It’s hard to know what to begin juicing (assuming you have a juicer.) The best way to begin is with what I call the “working man’s juice.”
In the South, an RC Cola and a Moon Pie were known as the working man’s lunch. Working people wanted something that would provide quick energy while tasting good. The “working man’s lunch” appealed to everyone.
The hardest thing about getting people to drink juice is getting them to drink juice. Everyone expects a juice to be nasty. You see a lot of pursed lips, scrunched noses, and squinting eyes. “What’s in this, man?”
This juice will appeal to everyone, and is basically the entry point into juice:
- 4 carrots
- 1 apple
- 1 small piece (size of your pinky finger tip) ginger
Everyone likes that juice. Whenever a person has the above juice, he or she says, “Oh, that’s not bad.”
It’s actually really good, but expectations influence taste perception. People expect the juice to taste like grass clippings. The carrot-apple-ginger juice is so good that it overcomes the anti-juice bias.
From there you should start reducing the sweet content and start increasing the vegetable content. For example:
- 3 carrots
- ½ apple
- 3 large leaves of kale, romaine, or some other green
- ginger
Eventually you’ll want to be increase the greens to as much as you can tolerate and decrease the sweet fruits and vegetables.
After you’ve had some beginner’s juices, you can start making your own. To make your own juices, think of combining three bases: green water, vegetables, greens, and fruits.
A green water is a vegetable that gives off a lot of water. Celery, zucchini, broccoli, cucumber, bok choy, and cabbage all provide a lot of green water per pound of produce. (That is, they have a high yield.) They are also low in sugar.
Leafy greens are kale, Swiss chard, collard greens, spinach, red lettuce, and other nutrient rich, dense, greens. Greens do have what’s called a high yield, that is, it doesn’t give much juice per pound of produce. So you don’t want to make greens your base.
The sweet base is fruits and sweet vegetables like carrots and beets. Carrots and beets have a really high yield.
Giving recipes are hard because as you juice, your tastes will change. You’ll want more carrots or apples in your juice today than you’ll want a year from now. My juices might be too green for you.
But.
There’s no wrong way to juice. Keep adding stuff, tasting it along the way, and you’ll find out the right ratios.
Now you just get all mad scientist in the kitchen.
Here’s what I juiced this week:
Beet, kale, ginger juice
- 1 medium beet (beets will turn your urine and stools red; no cause for alarm)
- 6 whole kale leaves + stems
- 1″ ginger
Bok Choy Ginger Lemonade
- 6 bok choy leaves + stems
- 3 small lemons (I always remove the skin; others leave it on for zest)
- 1″ ginger
Beet, carrot, kale, ginger juice
- 1 medium sized beet
- 3 carrots
- 5 whole kale leaves + stems
- 1″ ginger
Cabbage carrot juice
- 1 whole cabbage
- 6 carrots
- 1″ ginger
Swiss chard lemonade:
- 1 bunch Swiss chard
- 4 small lemons
- add sparkling water
Cabbage grapefruit juice
- 1 whole cabbage
- 2 grapefruits
- 1 apple
Celery refresher
- 6 stalks celery
- 3 lemons
- 1 bunch parsley
Pineapple kale juice
- 2 cups pineapple (remove rind)
- 6 large kale leaves + stems
Kale lemonade
- 6 large kale leaves + stems
- 4 lemons
- 1 apple
- (sparkling water)
As you can see, I especially enjoy citrus fruits. Just start from the premise that you want more greens and less fruit and you’ll end up in the right place.
Also, try juicing as many ANDI score foods as you can.
ANDI is short for Aggregate Nutrient Density Index. The ANDI score is based on a food’s content of: Calcium, Beta Carotene, Alpha Carotene, Lutein & Zeaxanthin, Lycopene, Fiber, Folate, Glucosinolates, Iron, Magnesium, Niacin, Selenium, Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Zinc, and the food’s ORAC. (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity measures how many free radicals a food will “destroy.”)
“1000″ is a perfect score, and any good over 100 is very good for you.
Top ANDI Foods to Juice
- Collard, mustard, & turnip greens 1000
- Kale 1000
- Watercress 1000
- Bok choy 824
- Spinach 739
- Brussels sprouts 672
- Swiss chard 670
- Arugula 559
- Radish 554
- Cabbage 481
- Red peppers 420
- Romaine lettuce 389
- Broccoli 376
- Carrot 344
- Tomatoes & tomato products 190-300
- Cauliflower 295
- Strawberries 212
- Pomegranate 193
- Blackberries 178
- Raspberries 145
- Blueberries 130
- Papaya 118
- Oranges 109
Thanks for the tips. I’m looking forward to juicing.
I just bought my own Christmas present early, the Omega VRT350 per you recommendation. Juiced Kale, Carrots, Apple, Lemon and a little parsley. All I can say is WOW!!! This is the second time you have changed my life. The first was that post on choking. Now if I could just find a way to juice red pills…
Oh, and I just quit my 6 figure job after 20 years to start my own business.
Awesome to hear. I’m excited to upgrade to my own.
I juice once a day for lunch at work and make a large juice with cucumber, broccoli, satsumas, 1/4 pineapple, tomatoes, carrots and blueberries. Powers me through the rest of the day including the gym.
Always feels good when you get those spiteful looks from the fatties ordering in McDonalds.
Just need to find a place that sells Kale somewhere near me.
I’ve been drinking carrot and also spinach juice for a while, along with grape seed extract. Taking a “shot” of grape seed extract with water kinda hits you like having a strong coffee.
This morning I juiced some greens and I will use your information to buy more greens so I can juice every day. Thanks a bunch.
I started with a recipe book and found that it didn’t work for me. Trial and error was the way to go. Pretty simple – find the veggies you like, don’t use the ones you don’t.
My typical juice – apples, spinach, celery, beets w/leaves, ginger, lime, kale, and ground chia seed.
I’ve just found better source for veggies so I’ve been experimenting with fennel, bok choy, dandelion leaf, and the greens (collard, mustard, etc).
awesome. thanks again D&P!
Sorry if you’ve answered this elsewhere before, but what is the benefit of juicing over blending?
Juicer has arrived. Heading out to buy the inaugural produce.
THIS BETTER BE GOOD
How closely do you track your caloric intake? How much of that do you estimate comes from juicing?
I bought the Jack Lalane juicer. It worked very well (still does), but I got bored with cutting things up, juicing, & then throwing away tons of pulp. So, I bought one of these NutriBullet units. I still have to cut the fruits and veggies up to reasonable sized chunks. But, you add a little water with the f & v, and the machine just obliterates the stuff. It makes a smoothie. I also add nuts, ground flax seed, or dry oats. Even the blends that taste like ass (celery, broccoli, kale) are easy to throw down. Anyway, this isn’t an add, but I love my NutriBullet. Just saying.
Here’s one called Mean Green.
3 leaves kale (or Chard)
1 cucumber
1 lemon
2 apples (I like Granny Smith)
2-3 stalks celery
1 inch piece of ginger (more or less to taste)
Makes about 16-20 ounces. Mix it up after juicing it to get all the flavors blended and have at it.
This is my breakfast or mid morning juice.
Pingback: Linkage Is Good For You 8.26.12 | Society of Amateur Gentlemen
Pingback: Juicing: Flash In The Pan Or Growing Lifestyle Movement?