As a teen-ager I was able to avoid acne and other problems because I made carrot juice and other vegetable juices on my family's juicer. At first we had a nice Oster centrifugal juicer; later we got a Champion, which looks like a meat grinder, thoroughly masticates (chews) the vegetables, produces a rich juice, and expels the pulp. My grandmother and later my mother lived into their mid-90s, due no doubt in part to their having had rejuvenating vegetable juices.
Juicers from a century ago were hand-cranked devices. Later electric designs such as our old Oster used a toothed disk to grind the food and a spinning drum that used centrifugal force to squeeze the juice out of the pulp. The drum had holes like a colander and was lined with a perforated plastic screen. The juicer had to be stopped every so often so the damp pulp buildup could be removed.
More recent centrifugal designs have a cone-shaped filter in place of the drum so that the juice is quickly forced out of the pulp and the pulp automatically collected into a receptacle on the back of the juicer.
The Champion juicer produces juice with a lot of body. As some people may not like that, an extra fine-mesh strainer is provided to hang over the collection bowl so the fine pulp can be removed from the juice. I prefer not to use it, since I believe the fine pulp is beneficial to the digestive tract.
What kind of juice you make is up to you. There are countless mixtures possible. Jay Kordich describes the health properties of various vegetables and combinations of vegetables in his Juiceman® Audio Cassette and CD series. Probably the most nourishing, revitalizing juices come from green leafy vegetables. I don't believe the centrifugal juicers handle leafy vegetables as well as the masticating juicers, so I favor my Champion.
One could write at length about the special nutritional properties of different vegetables and fruits; numerous books and audio courses are on the market by such noted authors as Jay Kordich, John B. Lust, Gayelord Hauser, Natalie Savona, Sarah Owen, and many others I could scarcely begin to name. A simple Web search would turn up a wealth of information - so much that one would be stunned and not know where best to look. So, we'll cover some general guidelines to help out.
First, why are juices per se so valuable? Well, digestion begins in the mouth with chewing - breaking up whole food into small particles with a lot of surface area, mixing with saliva to introduce enzymes. Further breakdown with more digestive juices is done in the stomach and intestines. Eventually the nutrients in the food are carried to the body's cells where they are needed. This much we know from grammar school science.
But with vegetable or fruit juice we get many of the nutrients in a medium that goes through the digestive tract quickly and reaches the body's cells in minutes! The healing, renewing effects of these juices can be quickly experienced, especially if the juices are freshly made. It's not unusual to drink a glass of, say, carrot juice, and within several minutes feel rested, lighter, more lucid, and lively. The effect is more dramatic if one starts out tired, drained, full of aches and pains, and listless; the feeling of regeneration, of renewal from drinking the juice, is wonderful by contrast. The benefit of frequent use of juices is cumulative, as over time the nutrients rebuild the tissues of the body.
Corollary: toward the end of her life my mother was in an assisted living facility. She was listless, in a daze, and would pick at her food - that didn't help her health at all. I'd bring her juice made from carrots, celery, apple, and sometimes green bell pepper. She'd drink it eagerly, and in minutes was more lucid and lively, and we could actually have an intelligent conversation. She was very old, and it hurt to lose her a little each day. The juice helped bring her back mentally and we got to hold onto her a while longer.
Among the guidelines: generally it's best not to mix fruits with vegetables, or fruit juices with vegetable juices. There are exceptions, but fruits and vegetables are different classes of foods best kept separate. Apple is one exception to the rule of not mixing fruit with vegetable. My mother claimed there's something in apple that releases more of the nutrients in carrot. A friend suggested it might be the acid in apples that does it.
It's more work to chew and digest vegetables than to chew and digest fruits, and the soft fiber from fruits harbors valuable nutrients, so if we had to choose, it would be better to juice the vegetables and eat the fruits.
Fruits, and fruit juices, are among the best foods for us (I sometimes call them "Nature's candy"), but are best consumed on an empty stomach. If a fruit is consumed after a heavy food, digestion of the fruit is delayed and it will ferment or putrefy in the stomach, making it less useful.
Another consideration is that most foods of plant origin are most nourishing when not cooked. Cooking kills enzymes and denatures complex molecules, making their components useless for cell repair.
There are good juices available at stores, but they're never as invigorating and therapeutic as freshly-made juice, and may contain additives to increase shelf life that, though not toxic, don't really help the body either. If you're pressed for time, get the store-bought juice, but make the time occasionally to get freshly-made at home. It may aid assimilation also if a little water is mixed with fruit juice.
The juices of green leafy vegetables contain concentrated nutrients, but the juice tastes bitter or otherwise unpleasantly strong. This can be masked if the juices are mixed with other pleasanter juices. That's why some people recommend mixing the juices of wheat grass, spinach, or parsley with carrot and other milder-tasting, sweet juices. The body absorbs most easily that which it likes.
Many vegetables have a constellation of benefits. Just be careful in some cases. Green, red, and yellow bell peppers contain iron, and silicon which is good for the skin, and a few other varieties of peppers have their value. I found these exotic, funny-looking green peppers (okay, you know where this is going, but continue reading anyway), and decided they would make a nice juice. I juiced them along with carrots, celery, and one or two other things, and when I was finished, I took a big chug-a-lug...
... like drinking fire.
One of my friends was ribbing me from then on about getting funny-looking green peppers.
Over time stored vegetables tend to soften from loss of moisture; leafy vegetables can wilt and turn limp. They can be revived by soaking them in ice water. I prefer to put leafy vegetables in a pot, fill it with water, and put the pot in the refrigerator overnight. The vegetables come out beautifully firm, crisp, and juicy, perfect for salads or for juicing.
Here's a recipe for a rejuvenation formula. I got it from a juicer infomercial I watched briefly. Sorry, I don't recall who produced the infomercial; it might have been Jay Kordich. Perhaps some reader will be able to give credit where credit is due.
Mix juices of
carrot
beet
parsley
apple
Exact proportions of juices are not given, but may not matter much. To put my own spin on this, here's how I prepare the formula:
I use the whole beet plant, not just the root. I soak the beet root, stems, and leaves in ice water overnight, and do the same with the parsley. One drawback to using a Champion juicer is that vegetables such as celery or the stems of beets contain long stringy fibers that get tangled on the blades and impede the machine; if these stems are cut across into little pieces, the fibers are short, no longer stringy, and don't clog the machine. Parsley, though, is such a tangled mess of branches that it's just not very practical to try cutting it up, so when juicing I save the parsley for last. Carrots are no problem, and beet roots can be cut to fit the feeder throat. Apples can be cut and juiced, but I'm lazy enough to just add bottled apple juice to the mixture. I'm also stingy enough to pick up the discarded vegetable pulp and run it through the juicer a second time; the pulp then comes out warm and damp instead of juicy.
One extra step: parsley forms a light, finely-ground pulp that floats on top of the juice and is muddy, clumpy, and (to me) unpleasant. I pour all the juice into a blender and turn it on at low speed to chop up the stuff and give the juice an even texture.
Another consideration: beets and beet juice are loaded with carotene and stain everything they touch. Ironically, this same vegetable cleans and detoxifies the liver. Yet there's so much carotene that the day after we drink the juice, the stool has a purplish glow. The carotene contains Vitamin A, but it's more than the body can handle, so the body takes what it can and eliminates the rest. I've found a variety of beet that isn't so purple; cut it open and it's a combination of white and red, rather like a radish. It tastes like regular beets, but doesn't stain nearly as much. If you're fortunate enough to find this kind, do buy it, and use it in a variant of this juice mixture. Regardless of the type of beet, the juice is pleasant-tasting; it's been described as like nectar. And it renews and rejuvenates the body. It's a lot of work to prepare (the way I do it, anyway), but once in a while it's a great elixir to have.
In closing, we'll address a question nobody ever asks in juice-related articles: what do we do about the leftover pulp? Well, my mother would sometimes add a little to soup to give it body. I have a sister who uses vegetable pulp as mulch to fertilize her garden. But me? I'm a bum. I just flush it down the toilet. It breaks up in the water, doesn't clog the wastewater pipes, and is biodegradable.
Here's a toast of raw vegetable juice for long life. Pour votre santé!
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