How To Make Vegetable Juices
At the end of last year, Rob bought a juicer. After watching a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, he decided to overhaul his diet and make some healthy changes in the form of vegetable juicing. Sounds… delicious. Ahem.
I’m well-known among my friends and family for being a bit picky with my veg. There are some types I love, some I don’t mind and many I just cannot deal with. At all. So vegetable juicing sounded pretty nasty to me, but when Rob made me one I thought I’d give it a try.
And actually, it tasted good!
So I sat down and watched the documentary, did some reading up and was soon a fully signed-up member of the Vegetable Juicing Club. Which isn’t actually a thing, but should be.
Rob drinks four juices a day and then has a normal meal on a night but as I’m out at my studio most days, I decided to try just one at breakfast followed by two healthy meals each day. Obviously weekends don’t count, because I still need the promise of pizza to make it through a busy week.
I’ll be honest here and say Rob is in charge of the actual juicing process – I just drink the stuff. We go to our local greengrocers (shout out to the always-excellent Fruit Stall in Chapel Allerton) twice a week to stock up on all the ingredients, which comes to about £10-13 a time. It seems like a lot to spend on juice, but when you think that all those veggies will replace breakfast AND lunch for a week, it’s actually quite reasonable. Especially if you spend £5 a day in Pret…
Rob chops and peels enough ingredients for five juices each day – one for me and four for him. We use a mix of veg and some fruit – lemons and apples are good for adding a bit of sweetness. I prefer green juice which is celery, cucumber, kale, spinach, broccoli, apple and lemon or lime, whereas Rob likes red juice which is the same but with beetroots and carrots.
After rough chopping, the fruit and veg goes into the juicer. Unlike a blender, the juicer extracts the juice from each piece and discards the pulp, so you’re left with a perfectly smooth liquid. No lumps here!
When all the ingredients are juiced, we pour the liquid into Kilner jars – not just because they’re totally hipster cool, but because they have lids, which means you can shake up the juice before you drink it. Vegetable juice will separate if left standing, so this is perfect for Rob – he keeps jars in the fridge and drinks them throughout the day, shaking and adding ice before knocking ‘em back.
Although vegetable juices aren’t the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted, they are quite enjoyable. Starting the morning with a cold, fresh juice is great, and I don’t need anything else to eat until late lunchtime.
I’m very skeptical of anything used as a ‘detox’ – that’s what we have a liver and kidneys for – so for me, this is not about ‘flushing out toxins’ or even about losing weight. If you read my last post, one of my goals for 2015 is to look after my health and wellbeing, and there are loads of proven benefits to drinking vegetable juice. Something about micronutrients.
There are loads of veggie juice recipes online, but it’s also quite easy to make up your own. I particularly like
Would you try vegetable juicing?
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