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Sunday, May 29, 2011

Juicing

I am so excited! I just picked up a Breville Ikon Juice Fountain on a great deal off Kijiji! (For some reason pictures wont load right now, but I will try again later) This thing is amazing! The guy I bought it from said his fiance bought in on an impulse and they only used it 5 times. I went to the store right away and for the first time in my life only had veggies in my basket!
First we tried just an apple to see how it worked. 1 small apple actually gives quite a bit of juice, and tastes soooooo good! I don't normally like apple juice either. Then I did a carrot, celery combo and I loved it.
The way it works is that it actually separates the pulp into a different container then the juice, and it does a good job of it too! My juice was completely free of 'chewables'. You can use the pulp for things too but more on that later :)
My goal is to do a lot of juicing this summer and in the process hopefully lose some baby weight. Along with getting some exercise too of course :) I have a bike trailer for the kids and my daughter is finally old enough to go in it, so hopefully that will become my main form of exercise for the summer.

I will work my way slowly into more and more veggies, but from the reading I did they advise to start slowly so you don't send you body into overload.
I have also learned a lot about beets in my reading. There are warnings on all the juicing sites. Never drink beet juice plain, never add too many beets to your drinks and don't mix beet juice with anything (like broccoli) with calcium, or eat calcium directly after. Why? Beets have so many nutrients in it and when you juice them you are absorbing them all directly into your blood stream. Drinking beet juice straight can temporarily paralyze your vocal cords, make you break out in hives, increase your heart rate, cause chills or a fever. Crazy! Also the reason for avoiding calcium is that beets contain a large amount of oxalic acid and when combined with calcium create an indigestible compound.
Who knew veggies could be so dangerous!!
That's my excitement. Just had to share!

2 comments:

  1. I am skeptical of juicing... I've read a lot of pros and a lot of cons about it. It is hard to sort through the fact and fiction.
    I think, though, after all the stuff I've read, that juicing and totally removing the pulp etc from the food leaves you with the basic sugars of the food and very little of the fibre, which is *absolutely essential* to digest the fructose in the fruit (and some veggies) properly.
    A couple examples of this are grapefruits and apples. One of the healthiest and antioxidant rich parts of a grapefruit is the pith. And the most nutrient dense part of the apple is the skin (however, one has to be careful about non-organic apples, because apples absorb more herb and pesticides than most fruits). So with juicing, you generally don't get any of the nutritional benefit from those areas of the grapefruit and apple.
    I'm looking for a good quality blender to do the smoothie route instead. Blend it all up and drink it... mmmmmm. That way you are maintaining all the nutritional sources from your foods and it still tastes fabulous. Peel the apple? No way. ;)
    I do love a freshly juiced orange, though. The thought always makes my mouth water!! :)

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  2. Well it really is all about opinions, and I like juicing. It's not like I'm never eating fruits or vegetables whole. I enjoy a fresh glass of juice, and I figure if I'm craving something sweet, but don't feel like munching on a carrot, why not have some carrot celery juice...it's better then a lot of other things I could grab. Plus there's nothing like a glass of actual apple juice. So much better then the 100% juice stuff you buy in the store.
    Let me enjoy my new toy! :)

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