Juicing has many health benefits and is an easy way to get your kids nutrients that they would not get otherwise. The tips that are provided below will help guide you toward fun and interesting ways to make delicious juice drinks that you and your family are sure to love.
When attempting a juice-only diet, it can be helpful to remove all processed foods from your house first. Having a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, or some candy bars staring you in the face while you can only have juice is an easy way to cut your diet tragically short.
Buy a juicer made of high quality. This is important if you plan to use your juicer regularly. A good juicer will make as much juice as you want, be easy to maintain and clean, and last a long time. Don’t try to skimp on price or you might end up buying more juicers than you want to; bad juicers just don’t stand the test of time.
Lacking space on your cutting board for all of the ingredients you need for juicing? Try to cut everything in a manner which keeps the actual food “whole”. For example, slice a carrot but don’t pull the pieces apart. You can slice an apple around it’s core and then stand the pieces up so it looks like it wasn’t cut. This will save you space to slice the other items you need without dirtying more dishes.
Buying fruit and vegetables for your juicing can be easy by using all five senses to find the freshest produce to bring home. Sniff the item and make sure it smells good, like you would want to eat it. Squeeze it and feel if it’s too hard or too soft. Look it over for imperfections, and then take it home and taste a bit. Enjoy!
You don’t have to spend a fortune on fresh juicing produce as long as you shop in season. Berries are great in the summer, but will cost you an arm and a leg to buy in the winter, so skip them until the prices drop again. Apples last all winter, so feel free to buy a few bushels and keep them in the garage.
Be aware that citrus fruits do not always work well in all juicers. Because of the consistency of the pulp in the fruit the juicer can get clogged with the pulp or rind. If using a standard juicer, peel the fruit and cut into small pieces; otherwise get a citrus juicer that you will use for these types of fruit specifically.
If you can’t afford to juice with organic fruit and vegetables, don’t worry about it. It’s nice to have pesticide-free items, but you can only work with what you have available. Wash your produce in a mixture of 8 cups of water with 3 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide and 3 tablespoons of baking soda to get all the nasty stuff off. Rinse your produce well before using.
When juicing leafy vegetables like spinach, ball the leaves together. If you form your vegetable leafs into a ball, like crumpled paper for instance, you will give a more solid mass for the juicer to work with. This will prevent small pieces of leaves from showing up in your juice and affecting the consistency.
Some items just aren’t made for the juicer, especially if they’re soft and mushy. For example, you’ll never be able to make a juice that is mostly banana, but you CAN put a half of a banana in a juice made with other firmer produce. Peaches tend to give the same result.
It’s best to remove the stems and leaves from fruit and vegetables before you juice them. Some items, like beat tops, can be left in if you so desire. Do some research to find out which leaves are edible, or worth eating nutrition-wise, and which to throw away. Stems could cause damage to your machine, so throw them away regardless of nutritional value.
When you juice for health it’s important that you get the most our of your drink, so investing in a vacuum jar sealer can allow you to store some of your juice for later while retaining the nutrients that you’re getting from the produce. Remember, it’s better to drink it immediately, but if you can’t, buy a vacuum sealer!
When it comes to juicing, one thing that you want to keep in mind is that you should build your entire healthy lifestyle around it. This is important because it is an enjoyable way to get your body all of the nutrients that it needs and with a healthy diet, you will be motivated to make healthy choices in other areas of your life.
Once you have your juicing materials, they should be of good quality if you want good quality juice, it is of utmost importance that you know how to function your juicer to it’s fullest extent. If you delve into making juice before you really know what you are doing, you will just be wasting your juicing materials.
If you’d like to add an exotic flavor to your juice recipes, try some fresh coconut! It adds a nutty smoothness to any mixture, giving you something new and different to enjoy. Try mixing it with other exotic juices, like mango or papaya. Some like to chew on a piece of coconut while preparing their juice!
Getting kids to eat their vegetables is never easy. Juicing the vegetables with fruits is a great way to get kids to ingest the vitamins and minerals that they need, without having to fight with them about the taste. The tips that have been provided are easy to follow and can make a real difference in the way your family eats.
