Our first juicer

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Juice fast!

Juice fast! (Photo credit: add1sun)

So, like millions of people – we watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. We watch many of these types of movies because we are interested in staying healthy.

My daughter who was just turning 21 announced that she wanted a juicer for Christmas and that she was going to do a 10 day juice fast.

Finding a juicer –

I was happy to find a couple of inexpensive juicers – the Black and Decker, and the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth. But I was concerned that something so inexpensive might be a waste of money. I spend a lot of time reading reviews and searching for information. It turned out that these 2 juicers were not good at extracting juice from greens, which is the major portion of a juice fast. Bummer.

So I looked at Breville models like they used in the movie. The compact model seemed to fit the bill for the moment. It is not great at the greens, but it doesn’t cost a left lung either.

I thought I would like a VitaMix, but they are expensive. Turns out that it is not good as a juicer. It is more of a blender.

So I looked at the Gerson site. You may have heard of Gerson Therapy for curing Cancer. Put simply, Gerson Therapy is flooding your body with macro-nutrients consistently. Patients take in like 15 pounds of vegetables a day, which you could not do by eating them. By juicing, your body can assimilate the nutrients quickly. There is nothing to digest, no pulp or fiber to slow down the process.

The Gerson Diet requires a juicer that extracts the most juice with no heat or oxygen that would destroy the active enzymes. Gets pretty complicated. The juicer they recommend costs $2400. Ouch!

But since we don’t have cancer and we are only looking to get healthier, we can get away with something cheaper.

Another But…

Gerson says that the Centraful(?) juicers are basically useless healthwise. That at a minuimum you want a masticating juicer.

Oh Come On!

The Breville compact was running about $90. A masticating juicer starts at like $259.

Besides, the guy in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead used a Breville. While I can appreciate the additional health benefits of the better models, its not financially viable right now. You get what you pay for, it is true. And sometimes we have to settle for what we can afford.

Another Note –

Fruits and vegetables start to lose nutrients the minute you cut into them. While they say you can store your juice for up to 2 days, it will have lost most of its nutrients in that time. It is best to drink the juice immediately.

Our First Juice –

We did try the juicer the other night. We put in spinach, blueberries, lemon, ginger, and a green apple. It came out looking sort of brown with foam on top. We looked at each other. Are we really going to drink this?

My daughter went first. Her eyes lit up and she said, “This is really good! A little too much lemon, but otherwise – its good!”

OK, it was my turn. I took a feeble sip. It was good. A half a lemon would have been fine. A whole lemon was too much.

You have to clean the juicer out right away. If that pulp dries, you never will get it out. It took a few minutes the first time. I think we’ll get faster at it. It is sort of a pain.

Now we need to get to the store and buy a bunch of stuff to juice. I don’t think my daughter will be doing a juice fast, but if we can get a fresh glass of juice down every day or two, I think it will be beneficial. How can you beat getting all your fruits and vegetables for the day in one glass? Right now its a matter of getting into a new habit. I think next week is a better time to try to do that – after all the holiday hub-bub is over and life has settled down.

This week, one sister needs help, the other sister is sick, the tree needs to be taken down, and I blew something else up in the member’s area and dummy me has to try to figure out how to fix it. My plate is already too full. It would be silly to try to start a new habit now.

We have a couple more goals we want to get to also. I bought her the Pace Express program. We haven’t had time to pop one DVD into the player. Amazing how hard it can be to find 12 minutes.

And, I want to incorporate a whey protein shake into my daily routine. I like chocolate with a banana 😉

How about you? What are your health goals this year?

 

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