I’ll start this blog post by admitting that I have never really been a fan of juicing. I hate the hype and near-religious devotion to it. I hate the waste – seriously, what do juice bars do with all the leftover pulp? I hate that people were replacing meals with giant bottles of green juice. I’ve seen both of Joe Cross’ films, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and its sequel and left both sceptical about how people would go from juicing 100% of the time to eating real food, without any real nutrition education.
After the last few weeks, I like juicing a little more than before. Why, you may be asking?
It all started three weeks ago when my husband reminded me that our Magimix has a juicing attachment. Curiosity struck and the next thing I knew, I was cutting up some vegetables and we had a fun time letting our son feed the chopped veg into the machine and push it down with the plunger. And it was a good result too, for my first try 😄.
Here’s what I put in it:
1 celery stalk
1 fennel stalk
2 small apples
1 medium carrot
1 knob of ginger
After a good tasting session, we decided to lay off the fennel the next time, because it overwhelmed the rest of the flavours.
Then on Wednesday, I was at home with my little guy. He had just finished his post-nap snack and turned to me and said, “Mama, I want to make juice.” I chuckled, gave a little internal hurray for building good nutrition habits, grabbed all of the juice attachments for the Magimix and we set to work.
This time, we mixed it up and put a bit more veg in:
1 beetroot
1 golden beetroot
1 celery stalk
2 medium carrots
2 small apples
1 knob ginger
1 knob tumeric
1/2 small cucumber
I ended up with enough for two full glasses and a bottle to put in the fridge for later.
Here are my top tips for juicing:
1. Always drink juice with a meal.
Because the juicing process removes the fibre from the fruit and veg, it gets digested VERY quickly and you get hungry again an hour later. Chewing starts the first part of the digestive process (which happens in the mouth!) and just drinking juice bypasses this, which is not a good thing.
If you drink your juice with a nutritious meal, the protein and fat from the food will slow digestion down and you won’t get hungry again as quickly.
2. Vegetables should form the bulk of the juice.
The fructose in fruit juices can cause insulin spikes, which can lead to energy crashes. Vegetables modulate this process and keep blood sugars steadier.
3. Use the pulp!
Apparently, the pulp can be used in broths, smoothies, muffins and omelettes. I’m going to figure this out, because it feels almost criminal to throw out all of this goodness!
Do you juice? What are your top tips?