I’ve started juicing again. When it comes to food, I usually go through phases that end up more like bouts of obsessiveness. It’s a great way to be because I’ve had the most fantastic food from around the world and I prepare it and eat it until I’ve perfected it. It’s utterly delicious.
Right now, I’m juicing – or shall I say, back to juicing.
About 15 years ago I was an avid juicer. I bought, what I thought was a very good juicer at the time and I can still remember the taste. It was pure, really clean, bright and refreshing – I loved it!
So here I am 15 years later and I dust off the old juicer. But after 15 years, it’s like starting all over again. I went to a fresh market and after walking the aisles, ended up with celery, spinach, iceberg lettuce, cilantro, parsley and a pot of wheat grass. I came home and began to juice. Wow, I don’t remember the juicer eating up so much of my vegetables! I mean they’re all gone. It took the entire bags of spinach and lettuce, 3 stalks of celery, half a bunch of parsley and a few snips of wheat grass.
It wasn’t easy and I started to recall some of my old juicing challenges. The tube where you put the vegetables is small and located at the front of the machine, right over top of the glass that catches the juice. So as I stuffed the lettuce and spinach into the tube, if any fell, it fell into my glass of juice. So I would pick it out and recirculate it into the tube. I suppose I would get more proficient at it but right now, this is where I am.
At the end of the effort, the glass of juice was spectacular! I love the freshness of just juiced greens. They have an essence of bright spring water – wow! But the entire exercise from cleaning vegetables to juicing and cleaning the juicer afterwards took almost 30 minutes – there has to be a better way.
As I stood there and sipped on my delicious juice, I noticed all the ruffage in the back bucket of the juicer. Wow, that’s really great stuff I’m throwing away. There has to be a better way.
I continued juicing and at the end of my first week, I went through almost $80 in vegetables. This gave me 11, 6-ounce glasses of juice for the week. Not a lot of juice for the money. There has to be a better way.
I’m thinking I’ll start with a new juicer. Most juicers that I’ve googled look to be more efficient and easy to use and clean. Clean up is a big issue. I needed to buy a brush to get the darn thing cleaned – again, there has to be a better way.
I love fresh, home-made juice and I’m now in search of a new juicer – any suggestions?
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