The best basic green juice recipe in my opinion belongs to Cherie Soria.  I’ve touted Green Giant Juice before. It is a staple one can return to time and again. Especially if one varies the greens.  Rotation is important to prevent food sensitivities.  I love my juiced kale but also like spinach, chard, bok choy, romaine.

At Optimum Health Institute, I didn’t do any fruit juices since I was doing the “hypo” diet (as in hypoglycemic) to keep my blood sugars low. They recommend the hypo diet for anybody with a “health opportunity” (their euphemism for illness). Green juices sans fruit are bland IMHO and I remember using lots of kelp and garlic powder and/or ginger powder to give those juices some oomph.

If you are doing fruit juices, use a straw, drink them within 20 minutes, and rinse your mouth out well with water afterwards.  Otherwise the acids in the fruits can damage your teeth enamel.

Here are some of my favorite combinations

• Watermelon with lime or lemon  (always do melons on an empty stomach and wait 20 minutes before consuming anything else)
• Orange, carrot, ginger, spinach (looks like mud but tastes good. Put it in an opaque cup and keep the haters quiet)
• Orange, parsley, kale, carrot
• Pineapple, cilantro, romaine
• Pineapple, dandelion green, zucchini or cucumber or romaine (go easy on the dandelion, it’s STRONG tasting and is a laxative)
• Just plain cantaloupe blended in high speed blender without straining.  Yummy smoothie!!
• Cucumber, celery, apple, mint
• Cucumber, zucchini, celery, spinach, lemon
• Cucumber, kale, apple
• Celery, apple, mint
• Cucumber, fennel

Some tips:

• Keep the greens on the low end (like 1 or 2 leaves) to start with.  They really are an acquired taste.  Gradually you can increase the amount
• Go easy with celery – it tastes salty, especially if you haven’t been eating salt, and can overwhelm a juice
• Citrus cuts the “green” taste if you add too much green or just don’t like it.
• Dinosaur (aka Lacinto) kale is less “green” tasting than the common curly variety
• You can always add ginger, mint, pineapple mint, or other herbs for a different flavor twist.
• Powders can also help with flavor: kelp, dulse, garlic, onion are quite useful especially if you’re not using fruit
• Save the pulp!! There are myriad uses for veggie and fruit pulps.  Enough to merit its own blog post.  Until I get around to it, Google it. Much has been written about it on other blogs.  If you can’t use the pulp right away, put it in a labeled zip lock in the freezer.  Otherwise, composting is always a great option.

Juice Rainbow

I did make two “quarts” of watermelon lemon juice.  I wish I could make it more lemon-y but I the side-yard lemon tree only had two ripe ones to give.  When there’s more lemon it tastes like heavenly lemonade.

Laura’s Lemelon Juice
4 – 5 cups of watermelon balls
1-2 lemons, skins removed

1. Take an ice cream scoop and dig out 4-5 cups of spheres from a watermelon and place them directly into the blender.

2. Cut the skins from the lemons and place the lemons directly into the blender.

3. Blend at high speed until the mixture liquefies.  You may need to use a wooden spoon to move the fruit bits around to start the centrifugal force or you can add a bit of water to make it blend easier.

4. Pour mixture through a nut-milk bag into a pitcher.  Squeeze the bag to remove all of the liquid, leaving the fruit pulp behind.

5. Pour over ice in a tall glass.  Garnish with a sprig of mint or pineapple sage for a pretty presentation.

6. Serve with love

I started the day with a quart of warm water mixed with lemon and MSM.  I like the crystal form since I think it assimilates faster into my digestive system.  I’ve been waking up with stiff and sore achilles tendons.  Probably from running around in flat sandals for the past few months of summer. I hope if I’m consistent taking the MSM that it will help.

Juice Feast Supplements

I don’t use Rich’s MSM, the brand of MSM recommended on juicefeasting.com.  I couldn’t find it in my local Whole Foods.  I have to trust that this one will work.  I expect miracles from all of the testimonials I’ve read.  I’ve also read a lot of testimonials extolling the praises of E3Live.   The final supplement I’m using is HealthForce Nutritional’s Intestinal Drawing Formula.  It’s supposed to help cleanse the gook from my insides.  I don’t know if the mild beginner dosage is going to do much good on my single day of juice fasting.  According the label, you’re supposed to build up your dose and it can take some people up to 15 tablets a day to get to the optimal level of cleansing (3-4 movements a day).  It’s just as well.  I’m going to be going to the wash room every hour as it is given the amount of liquid I’m going to consume today.  I don’t need another 3-4 trips.

The goal for today is to fast for the entire day.  Usually when I juice fast I only do it doing daylight hours.  I’m enticed by the dinner that M. and Z. are having and end up breaking the fast.  I have gone as long as three days on a juice fast but the last time I did that was in December, 2005.   I need to build up to that one day at a time.

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.

Green Giant Juice

I’ve been juice fasting feasting today. M. & I had a late dinner of Boca Burgers last night which left me feeling even more sluggish than I did yesterday. Soy and wheat = stuff sticking around inside of me.

I was definitely in need of a cleanse when I awoke. M. brought me a lovely latte in bed but it just didn’t taste good, nor did it give me the caffeine kick I craved.

Enter the green juice. My favorite green juice recipe is from Cherie Soria.  I pretty much love all of Cherie’s recipes. Not surprising, since I attend her culinary school.   The recipe is published in her latest book, “Raw Food Revolution.”

I usually use 2 apples instead of 1 to cut the saltiness of the celery juice.   The lemon is critical to balance the heavy green chlorophyll-y tasted of the kale.

Green Giant Juice
8 oz kale (1 bunch, including stems)
4 celery stalks
1 cucumber
1 apple
1 lemon

Juice all ingredients and serve immediately.  Yields 3 cups. 2 small or 1 large serving.