At the end of last year, Rob bought a juicer. After watching a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, he decided to overhaul his diet and make some healthy changes in the form of vegetable juicing. Sounds… delicious. Ahem.
I’m well-known among my friends and family for being a bit picky with my veg. There are some types I love, some I don’t mind and many I just cannot deal with. At all. So vegetable juicing sounded pretty nasty to me, but when Rob made me one I thought I’d give it a try.
And actually, it tasted good!
So I sat down and watched the documentary, did some reading up and was soon a fully signed-up member of the Vegetable Juicing Club. Which isn’t actually a thing, but should be.
Rob drinks four juices a day and then has a normal meal on a night but as I’m out at my studio most days, I decided to try just one at breakfast followed by two healthy meals each day. Obviously weekends don’t count, because I still need the promise of pizza to make it through a busy week.
I’ll be honest here and say Rob is in charge of the actual juicing process – I just drink the stuff. We go to our local greengrocers (shout out to the always-excellent Fruit Stall in Chapel Allerton) twice a week to stock up on all the ingredients, which comes to about £10-13 a time. It seems like a lot to spend on juice, but when you think that all those veggies will replace breakfast AND lunch for a week, it’s actually quite reasonable. Especially if you spend £5 a day in Pret…
Rob chops and peels enough ingredients for five juices each day – one for me and four for him. We use a mix of veg and some fruit – lemons and apples are good for adding a bit of sweetness. I prefer green juice which is celery, cucumber, kale, spinach, broccoli, apple and lemon or lime, whereas Rob likes red juice which is the same but with beetroots and carrots.
After rough chopping, the fruit and veg goes into the juicer. Unlike a blender, the juicer extracts the juice from each piece and discards the pulp, so you’re left with a perfectly smooth liquid. No lumps here!
When all the ingredients are juiced, we pour the liquid into Kilner jars – not just because they’re totally hipster cool, but because they have lids, which means you can shake up the juice before you drink it. Vegetable juice will separate if left standing, so this is perfect for Rob – he keeps jars in the fridge and drinks them throughout the day, shaking and adding ice before knocking ’em back.
Although vegetable juices aren’t the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted, they are quite enjoyable. Starting the morning with a cold, fresh juice is great, and I don’t need anything else to eat until late lunchtime.
I’m very skeptical of anything used as a ‘detox’ – that’s what we have a liver and kidneys for – so for me, this is not about ‘flushing out toxins’ or even about losing weight. If you read my last post, one of my goals for 2015 is to look after my health and wellbeing, and there are loads of proven benefits to drinking vegetable juice. Something about micronutrients.
There are loads of veggie juice recipes online, but it’s also quite easy to make up your own. I particularly like this guy’s method! I’d recommend watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, too – it’s on Netflix and is a real eye-opener.
Would you try vegetable juicing?
Veggie juice is something that’s always scared me but having recently gotten into making smoothies I’m quite keen to give it a go! Off to watch that programme now too – and the procrastination continues…
ack, i need a juicer! these look amazing.
Ahh! Just tell Rob to be careful! Juicing isn’t nearly as healthy for you as people believe. All the goodness of fibre and most nutrients get thrown out in the pulp so unless you’re using the pulp in other foods you’re likely just drinking fructose and water most of the time.
Completely agree Ally – Smoothies are a much healthier way to go since you’re getting the whole veg – but you still have to be careful to keep the emphasis on veggies rather than fruit as blending fruit isn’t too healthy compared to eating it whole. I add a scoop of protein powder to mine too.
Thanks both for your comments! We still definitely eat lots of veg aside from the juicing, and the juices Rob makes are much more on the veg side than the fruit side.
The way I see it – my normal eating habits would be nothing for breakfast and a cheesy/meaty sandwich and crisps for lunch. So this has GOT to be better than that, right? Even if it is only water!
Ahh I watched Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead a while ago and loved it. Can I ask what juicer do you use? Need to get in the juicing routine!
Inspired! thank you! Juicing quite a bit now myself