The Juicer

It took me a while to invest in a juicer. I made crazy smoothies that scared people every morning as I drank them out of a spagetti jar.



Kale apple lemon smoothie, this was my stand by for a good year



Coconut, cacao, almond butter, goji, banana, cinnamon smoothie, aka dessert for bfast

You can make great smoothies with a blender but it feels like the next level when you can make your own juice at home. Now I can cram in a million more things in my juice every morning and continue scaring people with my pond scum colored concoctions.

I had to do some research to find the best juicer for what I wanted. In the raw food world, Champion Juicers were always the go to, due to its versatility and for being a cold press style juicer. It has the ability to switch out its screen for a solid plate and puree' foods into nut butters, pasta flours or sorbets, and its a slow chewing style of juicer, working like a cold press, as to preserve the enzymes (and not heat up the juice with any fast motors), which is what raw food is all about. But man were they a bitch to clean. I wanted all of the qualities of a Champion, in but in a smaller, easier to clean and more attractive package. And I wanted the ability to juice finer greens like wheat grasses, which the Champion can't handle (they sell a seperate attachment). I fortunately found everything I wanted in the Omega Nutrition Center Juicer line. I splurged and got the 8006, and its paid off already.



Its super easy to put together, it has a TEN year warranty and its fun to watch the magic happen within its clear tubes.



The juice gets seperated out from the pulp when the corkscrew squeezes the food through the screen. The juice goes through the screen and out the bottom, but everything else gets passed through to the end. The pulb btw, specifically veggie pulp is a great thing to add to raw cracker recipes to enrich them even more.

This has turned out to be my new daily juice:




Apple, carrot, ginger, celery, cucumber, kale, and chlorella powder, with the occasional cilantro, romaine/spinach/beet top/baby lettuce tossed in.

Recipe:

3 small apples or 2 large apples
4 med carrots
4 stalks of celery
1 cucumber
1/2 bunch kale
1/4 " chunk of ginger
1/2-1 tsp chlorella powder (optional, stirred into the juice at the end)

Chop everything down to fit into the juicer and put it on through. I split the juice in two and drink it over two days (I put them in two jars so they are ready to go). Stir in chlorella powder if you have it, 1/4-1/2 tsp in each jar if you split the juice, or 1/2-1 tsp if you keep it in one container, and then shake or stir it in.

In the end, its up to you what you prefer in terms of juicing or blending smoothies. I personally think both are great and I just enjoy having the option of being able to make either one. You can read a great article about the nutritional differences between juicing and blending here.