Juicing

K, I have stuck with it so far- at least 1 juice a day. I am graduating to 2. I have a cooler full of produce in the garage, to keep it out of the 9 year old smoothie maker's hands...and perhaps to leave some room in the fridge for others too.

I am sticking with my apple, spinach, carrot mixture in the morning. I drank my Kirkland Weight loss shake afterwards for protein, ooh and 4 grams of fiber. Yesterday evening I jumped right in, head first I think. In went about a cup of broccoli, a tomato, 3 celery sticks, a garlic clove, and a medium size habenero. I tried to sip it while I wash washing up. It was strong and potent. I also think it separates and you may have better luck stirring. It was hot in my mouth, but not that bad.....it was when it hit my stomach was the problem. It hit like a rock, and no warning to keep it down. It was short lived, and not very painful and pretty much all that I puked up

I am gluten, went back for more this evening. I hear how important habenero is and garlic too! Tonight was the smallest habenero in my bag, a garlic clove, tomato, 2 celery sticks and 3 leaves of kale. I sipped it slowly, and made sure it didn't settle too bad. It took me as long to sip as it took to clean up. It was defiantly not as hot. The smaller habenoro might have been enough. Not letting it settle makes sense. In my mind, I think something that looks like it might be a more solid juice, maybe soaks up some of the heat a little better too? I don't know, but it is in my stomach still!

My first juicing experience

There you have it! I got out of bed, fed Hope and got busy. While I was at Costco yesterday, I picked up a flat of organic apples, a Costco size bag of organic carrots, and a box of organic baby spinach. As you can see from the photo, a Juiceman Juicer arrived from my pink ladies on the east coast.

I was quite pleased to find that I felt like I had enough ingredients to give it a whirl. What does that mean in hind site? I have no clue, just how my head works sometimes! I was also pleased that even though leafy greens are not supposed to do well in this type of juicer, (a centrifugal juicer), my spinach seemed to do just fine. So this morning I put in 3 lg. carrots, the oldest apple in my fruit drawer, and about a cup of spinach. I think this produced about 16 oz. of juice.

For all you doubters out there, I will be the first to admit to not being very fond of fruit (too sweet), and not fond of a lot of veggies, least not cooked. All I know is that this tasted good! Not so good that I see myself craving it- least not for any other reason then I know it's good for me, but good. I started saying it didn't taste bad, and then I realized that bad really had know place in the description of this combination. All honesty really. In fact, there was only really 2 things that I disliked about the experience. 1- Not fast enough! Not the juicing part...the clean up. I think that NOT cleaning the juicer right away after is juicing is probably not good for the life of the juicer. Getting into a habit with this machine is important I think. I suppose it would probably be fine to leave it soaking in a bowl of water for a few hours, until I could get back to clean it right. I good little brush will go a long ways with the blade type piece. On a normal day though, wash it right away as I am SIPPING my juice. Book says sip, not gulp...especially with veggies. Veggie juice is stronger. The other part that sucks- I discovered it doesn't seem to count for food in my stomach before I take my vitamins. I used to be able to take them without food, but not since cancer. So is it the veggie juice being so strong that made it react hard with vitamins....or just not thick enough to coat my stomach? Hmmm, I'll have to try it differently on a different day. All I know is I did it.....now I just need to figure out an affordable routine, and how to max the benefits. I know they say as much of a raw diet as possible for fighting cancer, but I still don't see getting rid of all the good stuff completely yet. Let me start with adding first and taking away some. Baby steps!