Here’s the deal- I have many books about making juice- have read them all cover to cover. The best so far is the Juice Bible. Tell you what I like about books about juice- they really go into a lot of detail about how the ingredient affects your body. It’s great to know that there is a juice out there that can help treat gout, but it is not practical for my life. I also found that about three quarters of the recipes have ingredients that are not only extremely difficult to find, but very expensive and not practical to buy just to know if you like the juice. I’m sure that I’d like a starfruit juice with bee pollen, but there has to be something more practical.
If you are looking for the hard to find juices with exotic ingredients, I’ll let you know that this probably isn’t the blog to be visiting. I live in Cleveland, OH and it is hard to find fresh, tasty ingredients here year round. Sorry Chile, your peaches just don’t taste good during the winter months even though they have been flown around the world into my local farmers market. You’ll find seasonal ingredients which are practical and easy for anyone to find. Hopefully they’ll taste good, too. These ingredients are what we will be working with throughout the year.
I say that the best way to start into juicing is to just dive in and see what works for you. If you like fruit, start there. Fruit juices are the easiest way to get into juicing, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Get lots of fruit that you like and fire it through the juicer. Don’t be afraid to stop during the juicing process to taste what you have made. Juicing is no different than savory cooking- you should be tasting as you go. You need to know what pure apple juice tastes like before you add in pommegranite and hate the whole experience. Just because you aren’t heating something up doesn’t mean that you aren’t cooking. Apply the same principles to juices and smoothies.
After you experiment for a while with fruit, start to introduce vegetables into the mix. You will be amazed that you can juice a bunch of kale with some apples, lemon and ginger to produce something that actually tastes really good. You’ll find that recipe in the juicing category- give it a shot for a couple days and you’ll feel incredible. One thing that I have found from juicing greens is the foam which is created on the top kinda stinks like earth for some reason. I’ll slug down the foam from any fruit drink, but pitch any foam from greens. Might just be a sensory thing, it just throws me off.
A word to the wise- make sure that you are washing all your produce before you begin juicing. There are a ton of fruit and veggie washes out there, but they are pretty expensive. I use a fingernail brush with Mrs. Meyers soap- just scrub everything up. With the exception of things that NEED to be peeled like a mango or an orange, I leave the peels on everything. I’ll fire through stems and seeds and try to keep as much of the pith (white stuff) on my citrus as possible. If you’re not comfortable doing this, it’ll just take a little while longer to prep up.
Many people out there are touting doing everything organic. I would love to do everything organic, but the market in Cleveland just doesn’t demand good organic produce. During the winter months, the oranges look like tangerines and are about four times more expensive than a conventionally grown orange. I do the best I can by balancing what looks good in the organic section of each of the four grocery stores I go to and how much it costs. Don’t think that you have to do everything organic, just make sure that you scrub it up really well to get waxes and pesticides off as best you can.
As with anything, when you are experimenting, expect some incredible outcomes and some really crappy concoctions. It just comes with the territory. I make juice or a smoothie every day and will post up those items which taste good to me. Keep in mind that you should be having fun when you juice!
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