It’s certainly easier to go for fast food, already cut up, already washed items while you’re grocery shopping or looking for that quick lunch idea……BUT…. is that really the healthier choice?

Let’s start with baby carrots.  In whole carrots, most of the nutrition is contained in or just below the skin.  In order to make baby carrots, this healthy portion is removed.   Then the carrots are washed in chlorinated water and some are even dipped in a stronger chlorine solution to keep their looks once in your local store.  If you believe labels,  “baby carrots” are carrots harvested while the vegetables are still small.  “Baby Cut Carrots” are made by the process explained above.  Which would you rather on your table?  Personally, I’ll take organic whole carrots when I can get them.  These you don’t have to wash.  If they aren’t organic, wash and peel your carrots.  Then you can eat or juice them.

Carrots are a great source of antioxidant compounds, and the richest vegetable source of pro-vitamin A carotenes.  Antioxidant compounds help to protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer and beta-carotene helps to protect good vision, especially night vision that affects most of us over the age of…ahem…..40.  Carrots should be stored in a plastic or “green bag“, or wrapped in a paper towel to reduce the amount of condensation.  When storing in green bags, only store one type fruit or veggie per bag.  If the carrots you buy have their tops attached, cut these before storing, as they will pull moisture from the carrot itself causing it to wilt prematurely.

What else can you do with those fresh, whole, organic carrots?  Breakfast anyone?  Dip anyone?  Did you just call me a dip, madam?

CARROT DRINKS

Try these combinations in your juicer tomorrow morning.

Carrot and apple

Carrot, apple and celery

Carrot all by itself

CARROT AVOCADO DRESSING

1/2 avocado                                 1/2 cup celery juice

1 clove garlic                                1/4 cup water, if needed

cayenne to taste                          1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 cup carrot juice                        1/4 cup chopped scallion

Combine all ingredients except the scallion in your blender.  Stir in the scallion and season to taste.  This could be used as a dressing for your salad or a dip for your fresh veggies.

How about frozen wheatgrass?  That’s convenient, right?  Ah, but not as healthy and nutritious as the real thing.  Most of the wheatgrass grown for frozen juice or dried wheatgrass powders is grown outside on acres of land.  It is also usually second cut wheatgrass too.  To get optimum benefit from wheatgrass, you want baby grass, first cut grass.  There is a lot to say about frozen vs. fresh that I just don’t have the space for here.  Make your own choice.  You can grow your own wheatgrass. You don’t have to settle for the easy way out.

Next time you’re at the grocery store, don’t take the easy way out.  Get involved with your food.  It matters.  It’s healthier.  Take the time.

Donna Bergonzi-Boyle

The saying “Less is more” means that when something is understated or done in a low-key manner it is much more effective.  Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, furniture designer and architect, is often associated with the phrase and a proponent of simplicity and clarity leading to good design.   Let’s first get out of the way when less is definitely NOT more….like love, kindness and gratitude.

Seven years ago I was just about half way into a month long yoga teacher training.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of a wonderful buffet line of healthy food options.  I was practicing yoga about 5 hours a day and participating in experiential workshops the rest of the day. So why was I feeling bloated and most certainly not healthy? Not to mention, my physical body was saying “stop working me so hard”!  I made an appointment with a wonderful body healer and his words to me were “Stop eating so much”.  What? Don’t I have to eat three meals a day?  “Try this”, he said, “Instead of a tray, two plates, and fork, knife and spoon, just take a small bowl and one utensil”.  So I believe I put people in front of me that I’m meant to learn from and I took his advice.  And yes, you guessed it, it worked.  I felt 100% better in no time.  My first experience with “less is more”.  The less I ate, the more my body could use its energy to help me get through this very long month of yoga and learning.  I not only ate less, I ate slower, allowing my body to digest, assimilate and eliminate to its optimum efficiency.

I’ll explain why this works.  Eating less allows your body to spend less energy digesting food and more energy healing.  It’s what your body wants to do…HEAL ITSELF!  Taking this one step further, digesting cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food.  Raw foods contain enzymes which aid in digestion, giving the body’s own enzymes a better chance to regulate the body’s metabolic processes.  Cooked foods deplete these enzymes, making digestion more difficult, which could lead to toxic build up in the body, obesity and chronic disease.   Raw food is not only good for physical body healing, but also for emotional body healing.  Having that extra energy gave me time and clarity to hear my own voice.   It wasn’t always a kind voice, that voice inside my head.  But at least now I could hear it and do something about it.

I’m a very bland raw foodist.  Simple and less is what’s best and what works for me.  I do eat some cooked food, but I don’t need or want as much as I used to.  And when I start to feel bad, physically or emotionally, the first thing I look at is what I’m eating.

Another lesson I learned at my month long training was the one of silence.  An extreme example in “less is more.”  At anytime you could choose to spend the day in silence.  There’s not enough space here to explain to you what happens when you do not speak.

I use “less is more” often during the course of my day.  I ask you to try it too the next time you are having a “discussion” with a loved one or with yourself.

Donna Bergonzi-Boyle

Recently I’ve been reviewing the basics and here’s some more info that you newbies need to know (and possibly some that have experience will get something out of it to… in other words, no matter who you are, keep reading for God’s sake).  A month or so ago I gave you the lowdown on the three basic categories of juicing and their benefits; Greens, Vegetables and fruits.  In this article, we’ll look at the differences and benefits of the two basic juicer types, Centrifugal and Masticating, and we’ll give a little attention to juicing enthusiast’s preference, the Twin Gear juicers.

Centrifugal

Centrifugal juicers are the old faithful and they’ve literally been around for decades.  When I was a kid I remember my mom whipping me up a tasty batch of carrot apple juice with an all stainless steel unit identical to the Acme 6001.  I always thought it looked like a robot.  Anyway, not much has changed over the years and with good reason.  These juicers are fast, effective and affordable.  Centrifugal juicers work by using a flat cutting blade on the bottom of a rapidly spinning basket. Food is quickly shredded by the cutter and flung out to the sides of the basket. The high centrifugal force passes the juice through tiny holes in the basket and through a spout. In some like the Omega 4000 the pulp is spun off and collected in a separate container. The juice produced by centrifugal juicers is excellent but the extraction process—higher revs and resulting motor heat—incorporates  more oxygen which oxidizes the juice destroying more enzymes and therefore diminishing the health benefits a bit as well as reducing the shelf life.  So drink immediately if possible.  These juicers are great for most fruits and vegetables but because of the nature of the cutting process, centrifugal juicers do not break down leafy green vegetables very well so if you’re looking to juice wheatgrass or other greens, you’re better off with a masticating juicer.

Masticating

Mastication means to “chew”.  So masticating juicers like the Healthy Juicer (which is unbelievably easy to clean) use a slow rotating single auger (or boring tool) to literally crush and chew the produce into juice and pulp.  The pulp is squeezed up against a mesh strainer so the juice is extracted while the pulp remains behind and gets ejected. Masticating juicers are more efficient than centrifugal juicers in that they yield more juice from the same amount of raw food. They also run at much lower RPMs, so the foam and oxidation is much less, therefore producing juice that is more nutritionally dense and has a longer shelf life.

That said the biggest problem with masticating juicers is the speed.  Many people who make the switch, either because they want to begin juicing wheatgrass and leafy greens or they’re just going for a healthier alternative, get a bit impatient with the time involved compared to their old centrifugal model but it’s really a question of commitment to a healthy lifestyle.  My preference is a centrifugal juicer for most stuff and a manual masticating juicer for the green stuff.

Twin Gear

Ok, so finally we come to the elite sports car class of juicers, the Twin-Gear or, if you want to sound hoity toity, “Triturating” juicers.  I guess the sports car metaphor doesn’t really work because although these guys will produce the highest yield and most nutritional juice, they’re no faster than single auger juicers.  Anyway, Twin-Gear juicing is also a masticating process but instead of a single auger they ­­­­­­­­­­­­use two stainless steel gears with very close separation that turn in towards each other crushing the produce between them.   The juice is then passed through a screen and the pulp is ejected similar to the masticating juicers.  Twin-Gear juicers like the Greenstar 2000 have an incredibly powerful motor so you can literally juice anything.  At the same time they have the lowest RPM and therefore the most nutritious juice with the least oxidation.  They tend to be more expensive but you’re paying for quality.

Happy juicing!

Be well,

Juicy Josh

The juicing craze! After all of the hype and strict regimens of the raw and juiced diet fads, the whole idea may leave a bad taste in your mouth. But you do not have to learn how to cover up the taste of juiced beets or start watching infomercials with Jack LaLanne reving up his “Juice Tiger.” There is an easy, and yes, tasty way to drink your vitamins and boost your intake of the good stuff.

For starters, you may be wondering why juiced foods are so fantastic to begin with. Simply put, it’s because they are living, unprocessed foods that enter your body in their purest form, with their vitamins and nutrients intact. When you drink a glass of fruit juice from the bottle, you are most likely getting additives and additional sugar to enhance the flavor and appeal. The problem here is that you could have downed a soda if you wanted empty calories, and all for a fraction of the nutrients you could have received if you stuck to au-natural. So great. Now you know you can toss your fruits and veggies into a blender and delicious, nutritious nectar will appear, solving all of your ache and pains, as well as restoring your body to age 21 perfection. Not quite. The concoction you get might taste a bit more like a punishment than a treat. But comparing the thick, amateur juice of a novice to the real deal is like comparing apples to oranges. In order to get into your body, it’s got to taste good. So how do we get from bravery to savory?

First of all, start with what you know. What fruits do you like? Bananas make a fantastic “base” fruit, and your body will thank you for the potassium, not to mention the gram of protein and three grams of fiber. Bananas also tend to help neutralize the tartness of some fruits, so it can be a nice place to start. Not bananas over bananas? No problem! After a few tries at the old blender, you’ll figure out which fruit combination you like best. But what about veggies? How do we make that taste good? Well, right off the bat you will want a fairly decent juicer. Introducing veggies into your juice regimen is going to require a bit more “juice” than a typical blender can pack. But even when you’re armed with the right equipment, certain vegetables need some help from that spoonful of something to help the medicine go down. Your sweeter fruits and vegetables (pineapple, carrots, etc.) can also be used as a moderator to help tone down the all too unpleasant overpowering vegetable taste. Tomato and celery with a pinch of lemon juice makes a great foundation juice, as most people tend to like this health conscious knock off of a Bloody Mary. From here you can add cucumber, spices, carrots, or even a bit of apple juice.

Ok. So you have read this blog, dusted off your juicer (or purchased one), made a resolution, and now you are standing in the produce aisle at Grocer’s Gala and have not a clue what to buy, or why you even wanted to try this in the first place. Before you resign and head over to aisle five to pick up a jug of V8, hear me out. Grab a piece of paper and quickly jot down some health issues that you have that you want to resolve. Next, log on to the internet and do a quick Google search to learn which vitamins serve as an anecdote to your problem. As an example, if you suffer from fatigue than you may be lacking vitamins B12 and B6. Mangos and Kiwi’s have each of these B’s, so get them on your list. Is the common cold a little too common for your comfort level? Well than I am sure you are aware that vitamin C is key. Stock up on your friends in the citrus family. Have you noticed that you are squinting at the menu at your local fast food joint? Than stop eating burgers and fries and pick up some carrots! Carrots are loaded with beta-carotene, which morphs into vitamin A, which gets an A+ when it comes to your eyes. Have allergies? Try Mandarin Tangerines. Upset stomach? Pick up some pectin and grab some grapefruit. You may have to search a bit, but some Noni juice added to your blend can act quite like serotonin on your brain, and some believe it can relieve headaches. Aloe and cabbage have been rumored to do the same, and as you experiment you will find what works best for you.

So you have the idea. Now you have your fruits and veggies at home and you are ready to juice! As you are playing scientist and experimenting, remember to balance your sweets with your not-so-sweets and see what you can get. If you do not mind wandering off the beaten path every now again, start trying fun additions like cinnamon, maple syrup, parsnip, or other spices. Juicers note: The natural sugar in fruit will raise insulin levels, so keep this in mind when you head into juicing mode. Too much of the sweet stuff can upset your blood sugar levels, causing you to feel hungry too soon. No worries, though. Soon you will have your “recipes” down, just keep experimenting and tasting.

One final note. “Smoothies,” although not as healthful as the juices we discussed above, can be an excellent alternative to typical desserts laden with fat and excess sugar. Dessert smoothies can end up containing a lot of calories, but watching your portion size can be the perfect way to treat your sweet tooth without trying to trick your diet. Here is one of my special blends…and it couldn’t be simpler:

• Fill the blender about half way with chocolate soymilk.
• Next add a banana and a few tablespoons of organic, vanilla yogurt. (For a thicker shake you can add some ice, or an additional tablespoon of yogurt.)
• Divide in two glasses and you and the person lucky enough to be dining with you are in for a “milkshake” that won’t leave you with a twist of guilt.

So go forth and juice! Your mind and body will thank you.

Be Well,

JuicyJosh