# FYI: My first attempt to juice...



## pengyou (Feb 24, 2013)

I am looking for a way to improve my overall health so for a long time have considered buying a juicer.  I have been visiting local juice bars and sampling their juices but they are quite expensive and not open in the morning, when I would like to drink the juice.  I finally did buy a juicer.  It is a Joyoung masticating juicer -this is not an advertisement or endorsement for anything - just reporting the facts   For those who don't know, a masticating juicer is a juicer that uses an auger (screw) to "chew" the foods to make the juice at slow rpm's.  It is very easy to use.  The first step - I scrubbed the veggies with a stiff brush and rinsed them -did not bother to peel them, because the area right near the peel in most veggies has the greatest amount of nutrients.  I then chopped off the root parts and cut the veggies. The juicer has a rather large mouth to the chute so I didn't need to spend a lot of time doing this.  The potato was cut into 1/8 size pieces and other things, if needed, were cut into 1/4 size.  Washing and cutting time took less than 2 minutes.  For my first attempt I used one large potato, 2 medium sized carrots, one large tomato, a small bunch of cilantro, 4 stalks of celery, half a long British cucumber and a medium size purple onion.  Total weight was probably a little more than 3 pounds.  I was not following a specific recipe but rather choose these veggies to see how much juice they would provide.  

First thing I noticed is that the juicer is remarkably quiet and makes a very slight hum when not juicing. When juicing something it sounds like the noise made in the game "Zombies vs. veggies" when the zombies are eating the veggies   Total "munching" time was about 7 minutes.  The pulp (residue from juicing) was very dry.  I wish I had measured more carefully, but I got about 30 ounces of juice from these veggies. - I am looking to get about 10-12 oz each morning.

Masticating juicers are usually used for veggies - especially leafy veggies - because the slow speed does not generate the high heat that the blender type juicers create with their 8k-20K rpm speeds.  They are also more effective at juicing the leafs.  I would say, however, that a common juicer would be more effective for tomatoes - or just throw it into a blender and puree it.

Clean up was easy also, and took about 3 minutes.  The juicer comes apart with a couple of twists.  There are a couple of sharp parts - mainly the strainers - but there are no sharp knives in this to worry about cutting your fingers.  I rinsed everything off, washed quickly in soapy water with a scrubbie then rinsed thoroughly in hot water.  Because I will be doing this in the morning, when I am usually in a bit of a hurry, I will consider rinsing everything off with water that has a slight amount of bleach in it, to make sure that everything stays nice and germ free.   

The result?  I would like to say that I was pleasantly surprised...but the taste was not very wonderful.  The strongest taste was the carrot, even though I only put 2 in it.  The cilantro was noticeable.  The onion was not  noticeable but there was an intense aspect of the taste that I could not identify - almost spicy hot (the same kind of influence that wasabe has) that I am guessing was caused by the onion, but no onion breath   There was a slight aftertaste of potato...and a hint of tomato. There was no taste from the cucumber but the cucumber added a lot of liquid to the juice.  I added about a 1/4 tsp of salt and the taste improved immensely.  It still wasn't wonderful but very drinkable.  some people say that cihlling it changes the taste immensely.  Maybe because I am not used to drinking veggie juice, the taste was a bit like vegetable soup and I kept expecting to find chunks of potatoes, carrots, etc in the juice.  A quick fix might have been to take 1/4 of a can of condensed vegetable and beef soup and mix it in with the juice - maybe heat it up to.  But I would do something like that mainly for the texture, not the taste.  The taste can be changed by following recipes and even using various kinds of herbs.  I have seen some recipes where people have put the juice in a blender with cooked beans (lentils, lima, etc)  and blended them together to give a nice smooth texture, more like a smoothie.

I will try again because of the nutritional benefits I have heard are available from juices.  I think, if I make a few adjustments to my preparation area and use 1/3 the amount of veggies I can get the whole thing done in 10 minutes, which, to me, is a very good use of time.  I will follow a recipe the next time, of course, which should make the results even better.  

I would feel better about doing this if I could find a use for the pulp.  I am thinking of making a worm-composting pile - they would love it, but I have to find the space to do that.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them.

PS  The aftertaste is really good - like I just ate a big meal of stew


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## nicktrick (Feb 24, 2013)

Good for you for starting juicing. It is soo healthy...

Someday I'll get myself a juicer too. Getting your daily veggies from one glas of juice is pretty cool.

Good luck on your juicing journey. Hope the taste of your juice will improve.


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## Rocklobster (Feb 24, 2013)

I have a couple of juicers. They can be a bit of extra work, but the benefits are worth it. Unfortunately for me, I fall out of the habit quite easily. I can directly attribute my weight loss a few years ago to my champion juicer. I was on a 5 small meal schedule and just drank fresh juice for two of those meals. Usually the second and fourth ones... I kept this up daily for about 6 months and combined with three days of circuit training, I lost 25 lbs and was probably in the best shape I have been in in the last 20 years, if not more.

I found that if you put the pulp through a second time you extracted more juice and it really diminished the amount solids I had to deal with.  I also found that some juices can be very potent. Ie. beet juice is so high in sugar it gave me more of a jolt than my morning coffee. Almost to the point of being uncomfortable. I had to play with the recipes, making sure I had the proper blends and combinations until I found a few that I could enjoy and live with.   I should get at it again because I gaining a bit of weight.


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