Ever wonder how to start juicing?
When you are a beginner, everything sucks at first, right? I know, which is why I want to help make things easier for you using these beginners guide to juicing:
- There is no harm in experiment. If anything, that’s the quickest way to learn. You can juice pretty much any fruit or vegetable you want as a test drive. You can even consider trying anything you’ve never tried before.
- Always make a grocery list of all the ingredients you need in your juice. Planning will make it easy for you to juice when you need to.
- Before any juicing session, make sure to prepare your vegetables and fruits the night before. So wash the produce, peel those that need peeling, and store them in airtight containers overnight.
- Never ever put nuts, seeds, or grains in the juicer. If you need nuts and seeds in your juice the best thing to do is grind them, add and stir them into your ready-made juice. Even though adding nuts and seeds will be a great way to boost the nutritional value of the juice and get many health benefits, adding them in the juicer will be a bad decision.
- You need to get your protein while you are on the green juice diet. To assure that, add protein powder to your juice.
- Always choose the organic produce. You can always buy organic produce from local farms when available, even though organic produce may be more expensive. This is the only way to ensure that you ingest less pesticides and more nutrients.
- Consider the timing before consuming the juice. The last thing you need is to consume the juice on a full stomach. Making that mistake will not make your body absorb all the nutrients you need, they will only go to waste. Always drink the juice on an empty stomach in order to give your body to absorb all the nutrients. An hour later, you can sit down for a meal.
- Drink the juice slowly. The last thing you need is to put a lot of pressure on your digestive enzymes, which would mean that your digestive system would have to work hard to digest the juice if you drink fast. So sit back, relax and take your juice slowly.
- Never juice the fruits and vegetables without thoroughly washing them first. Washing the produce will remove bacteria and some of the pesticide residue especially if you didn’t buy organic produce. Leafy greens have dirt stuck in between them, so make sure to always wash them before consumption.
- If the juicer you buy has a pulp basket, line the pulp basket with a plastic bag in the juicer. This will make cleaning up the juicer easy after use.
- If the vegetables are large, always make sure to cut the produce so that it fits in the juicer. It’s important that all the vegetables fit through the feeding chute of the juicer.
- Always read the manual the juicer comes with. The manual will allow you to learn the best practices for cutting produce, and also which speeds you should use for particular fruits and vegetables. Reading the manual will also prevent breakage of the machine. Reading the manual will make you realize that harder vegetables are best juiced on high, while softer vegetables like cabbage and spinach, are best juiced on a lower setting.
- For you to get the most nutrients out of the juice, take out the pulp, and run it through the juicer again in order to get more juice from the damp, left over pulp.
- Always clean the juicer immediately after use. You need to make sure you keep bacteria from building up inside the juicer, by washing it always. If the juicer is dishwasher safe, you can put the parts into the dishwasher. If it’s not, manually scrub the juicer with hot or warm water and mild dish soap. Allow the juicer to dry on a drying mat rather than drying it out with a towel as this can get towel fiber in your next batch of juice.
- Always drink the juice while it’s fresh otherwise the nutrients will go away if you keep the juice sitting too long. Homemade juice doesn’t have preservations, so that means that it can’t stay fresh for too long. If you have leftover juice, put it in a glass or a BPA-free plastic airtight container in the refrigerator for no longer than three days.
Tips on How to Store Green Juice
- If you make a double batch, always separate the batches and put the juice you are not drinking in the refrigerator immediately.
- If you put the juice in a container, fill the container to the top. You need to make sure you have as little space in the container as possible. If the container has space left, the oxygen in it will begin to destroy the delicate micronutrients.
- If you intend to freeze the juice, do so immediately after juicing. However do not put the juice in the freezer for more than 7 to 10 days.
I hope you find this juicing guide useful for kick starting your juicing journey!
