Adventures in Juicing, Episode 1

Okay, so this juicing fad has been a thing for awhile now. Juicers have been available to buy for years, but it's only in the last year or so that it became a thing to survive on nothing but juice for a little while. I have a friend that juiced for 40 days. I think she's amazing, and intense, and very few people can do that. I've read several accounts of people that juiced for three days or so, and it seems to be almost all positive reviews, with ravings of vitamins, decreased hunger, resetting your cravings, etc.

So when I was diagnosed six months ago, the idea of juicing floated through my mind. I knew that my body was clogged down with all sorts of stuff it couldn't handle, but within a few days, as my body adjusted to actually eating the food, I found I was crazy hungry, all the time. And that really was a good thing. I nommed on fruits and veggies a lot, and lots of gluten-free things, and all the food that I wrote about here, but I knew that I couldn't give up food. Not yet, at least. Food was way too important to my body. I thought, maybe in a couple months, I would try it.

It's been a couple months, so I've been reading some introductions to juicing, some tips on adding juice to your day, and some accounts on juicing, and I'm really considering it. I thought about making it super easy and buying all the juice from somebody like Blue Print Cleanse, but then I looked at the price tag. So I was back to the possibility of juicing. One big problem is that I live in Saskatchewan. Fresh fruit isn't exactly cheap here; it's all shipped from far away.

The other big problem is a juicer. I'm not ready to invest in a good juicer, and our blender isn't quality enough to get rid of all of the chunks.

My brother gave us this appliance that's like a knock-off Bullet. It has a blender feature, but you can also screw cups into the blender and blend straight in a cup. It also has a juicing insert.

I got super excited when I realized I still had this. Now I could go out and buy kale and be like every other kale-drinking blogger! I went to the store, and held and stared a bunch of kale.

Nope. I'm not ready to make that leap.

Last night I got bored and gave in. Sort of. I peeled a couple carrots, and shoved two carrots, a banana and a handful of strawberries in my juicer.

After a lot of work from my blender, I got about a quarter cup of grainy orange juice, a cup of what is essentially baby food, and half a carrot that refused to blend.

So, problems with my juicer?

1. It doesn't have enough power to efficiently blend hard vegetables.
2. The juicer mashing stick thing isn't actually long enough to force everything to the bottom.
3. The mesh isn't thin enough to make it enjoyable juice.
4. The juicing part sits in the juice, so the pulp I pull out is still wet and full of possible juice, but it doesn't squish and drain like it should.

Essentially, I came to the conclusion that to truly juice, I need to buy a juicer. In the meantime, I will drink strawberry banana smoothies. Close enough.