“Tips for Juicing at Home”
As you know, I am a proponent of drinking green juice after reading “Detox for Women” By Natalia Rose. However, this is an expensive, albeit healthy habit. One way, make it more budget friendly is to juice at home.
I will usually do a week’s worth of juice in one day with our Jack Lulaine juicer. (Thanks to my aunt and uncle for this wedding gift ;)).
I definitely learned a few things along the way that make this easier. I hope you can learn from my mistakes.
Tip #1: Get yourself rubber gloves. I learned the hard way (and slow way as this didn’t occur to me until months in) that beets dye your skin AND NAILS purple and it’s hard to wash off. I would walk around for half a week with purple stains on my hands EVERY WEEK. Not very becoming when you’re teaching or auditioning. And it’s always an akward moment when someone notices and asks why your hands are purple :/. Do yourself a favor and just invest in the rubber gloves.
Tip #2: Wear an apron. Any really juicy item, like carrot, celery, or cucumber tends to splatter when the juice comes out the spout. The apron will protect you from wearing your juice. Trust me, just wear it. Better safe than sorry.
Tip #3: Pull long hair back. This makes it easier to see what you are doing and makes sure that stray hair does not end up in your juice. Win. Win. Plus trying to pull your hair out of your face with juice covered rubber gloves is quite a difficult feat that I’m sure you really don’t need or want experience with. Pull the hair back and pare down your special skills list.
Tip #4: Mason Jars. I know these little guys are trendy right now, but they are really perfect for this. They seal well, freeze well, the lids interchange with other jars, they are exactly 16 oz, and you can get a set of 4 with handles for $10 at Bed Bath and Beyond. Or I’m sure you can find cheaper ones at yard sales, flea markets, and your local hardware store. They will make life easier. Trust me.
Tip #5: Juice the beets LAST. Here’s the thing. I don’t really like beets. I find them to be too sweet and just plain gross. But I drink them anyway for their detox properties. With that said, I don’t like all other drinks to taste like beet. Additionally, as I mentioned, beets make everything purple. So after the beets go through the machine, everything after WILL be purple. Save them until the last few jars and you will have a nice mix of flavor combinations. Some with beet and some without.
Tip #6: Pyrex measuring cups. These have marks on the side that delineate, ounces, cups, etc. I will know if I have enough liquid for a 16 oz. mason jar just by looking at the side of the Pyrex measure. And it has a pour spout. It’s perfect for transferring liquids.
Tip # 7: Use a paring knife on lemons. This is a good investment if you don’t already have one. It’s a smaller knife that makes peeling a lemon so much easier. Here’s how to do it. First, cut both ends off the lemon. Place one of the flat sides down so the lemon is now vertical. Now holding the paring knife horizontally slice down the sides of the lemon in thin slices from top to bottom all the way around.
These slices will form sort of a flower around the bottom of the lemons and then you can peel them off the bottom in one full swipe. See pictures.
Tip #8: Shut down the machine between juices. If you’ve ever juiced many juices at once, you know that the machines can overheat. When this happens, they shut themselves down and you have to wait…and wait…and wait… until it’s cooled down and ready to go again. To avoid this, simply shut down the machine in between juices and use the time to prep the ingredients for the next juice. This is how I’m able to get through about 7 juices in an hour.
Tip #9: Keep it cheap. As I said, this is an expensive habit. Here’s one way to keep it more affordable. As much as it pains me to say it, don’t juice the green stuff like kale and romaine regularly. There is not a lot of juice in the lettuces, so you end up going through a ton of it, for not much juice. That is not much bang for your buck and it jams up the machine to boot. I recommend buying things with lots of juice like cucumber, celery, lemon, and carrots. It will save your wallet and you can dehydrate the pulp to make “breadcrumbs”. However, if money is not an issue, go to town buy ALL THE GREEN!
Tip #10: Bottle Brushes. These are a great investment as they make it easier to clean the mason jars after you drink the magical elixir. Juices like carrot and beet, as well as spirulina powder tend to stick to the sides of the jars. The bottle brushes have bristles that can get to the corners of bottles that your sponge can’t reach.
I hope you find these tips helpful. Let me know your favorite juicing tips or juice recipes.
