Drill Down: Juicing

Mmmm, nothing like a pint of MILF juice in the morning.... 

I drink a pint of freshly "masticated" vegetable juice five days a week, with a little fruit to help ease it down. It's extreme for three reasons:

1. It's probably the healthiest thing I eat in a relatively vegetable-rich healthy diet. 
2. It's also one of the least tasty things I eat all week.
3. However, of all the foods I eat, it's the one where I can mostly draw a direct line between eating and the corporeal, physical level - within minutes, it makes me feel good. Not la-la-la I'm such a friend of the earth and my bunny friends because I'm such a good-person-feel good, but in a holy shit I'm more awake and feel stronger and am ready to get on my bike and ride 2 miles to work to git-r-dun-feel good way.

Larry the Cable Guy, juice head?

I had juiced years before, with a messy centrifugal juicer, mostly 100% fruit juices. It tasted great but didn't really do anything for me, and I got bored of it and it got put away. I wrote about juicing in this forum about a year ago, around the time I was thinking about trying juicing due to watching a rather good documentary.

A week later I pulled out my old centrifugal juicer and attempted to juice some spinach. BZZZZZT, it came to a grinding halt and I instantly had a dead juicer on my hands. So I sucked in my gut and contemplated throwing down for a proper masticating juicer. Juicing has been around as long as there has been fruit, but it was the Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead doc that kicked off the fad for green juice, according to most internet thinkin'.

There are two main kind of juicers, excluding specialized unitaskers like citrus presses.

• Centrifugal - utilizes a spinning blade that resembles a grated basket; faster operation; quickly grinds items and discards pulp in a receptacle

This is the kind I used to have. It's ok for fruit, but for proper healthy juice? No. You can score one for under $100, but you get what you pay for. There are arguments that it's method uses too much friction and "cooks" the juice, but I suspect that is BS. However, the pulp it ejects is a lot moister than the dry pulp spit out by juicers that are...

• Masticating - utilizes a single gear driven by a motor; slower operation; kneads and grinds items placed in a chute

The real deal. Kinda like a meat grinder for vegetables. After doing research, I decided I couldn't afford the model I should get and...got my mother-in-law to gift it to me for Hanukkah!

Thanks, gramma!

This machine can juice the hardest of fruit or vegetable, make smooth nut butters from any nut you can imagine (hello homemade nutella!), extrude pasta in a blink, is incredibly easy to clean and....hard to acquire for less than $275. But you get what you pay for. This is not some miracle machine being hawked on late night TV for several "easy payments", this is the real deal.

It was last November I was at a restaurant with my wife, a place she likes, that has a stress on healthy food and seasonal vegetables. I had already blown out my centrifugal juicer, and noticed "green juice" on the drinks menu. Why not, what was there to lose? So I ordered the juice and when it came, it had the most wonderful light green opalescent color. I was surprised to find how drinkable it was -- it was like apple juice with a slight funky twist! I soon found, once starting to juice at home, that's all it was -- mostly apple juice with a few fig leaves of healthy produce to make the drinker feel good about themselves.

In the past few years, juicing has become "juicing", bent to the needs of entrepreneurs to extract maximum profit to the detriment of the actual juice and the health of their patrons. There are a few big brands that have popped up in the past few years, namely BluePrint and Organic Avenue, and the NY Times has published a few entertaining articles, one where they snipe at each other as to who is the most "healthy" and "real", another in the fashion section where, umm, where....

Did you know, for example, that mixing kale with peaches and blueberries results in a drink that is a rather unpleasant shade of brown?

Or...

“Juice is expensive, but juicers are really messy and then you realize why juice is so expensive,” said Erin Flaherty, the beauty and health director of Marie Claire, who bought a professional-grade juicer that wound up taking up too much space in her kitchen. “You feed it so many fruits and vegetables and it never tastes as good.”

Oy. Just Oy.

Oh Mz. Flaherty. I know the wimmin's mag industry makes it's money by telling the lies it's readers want to hear, so they stay unhappy with themselves, but really? Maroons who spend $12 on a fashionable bottle of juice that contains about $1 worth of produce for the convenience is retarded in itself -- other than the expense and the false sense of esteem that the expense grants, no bottled juice will be as healthy or deliver as much useful nutrition as freshly squeezed, period.

My Mz. Flaherty, my "professional-grade" juicer is a snap to dissemble and clean, but I guess that's a matter of perspective? Or do you just not like having to clean up after yourself, when spending an extra $10 for a "cute" plastic bottle is so much easier?

Dear Mz. Flaherty, I found my first (and last) glass of restaurant juice to be quite delicious because it was mostly apples, very sweet, appropriate for kids (and according to your industry, women) but like soda pop, not particularly healthy. Sugar is sugar is sugar, whether it comes from an apple, an Oreo or an ice cream. My restaurant juice, and all those $11 bottles of juice, no matter how many claims their marketing makes, all are guaranteed to be formulated with enough sugar to make it more palatable to as many people (with $11) as possible.

I think this stock photography model thought she signed up for "ecstasy while holding a salad" pics. Instead, she entered the bukakke side of the biz....

Mz. Flaherty, it doesn't taste good because it's not supposed to. That's not the point. (I guess if your committed to the consumer culture where "the customer is always right", even if their choices kill themselves and the environment, then I can't argue, but let's try to stay on topic.) We are not children whose only reward from eating is the sweetness that pleases our tongue in the morning. We are men, and we are women, and we can delay gratification for a few minutes to appreciate the benefits of what real green juice can do. This is my recipe for one 16oz glass of juice, approximately 160 calories:

• 1 small apple or 3oz of seedless grapes.
• 1 medium whole carrot
• 1 medium stalk of celery
• 1/5 of a large cucumber
• 1/5 of a medium red beet
• 1/4 oz of fresh ginger root
• 1/5 of a large bunch of kale
• 1 pinch of cayenne pepper

Wash any dirt off. Cut to fit juicer chute. Juice everything except cayenne, including all skins, cores, stems and roots, in order of things you find most palatable to least. Add cayenne to taste. Deposit into pint glass, fill to top with cold water.

When I say large bunch of kale, I mean the kind that practically takes 2 hands to take from shelf to cart. The juice itself is dark, dark forest green. The apple and carrot's sweetness is small, but it is enough to take a large note of bitterness off the later vegetables.The spice of the ginger and the cayenne are loud enough to also mask a host of bitter flavors that would otherwise turn my head away. The celery and cucumber add a weird slickness and salinity that add interest.  I absolutely despise beet and kale for their flavor, but through juicing I've learned to appreciate the metallic sweetness of the beet and the bright vegetal screech of kale. I have to be honest -- it tastes kinda horrible, but like your first shot of liquor when your a teen, the first taste is the worst, and every sip after is smoother, and before you know it, gulping the bottom of the glass is not such a chore.

It was a chore a year ago, and I juiced 2x a week, it was all I could handle. Slowly but surely, I found when I did the juice thing, i felt good that morning. So I upped it to three times a week, and found myself missing it on the days I skipped. Sometime over the summer I said to myself, well, I think I'm falling into a habit, but unlike Fritos or chocolate chips, this habit may help me feel good in the long run rather than make me maintain all da fatty fatness.

I've been juicing every weekday, and while my produce bill is larger than ever, when I get that hit of juice on a Monday morning, I really do feel what it does for me. The apple and apple/ginger juice from my centrifugal juicer was a nice treat back in the day, but I might have well been drinking Coca Cola or pasteurized juice from a bottle -- it was all just sugar flooding my system and keeping myself fat and satiated. Green juicing has made me hungry for a lot more than just satisfying the childlike side of my palate.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2291

I'm not going to say this was a bad eating week, but perhaps a transitional one. Getting to the new lower budget and subtracting the fritos & cheetos is proving harder than expected. Add in Thanksgiving eating and I suspect next week will be difficult too. 

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MONDAY COUNT: 2065

SLEPT: 8pm-5am, 9 hr
Sunday was an early morning 60 mile ride then pushing a stroller all over downtown to visit friends and do food shopping for the week. "Slept in" until 5am, felt great, good way to start the week.

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am,grape/beet/celery/carrot/ginger/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal
Swapped out apple for grape this week, equivalent amount of calories, but less juice and a much sweeter taste, huh.

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 415

LUNCH: 12:45pm, falafel, butternut squash soup, health salad, pickles, 790

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, hake loins, asparagus, kimchi, 400 cal
Kimchi kicked this meal up a notch. Also used a little Worcestershire on the asparagus, definitely an improvement.

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2540

SLEPT: 8:45pm-4am, 7.25 hr
Excellent weight lifting session in the morning. During my dinner, my daughter asked for Cheetos while watching TV, and I got her a bowl. As I was pouring it, I said to myself, "uh oh". My cravings shot through the roof, and I hoped they'd pass as I sat back down to finish dinner. They did not. Hmmm, hope I can take a lesson from this.

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:15am,grape/beet/celery/carrot/ginger/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, whole fage with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, Madras lentils, pickles, 650 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, sauteed chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, kimchi, 520 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, double cheetos, 600 cal

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WEDNEDAY COUNT: 2585

SLEPT: 8:30pm-3am, 6.5 hr
Woke up, ate a granola bar, put on every layer of warm weather bike clothes I have, got out the food at 3:45, was home by 4. Low 30s, just too cold, I hit my limit. In those brief minutes, I could feel the chill coming to my finger tips and toes, despite my warmest gloves, wool socks and shoe covers. I have warmer biking gloves and "arctic" wool socks coming, so will try again, but I think I'm gonna go get rollers soon, too. Sucks sitting at home at 4am without a way of doing cardio, and my muscles still a little sore from yesterday's lift.

In the evening, the siren song of the chips got me again, damn. Think I'm going to temporarily not have them in the house, and see how that goes. Though I'll be denying my eldest chippy goodness, I don't think it'll hurt her in the long run. And I'll get a bag on Fridays to share with her through the weekend...

AM SNACK: 3:15 am, iced green tea, granola bar, 575

BREAKFAST: 7:15am,grape/beet/celery/carrot/ginger/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal

LUNCH: noon, chicken, ground lamb thing, falafel, 2 stuffed grape leaves, salad with olives, hummus, +/-750 cal
Was very hungry as I skipped breakfast 2 due to the unearned AM snack. Work lunch provided as a 'thank you' for a team I was on, on a big project. Would look bad if I didn't participate. Avoided the rice and the pita, and after one full plate, avoided eating a second plate. The hot sauce on the salad actually helped, he he. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but making it spicy made it easier to stop.

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm, shiritaki noodle stir fry with shrimp, shitakes and oyster sauce, 350 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, double fritos & cheetos, 600 cal

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THURSDAY COUNT: 1975

SLEPT: 9:30pm-4am, 6.5 hr
Woke up hungry, so I guess the chip binge didn't totally destroy me -- it was measured, after all. Regardless, I leveraged that guilt into my morning weights, increased the reps by 1, felt good and right, and hopefully I'l feel it tomorrow morning. Calculating my day's eating after packing my food for the day, I discovered if I was going to fit into the new budget, the thing I'd have to cut is….the chips I eat with my Subway sandwich on Thursdays. Damn, chips, you be a problem. You sit down before I smack you.

Postmortem: I did it! I resisted the chips and came in slightly under budget! Woooo!

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 

BREAKFAST: 7:15am,grape/beet/celery/carrot/ginger/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, steel cut oatmeal, 415

LUNCH: 12:30pm, chicken sausage, sofrito black beans roasted brussel sprouts, kimchi, 665 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, diet coke, 435

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BIKE CREDIT: 535 cal
FRIDAY COUNT: Ugh.

SLEPT: 10:15pm-3am, 4.75 hr
Over 50 degrees at 3am, had to take advantage after the freezeout on Wednesday. Measured out a very small bump of caffeine on my new microscale, the dose was pretty good.

Between lack of sleep and free and flowing food at work, this was not a good day. The weekend started early, so to speak.

AM SNACK: 3:15 am, granola bar, iced green tea, 100mg caffeine, 575 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:15am,grape/beet/celery/carrot/ginger/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, whole fage with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

LUNCH 1: 11:30am, almond butter and grape jelly on whole wheat, 510 cal

LUNCH 2: 1pm, work potluck, including turkey, sides, desserts, +/- 1000 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, 2 slices of streetza, ice cream, +/- 1000 cal

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WEEKEND REPORT

Starting to suspect I'll be gaining weight this month. Hit the food hard starting on Friday and didn't let up until Sunday night, ugg. No riding, as the weather stayed stubbornly in the 20s. Let's hope for a better week next week.