Chia seeds are also naturally high in calcium, a nutrient necessary for healthy bones (among other functions in the body). This is plant-based calcium, too, not the calcium carbonate you might see in lower-cost vitamins." -Food Matters

Anyway, here's the juice recipe!

• 3 Pink Lady organic oranges, peeled
• 2 organic lemons, peeled
• 1 large organic apple

Pour into 2 glasses or 1 large glass if you're enjoying it for yourself. Stir 1 1/2 tablespoons of sprouted chia seeds (I use an organic chia/flax mix) into each glass.

Stir well and enjoy.

Juicing

I juice vegetables every day. It's the easiest way to get more than enough veggies into your diet. A lot of people just don't eat any vegetables, while others don't eat enough. The nutrients in vegetables are a powerful source of anti-aging, anti-disease and extra energy. They help with digestion, detoxification, mood and sleep – the list goes on. I have found juicing to be extremely easy and, for the most part, flavourful.

I found that the Breville Ikon Multi-Speed Juice Fountain is the best juicer for your money. There are better juicers on the market (screw-type juicers), but they are expensive. The Ikon is a 5-speed juicer and can juice pretty much anything except wheat grass. The leftover pulp is very dry, which means that it's extracting most of the juice and only leaving pulp behind. Some cheaper juicers will spit out wet pulp that you can almost juice again.

Do your research before you buy a cheaper juicer. In this case, you do get what you pay for.