I decided to juice feast tomorrow.  I’ve indulged a lot this week and need to clear my head.  It’s not a good day to do it.  It’s never a good day.  I’m headed out to a birthday party in the evening.  There’s always something which will lead to temptation on a day I’ve decided to stick to juices.  I figure I might as well accept it and carry on.  Otherwise, it would be too easy to say, “I’ll do it the day after.”

Empty Quart Jars

The folks over at juicefeasting.com recommend drinking 4-5 quart jars of juice per day when fasting.   It’s a lot of mo-fo’ing juice.  It’s to keep yourself full and nourished.

Any other time I’ve juice fasted, I’ve only managed to drink a bit more than 3 jars .  Despite making my own yummy juice,  I just get tired of it by day’s end.

The quart Ball jars (a.k.a. Mason jars) aren’t even a full quart.  I measured.  They hold about 3.5 cups.  A full quart = 4 cups.   I guess the recession is hitting everything.  Full quart or not, it’s still enough liquid to keep me hydrated (read: peeing) all day long.

I had a lot of produce in the fridge which was a bit soft for eating.  Perfect for juicing!

Abundant Produce

I got quite the cornucopia once I emptied out the vegetable crisper slimer.

I intended to make Green Giant Juice and some watermelon/lemon juice.  I had about 2 lbs of carrots and a whole bunch of oranges about to go so I decided to juice those with a bit of ginger.

It’s takes a fair amount of time to juice a pile of produce this big.  I love my Omega juicer, but it does require that I chop things into bits that can fit into its chute.  I washed all the lovely live food and started slicing.

It took up most of my counter space. And that was just the green stuff.  I didn’t have the room to start dealing with the oranges and carrots so I set those aside for awhile.

I like to juice my greens before my fruits.  I find that putting the juicier stuff in afterwards helps get the tougher fibrous bulk pushed through the hopper.   I alternated kale, celery, and cucumber.

Veggies Prepped

It took about half an hour to do the greens.  I added the apples in afterward.  I think I had about 6 of them.  Typically I’d use 2 apples for each quart of Green Giant.  I’ve not been liking the greenish taste of that recipe lately. I find I’ve been adding even more apples than usual.  Guess I’ve just got a sweet tooth.

The point of the juice fast is to give your digestive system a break from the work of digesting.  Fiber is good for you.  You want that going through your pipes most of the time.

Just not when you want to clean out what’s already there.

Juiced Greens Yield

All of those greens yield a small amount of juice.  All of that bulk is indeed fiber.

Compost

And all that fiber got returned to the Mother. My wife loves a nice pile of compost.

I got a higher yield when I added the apples.  By this point I was getting mighty tired of juicing.  I think I’d spent about 45 minutes on it at at that point.

Greens with Apples

I was getting close to having enough juice to do the fast tomorrow.

The greens with the apples gave me two “quart” jars.  That’s enough greens.

I juiced up all of my extra carrots and oranges.  It didn’t quite get me a “quart.”  I briefly entertained the notion of cutting up a pineapple I have on the counter.   But I was really really sick of juicing and I still had to clean everything up.

Fortunately, the Omega juicer as a snap to clean.  It’s even got a handy-dandy brush for getting the fibrous bits out of the gears.

Green and Orange Juices

So I’ve got 2 and 3/4 quarts prepared for tomorrow.  I probably will add some pineapple juice to the carrot – orange – ginger combo.

I’ll also make a jar or two of watermelon lemon.  I love watermelon and lemon juice.  It’s better than soda.

The real trick will be getting up early enough to make the juice.   I’ve stayed up so late juicing that I know I’m going to want to sleep in. If I sleep in, I’ll end up more groggy, and getting out of bed will be difficult.

I’ll want coffee at that point.  I’ll be setting out some green tea before I get into bed.  That way, I’ll be less tempted by the java.   The jars sure look pretty on my kitchen windowsill.  I’m looking forward to that first glass in the morning.