Juicing Your Way to Vibrant Health and Zesty Flavors
Mar 24, 2024Season 1Episode 8
Sweet Tea and Tacos
Ever wondered how a simple machine could transform your kitchen into a fountain of health? That's exactly what happened when we took the plunge into the world of juicing, and trust us, it's a tale peppered with as much zest as a lemon! Kicking off with why we succumbed to the allure of a juicer, we chat about the peaks and pitfalls of our journey - from the immediate cleanup crusade to the zesty ginger escapades that turned our taste buds and tummies upside down. Along the way, we've learned to finesse our recipes to match our unique health profiles and discovered the joy of guzzling down nature's bounty in liquid form. Oh, and if you're teetering on the brink of buying a juicer, we've got the lowdown on picking the perfect one for you.
As we swirled through the art of juice crafting, we stumbled upon a few pro tips that we're itching to share. Picture this: a juicer that wrings out every bit of goodness, leaving you with pulp so dry it practically screams to be repurposed. We'll walk you through the pre-juicing ballet of washing and prepping, and the post-juicing rigmarole that keeps your machine in tip-top shape. Want to know our secret concoction that packs a punch of both veggie vigor and fruity finesse? We'll spill the beans on that too, along with the scoop on how juicing can supercharge your health. So squeeze yourself a glass, sit back, and soak up our juicy conversation—it's ripe with insights that will quench your thirst for a healthier life.
Ever wondered how a simple machine could transform your kitchen into a fountain of health? That's exactly what happened when we took the plunge into the world of juicing, and trust us, it's a tale peppered with as much zest as a lemon! Kicking off with why we succumbed to the allure of a juicer, we chat about the peaks and pitfalls of our journey - from the immediate cleanup crusade to the zesty ginger escapades that turned our taste buds and tummies upside down. Along the way, we've learned to finesse our recipes to match our unique health profiles and discovered the joy of guzzling down nature's bounty in liquid form. Oh, and if you're teetering on the brink of buying a juicer, we've got the lowdown on picking the perfect one for you.
As we swirled through the art of juice crafting, we stumbled upon a few pro tips that we're itching to share. Picture this: a juicer that wrings out every bit of goodness, leaving you with pulp so dry it practically screams to be repurposed. We'll walk you through the pre-juicing ballet of washing and prepping, and the post-juicing rigmarole that keeps your machine in tip-top shape. Want to know our secret concoction that packs a punch of both veggie vigor and fruity finesse? We'll spill the beans on that too, along with the scoop on how juicing can supercharge your health. So squeeze yourself a glass, sit back, and soak up our juicy conversation—it's ripe with insights that will quench your thirst for a healthier life.
Coming to you from our kitchen another week, and this week we're going to be talking about juicing, juicing, before you get started. We do not intend for this to be medical advice or legal advice or any other kind of advice other than our story of working through juicing in our lives. So take that for what it is.
Speaker 2:
Right, we're not saying this could even be helpful. We're just saying, if you're interested and want some information, here's a little bit of how to. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so let's talk about juicing and kind of tell them, tell them, tell the listeners how we kind of got into juicing.
Speaker 2:
Right, Okay, so kind of the backstory is about. I guess 10 or 12 years ago we just were interested in it, Thought it would be something good for us, you know, for our family, and so we bought a very entry level basic juicer and found, I think, not a cookbook but like a recipe type kind of juicing book you know they had some basic recipes in it and so we got started and we did it a little bit.
Speaker 2:
It was a really busy time in our lives, so that kind of made it a little bit more difficult. But I would say the reason that we did not continue it or kind of make it a like you know, like a fully integrated lifestyle choice, is that we kind of ran into a couple of issues. One was that we didn't realize about the cleanup with the juicer.
Speaker 1:
That's yeah, that's really important with juicers.
Speaker 2:
It's hugely important. So you know, I feel like if you're cooking, I mean, it's always better to clean up immediately if you can, but I mean if you have to leave a dirty pot or pan it's not the end of the world usually, but with a juicer you cannot leave that to sit because what?
Speaker 2:
can happen is that the blades and everything it can, it can rust and you know, a lot of times there's going to be some acidic type, something from what you're juicing maybe with citrus or whatever, and it can cause the blades to rust if that pulp sits on there and we just were busy. We had young kids and we didn't always get to it after we finished the juicing, and so we and it gets harder, harder to clean.
Speaker 2:
Well, yeah, at that point it's very difficult to get that pulp off and I think we ended up having to maybe throw away a juicer that first one we bought. But anyway, the other issue, and this is more personal, but a lot of the recipes that at least we stumbled upon initially all had ginger in them.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And I mean that's great and all, and some people just absolutely love it, and I'm our son loves it. He adores it, and I have nothing against ginger or the taste or anything, but let me tell you, fresh ginger can be incredibly strong.
Speaker 1:
And you were. You had some health issues.
Speaker 2:
I had some health issues going on the time that it did not kind of with my gut and so it exacerbated that and like, for instance, it gave me terrible, you know, acid reflux and that kind of thing. It just kind of burned and so it was like I went to all this effort to wash the vegetables or fruits, chop them, put them through a juicer, clean up etc. Drink this stuff and then it made me lift, not feeling so great because of all that, that kind of burn back with the ginger. So I would just say we'll talk more about that, but don't let that be a deterrent. I juice regularly now and I just leave it out and that's just a personal choice for me. But if you do choose to use, I would. I would just kind of do sparingly and work your way up.
Speaker 2:
But we, you know, it was kind of funny. I mean, I don't know why we didn't decide to just leave it out initially, but if you start looking up juice recipes, ginger, it's in so much and you just think oh, I've got to put it.
Speaker 1:
I've got to put it, you know yeah, so kind of back up real quick. So why? Why did we start juicing? I mean, what's kind of the, what's kind of the motivation to juice in the first place?
Speaker 2:
Well, I mean, that's going to be different for for different people. But, you know, for me, and the reason that I picked it back up later, you know, is I felt like you could get a lot of good nutrients within the juice, you know, without having to eat all of that.
Speaker 1:
Right, you know, I mean because it's a large amount of vegetables that go on a batch of fruit and vegetables.
Speaker 2:
And so you know, juicing will pull out the juice, leave the pulp and and, and some of that can, I guess, get into your digestive system in a little bit easier way, especially for you and you have the digestive issues that begin with.
Speaker 1:
But I mean, you know, in a batch of juice, you know we've got, you know three, four, five carrots, several apples, you know celery, several cucumbers and right, so it's a wide variety. Right.
Speaker 2:
It's probably more than I would tend to just eat in the course of a day.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean we might go through when we make a batch of juice. We might go through it. Two days takes you and I to drink the batch of juice, but I wouldn't eat that many vegetables in that that course of time. So let's talk about the juicers themselves. So we did kind of have an entry level juicer.
Speaker 2:
We did.
Speaker 1:
So what are like the different juicers? Right, Kind of, how does that? What do you look? What to look for in a juicer?
Speaker 2:
Right. I mean, I would encourage you to just really do your research. There's, you know, so much good information nowadays out there on the internet. Not quite as much, maybe back when we were first trying to start out, but there's centrifugal juicers and that's actually what we had had initially and still what we have, although we don't have the same kind of juicer, like we don't have the same brand and ours is. Ours is better, but the centrifugal juicers have typically a better shoot kind of a feed shoot where you're putting the produce in.
Speaker 2:
So, there's not quite as much chopping up and whatnot, and sometimes, depending on like the size, you could put a whole lemon or a whole apple or that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:
So that's one thing to look for is the feed shoot size.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, if that's important to you, if you, you know, don't care, or whatever.
Speaker 1:
Because the smaller one means you're going to do more prep.
Speaker 2:
Exactly. Yeah, some juicers have a really tiny feed shoot and you're going to have to chop the stuff up incredibly small. Now you might get more juice out of a different kind of juicer, you know, but this is kind of what works for us in terms of the speed of juicing, in terms of the price point and just kind of where we are. Because you can spend a lot of money on juicing, oh goodness, you can spend probably $1,000 or even more. The one we have is it's less than $200,.
Speaker 1:
I would say and it's easily easy. It's a well known brand and it's easy to find and it's a good quality appliance, just in general.
Speaker 2:
Right Now and let me just back up a little bit, when I was working retail and you know, at Cookware store and you know, back in the day, when you and I worked together years ago, I don't even know if we sold a juicer, maybe just a basic like citrus press type juicer that looks like you know you've seen the citrus press of the upside down little.
Speaker 1:
Right Put the half of the orange Right, it is the thing you're pushing on.
Speaker 2:
That's something we're talking about Right, but when I kind of, you know, worked several years ago, people would come in, you know, typically around the first of the year when maybe they were looking to make some changes or doing a you know kind of new year new you type thing, and so they were wanting something different to do.
Speaker 2:
And but one thing that I ran into is a lot of times people would be confused, and it's very understandable why. But they would say well, I'm not sure if I need a really good blender or if I need a juicer, and my answer really is you kind of need both or one or the other, but they don't accomplish the same goals.
Speaker 1:
No, they're different. They're for different tasks.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. And you can't put the fruits and vegetables in a blender and get juice. I mean, you're just going to get blended fruits and vegetables, yeah, and that's very thick and not very drinkable and whatnot. Now, I mean, blenders are great, and if you, if you're more geared towards the smoothie route? You know, I would say, stick with that.
Speaker 2:
And I mean, everybody kind of knows what smoothies are right, you know, and kind of how to make smoothies, but I mean, we're talking about things with like, maybe putting in a small amount of fruit or vegetables like maybe one banana, a little bit of berries with some yogurt with yogurt or some kind of milk, maybe almond milk or whatnot and and ice or a little, I don't even know right.
Speaker 1:
But yeah that, that route some sort of protein, protein power, all that.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, and so juice is going to basically take. It's going to send the juice to one part of the apparatus and the pulp and so, yeah, this crime right in a little more detail.
Speaker 1:
Describe how kind of how it works. Well, you put it in and you can have a feed shoot at the top, you push the vegetable down. It's got this kind of a plunger we press.
Speaker 2:
Press the produce through right and it spins around and then, like I said, it separates it out, since the juice yeah, it's got a little grinder in this.
Speaker 1:
It's got this filter basket in the bottom of the filter basket is kind of a grinder and then it's very, very, very fine, fine, like a really fine metal mesh coffee filter if you've ever seen those gold touch coffee filters. And then so that's where the juices, as it grinds the fruit or vegetable, the juices, it's the it spins at different speeds depending on the juicer and so centrifugal, as you mentioned, spins the juice out Right and then it sends the pulp out a different direction, right.
Speaker 2:
All right. And another thing too is on juicers. Ours is a cold press Okay, and typically you don't always find the centrifugal juicers being cold press, but this particular brand that we have is now what that means. I guess it's kind of along the lines of what you would think of like when they press olive oil and you see that designation of cold press. It's not that it's actually cold, but it's just that there's not the heat.
Speaker 2:
So our juicer gets the job done without adding a lot of heat from the motor, because it can take a lot of heat and a lot of energy to spin those blades around quickly enough to make juice, but ours does it in a way where it doesn't generate a lot of heat, right, and what that means is that your juice is going to stay fresher longer. So instead of having to drink it within one day, you can put it in the fridge. It might last, you know, 24 to 48 hours, or something like that.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so and like we mentioned briefly. There's a wide variety of cost levels of what you want to spend to get into that, and you can even find good deals like the original one. The one we have now is a second week. This is our second one of the same model right. We actually got a really really good deal on that first week. So that's what to look for. Look for good brands, reputable brands who make not only, maybe, juicers but other quality appliance yeah, and that would be a good entry level, right.
Speaker 1:
When you start looking at the juicing juicer companies specialty juicer companies that's where you're going to spend a lot more money, but the benefit of that is you get. Those machines will produce more juice out of the same amount of product, exactly, and it's just because they're designed to specifically do that, right.
Speaker 2:
They will be able to pull more juice out, like David said, and leave a drier pulp. So you kind of get more for your effort. And you know I mean I lament sometimes how much pulp comes out of my machine and I just think, oh, I wish you know I could get a little bit more juice. It's a lot of produce I have to put through, but at the same time, like I said, that's just kind of where we are with life.
Speaker 2:
And it does juice very quickly. I mean once we get everything washed and chopped and we're running it through, I mean we can get a batch of juice made within about five minutes.
Speaker 2:
And so you just have to kind of balance all that and see you know what your needs are and your family dynamic and your timeframe. But along those lines I will say that you have to allow time to do it. And that was like what we referenced earlier is that we just we didn't always have the time. Or maybe we would finish juicing and you know one of our kids would need us and we'd get called away and we would not prioritize getting that juicer cleaned up. But you need about 45 minutes to an hour.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, from start to finish.
Speaker 2:
From start to finish and that you need to clean your produce very well. You can use some kind of fruit and vegetable spray I know some people will soak their stuff in vinegar for a while, whatever. But you know, just wash it very thoroughly and then you know however you want to chop it or peel it, etc.
Speaker 1:
You know, different people have, you know, want to leave peels on for nutrients?
Speaker 2:
some things you really don't you know some?
Speaker 1:
and then of course you have to cut it for size to go in and shoot.
Speaker 2:
Exactly.
Speaker 1:
So then you actually do the juicing process.
Speaker 2:
Right and then, like on ours, we typically have to stop at least once midway through and empty to not empty the pulp out of the bucket but kind of clean out the top part of the machine where some pulp has built up, because it can. It can kind of impede the process, right. But that's just something you know, everything's clear you can kind of see through and you, you know when you have to get, you know, know when you're at that point.
Speaker 1:
And then the cleanup.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and then then you just wash everything with really hot water, or at least that's what we do, Right? Our manufacturer that made our juicer. It came with a little brush.
Speaker 1:
Special brush for the to clean out that kind of mesh filter.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly. And then you know I mean it does fine. I wouldn't really recommend putting any kind of soap or anything on it.
Speaker 1:
And just hot water in the brush. So in what do you do with the pulp, though? And now we've we, you know you could compost. It's a very fine pulp. Plus, you have the, the leftover, what you've cut and trimmed off the vegetables, so you have a lot of opportunities for composting there. But right.
Speaker 1:
And actually one of the things we did at the juicer one time and I've read a couple of people about doing this but we were experimenting with cauliflower, cauliflower, cauliflower crust pizza. Let's try that again and you know the hard part with that was getting all the liquid out of the cauliflower. So I juiced the cauliflower mainly to get the pulp Right, and it actually came a really dry pulp. So that was. You know, you can be creative and do different things.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, and I mean I just saw somebody the other day who did some videos and they were making like some vegan type for lack of a better word meatballs.
Speaker 1:
I mean they were vegan. But she went ahead and juiced her, her produce to put in those before she cooked them, you know, and so we made muffins with them for a long time, I mean.
Speaker 2:
I've used that pulp to do kind of along the lines of what you would think of, like banana muffins or banana bread or zucchini bread. You can use that pulp and put in there, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't save the pulp too long Like it's not going to go very long in the fridge, maybe a day or two, in in sort of a zipper type bag Right.
Speaker 1:
We didn't even give it to the dogs.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes, yeah, but it is great for compost Right?
Speaker 1:
And so the bait. We kind of stick to one basic recipe. I mean there's a lot of recipes and cookbooks or your juice books, whatever you want to call them out there, but we kind of have one we like and just kind of stick to a lot.
Speaker 2:
That's right. Okay, so ours has beats, carrots, pineapple typically, some celery, cucumbers, apple lemon and lemon, and along the lines of the lemon, I would highly highly recommend putting some kind of citrus in your juice if you can tolerate it, because it will help the juice stay fresher longer.
Speaker 1:
And it brightens the flavor.
Speaker 2:
It really does.
Speaker 1:
So I mean, you think about that, just between the two people, you've put in three or four carrots, probably two apples at least two at least one lemon, two cucumbers and like three beats yeah, depending on the size of the beats and a whole pineapple. Yeah, I mean, and we drink that in two days, right, I mean, that's like that. I would not eat that many greens, oh no. But then we've also you know, we've done some other ones.
Speaker 2:
You can do green juices. You know they're more, I guess, vegetable based. A really simple one to start out with that a lot of people know about. It's just like a carrot and apple, Carrot, apple, right yeah, and it's great I've had some cucumber ones, like they're really yeah, it's real refreshing, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
And then you could also use that. Now you've got that juicer, you get that juice out, then you can use that to make smoothies and just change it up.
Speaker 2:
You can always put some of your juice into a smoothie and do some other things with it. So cool, all right.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's a good kind of cover our story on juicing and you know kind of our our journey on juicing and kind of how we do it and you know we don't do it as much as we want to because of the time involved.
Speaker 2:
No, I mean we've you know, a couple of years ago I was into it just every day.
Speaker 1:
I mean every day.
Speaker 2:
I made time to juice and I would go through about 70 ounces of juice within a day which is pretty unbelievable. Right Now we're we're more lucky to get it done two or three times a week.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
But we do enjoy it and just feel like it. It helps us and keeps us hydrated and things. But let me circle back. There is one thing I wanted to touch about. If you use beats, just be prepared. I mean, I love beats. I think they're, they're phenomenal, but it will. I mean that red color in there is. I mean it's going to kind of get all over everything.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Just be prepared for it to get on your cutting board or your hands or whatever. But you'll see it later. Let me just put it that way.
Speaker 1:
But don't freak out, don't think it's blood or something.
Speaker 2:
You'll see it later.
Speaker 1:
Not just wash your beat. If that's one thing I would peel, I would peel your beats.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, cause the beats can, can really bring, I think the first time, yeah, the first time we did it.
Speaker 1:
We washed them, but we didn't peel them in.
Speaker 2:
It was a little little and our juice tasted like dirt.
Speaker 1:
A little dirty taste there, yeah. So, but that would be one thing. Carrots, you know whatever, but but definitely the the beats because they have so much of that earthiness to them.
Speaker 2:
Right, yeah, but like they say, the best juicer is one that you're going to use.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, just whatever you got, work your way into it, get started, you know, and uh, you know hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so that's sweet teen tacos for this week.
Speaker 2:
I'm Dave and I'm Jen.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening. We appreciate it. Uh, leave us a review on uh, your podcaster of choice. That'll help it reach other people, and set us an email If you have any questions or comments or things you want to know more about. Thanks, and have a good day.