How to Choose a Good Juicer

If you’re eating more raw foods and making that important lifestyle change, at some point you’ll need to consider investing in a juicer. A blender is NOT the same thing. To get all the benefits of juicing fruits and vegetables, you need to be able to process every part of the food – seeds, stems, peels and pulp. That’s where all the vitamins are. A blender just can’t do that effectively. A juicer will extract all the nutrients from fruit or vegetable - even more so than just chewing and swallowing your food.

Juicers routinely used to cost $300-$400 and more. The best ones still do, but if you’re just getting into juicing, there are many less expensive styles on the market as well. Here are a few you can research to find the best one for you. Natural food stores and cooking catalogues like Williams-Sonoma also carry juicers, and many can also be found online such as at Amazon.com.

Here are some reasonably priced but highly effective juicers to consider: 

Omega 1000 – Makes good, virtually pulp-free juice. It’s a high-yield juicer but not good for juicing leafy greens. This juicer will not process wheatgrass. Price $150-$300

Commercial Champion – Better juice quality, pulpy with good nutritional value. Also a multi-purpose machine that grates and churns and can make nut butters. A good heavy-duty juicer, high volume, good for families. Does not process wheatgrass. Price $230-$300.

Solo Star – Creates a pulpy juice, but very high nutrient value because the motor is a lower RPM. This is a multi-purpose machine that can grate, churn, make nut butters and extrude pasta. It can also process wheatgrass. Price $190 - $300.

Green Power – A premium juicer, although a more complicated machine with more parts that need to be cleaned. Creates the least pulp with more nutrients. It is a Twin Screw Press type of juicer that is superior to masticating or centrifugal juicers. It will process wheatgrass. Also a multi-purpose machine. Pricey, but may be well worth it. Some models come with a 10-year warranty, which speaks to the quality. Price $450 - $650

Examples of Good Juicers:
   

Is Your Body Overweight, But Starving?

We recently saw an interesting article about starvation in which the comment was made that there are really two types of starvation. One, of course, is caused by too little or no food at all. But there is another type of starvation caused by serious malnutrition, and even though the U.S. is the fattest nation on the planet, our bodies are starved for important nutrients and enzymes. It’s partly why we’re so fat, because we keep eating and eating, but we’re eating highly processed, cooked foods that have the essential components burned out of them. Cooking removes up to 80% of food’s important amino acids, fibers and vitamins.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s one reason why incorporating raw foods, or even switching to a raw foods diet makes such compelling sense. When you start eating raw foods, you’re suddenly getting all the nutrition from food that nature intended you to get. It’s the way our bodies were meant to eat, in balance with the planet. We suddenly become the vibrant, healthy beings we’re supposed to be.

But we still live in the modern world, with all its pressures and time constraints. It’s one reason why getting your whole foods from juicing is a good idea. You can still get all the fiber you need without taking the time to cut, peel or slice the food. Raw foods do take a little more time to chew and swallow and that’s a good thing. But if you don’t have the time for that, then you should consider using juices for at least a portion of your raw foods intake.

You do need to invest in a good juicer though, and that’s different from a blender. A blender can’t process the fruit peels that contain most a fruit or vegetables vitamins and enzymes. A juicer is a more high-powered appliance that will process everything – seeds and stems, peels and pulp. It’s designed to do it quickly and efficiently. They can be expensive, but there are many more options today than there used to be as this concept has gained in popularity.

Check back Friday when we will post some suggestions for finding the best juicer.

Related Articles on Raw Foods and Juicing:

• 5 Benefits Of Raw Foods And Juicing! (thelifestylechanger.wordpress.com)
• Health Benefits of Juicing (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• Raw for 21 Days (teresastips.wordpress.com)
• Healthy Raw Food Recipes (socyberty.com)

The Benefits of Juice

This week we are continuing our raw food series, in a different vein. For many, it can be hard to become a total raw-foodist, so we are offering some more suggestions for incorporating raw foods into your diet. One of the best ways is juicing.

Eating raw foods is a way to give your body some of the nutrition it desperately needs. Many of us in America are at least slightly overweight, and even the morbidly obese are starving for essential proteins and amino acids. All the processed, cooked foods we eat give us only a small percentage of what we need. Consequently, we eat and eat and yet we’re still not nourished. Psychologists try to tell us we’re eating to make up for an emptiness in our souls. Wrong! Our bodies our empty of nutrients and trying to tell us so.

Image via Wikipedia

Eating raw foods is good for us on so many levels. It’s satisfying to eat them. They take more time to chew and swallow, so we don’t eat as fast. And we’re getting so much more in the way of nutrition - enzymes, vitamins, minerals, etc. - by consuming fruits, vegetables, nuts and sprouts.

It can take time to prepare raw foods, however. Which is why a juicer is an important addition to your kitchen once your start to be serious about raw foods. A good juicer can process an entire apple – seeds, stems, peel, pulp and all – and turn all that into a healthy, nutritious juice.

Buying apple juice is NOT the same thing!!! Don’t even look at apple juices or even ciders in the grocery store. Put that $2 or $3 aside for a few months and save up for a juicer. Buy bags of apples, orange, bananas, carrots and make your own juices Image via Wikipedia
to get everything from the fruit that you’d get by eating it raw. Now you’re getting juice that’s as fresh as the fruit or vegetable you made it from. No preservatives, no processing that strips most of the energy from the fruit. And think of all the delicious combinations you can make with the many tropical fruits that are available now in most grocery stores. You can customize your fruits and add non-typical ingredients like pumpkin to an orange juice. Now that’s a powerhouse of a juice!

Video - Raw Cereal Recipe

Here is an amazing breakfast "cereal" recipe using all raw foods, which will take you less than 5 minutes to throw together. Packed with antioxidants, vitamins, fiber, Omega 3 fatty-acids, and more awesome stuff, it also tastes amazing, and will give you great energy that lasts for hours.  (Quick note: The guy in the video coincidentally also offers a great set of ab workout videos, which we sometimes feature on our fun ways to exercise blog - I didn't even realize this until halfway through the video!)

A link to the cookbook he mentions can be found below the video.

Raw Food Recipes: Delicious Breakfast Cereal
Raw food recipes to die for! Try this "raw" cereal instead of the garbage cereals that come in boxes. For more great raw food recipes get your copy of Eating for Energy today. Visit www.EatingforEnergy.ca


Other Good Raw Food Recipes:
    

Interested in Trying Raw Foods?

I know raw food seems like a strange topic for a cooking blog, but hey, raw-foodies gotta eat too, right?  I like to throw these in now and then, as while I'm not a raw-foodist by any means, I do believe that most people in our society could stand to eat more raw foods from a health standpoint. Raw foods contain enzymes and vitamins that cooked foods often do not - and these are things our bodies need! I Image via Wikipediathink it's great to try new and healthy ways of eating, so this article mentions ways to incorporate more raw foods into your diet, without going strictly raw, which would be a monumental step for many of us.

Eating raw, even just part of the time, can have great health benefits. Are you interested in trying a raw food diet, but don’t think you can do it all the time? You don’t have to, certainly not to start. Many of us are conditioned to think of food as reward and comfort. We look forward to the end of the day, having dinner with our families, or going out to dinner with friends.

Try eating raw foods throughout the day instead. If you go to work every day, take carrots, apples, grapes or dried fruit with you to munch on. If you usually go out to lunch during the day, try to go places where you can get a salad. If you pack a lunch, include sprouts and fruit with it. If you’re like many people, those fast food lunches make you want to crawl under your desk and take a nap in the Image via Wikipediaafternoon! They make you sluggish and tired. A lighter lunch of raw foods can keep you energized throughout the day.

The business culture is different these days, and there’s less of a routine than there used to be with a morning “coffee break” and then “lunch hour” and an afternoon “break.” That routine doesn’t work for a lot of people any more, but you can still get hungry during the day. By taking a variety of raw foods with you to work, you can munch periodically during the day. Sometimes it’s better to eat to avoid getting hungry. If we let ourselves go too long until we get ravenous, that’s when it’s easier to make poor food choices. Eating raw foods periodically throughout the day also keeps your metabolism humming along, and keeps your blood sugar at steady levels.

Organic Products and Raw & Living Foods

Fortunately for those of us newly interested in eating organic and fresh or raw foods, there are lots of products out there. Natural and organic foods used to be found only in natural food stores, and those could be few and far between. While not as ubiquitous as McDonald’s, there ARE many more stand-alone stores. And the grocery chains are catching on too, with more organic selections than ever before. If you don’t see them in your grocery store, just ask. You’re probably not the only person in your neighborhood who’d like to see more of these options.

Many grocery stores now feature sprouts and other living foods in the produce aisle. Of course, if they don’t, there’s nothing easier to grow for yourself than sprouts!

Image via Wikipedia

There are also tons of sites on the Web where you can order raw and living foods. Just do a search on raw foods and you’ll come up with a lot of different places to order the foods you’d like to buy. Many of these sites are also full of useful information, to help you learn about eating raw and living foods, and help educate you on the specific food values. (You may also wish to join a local CSA or frequent your local farmer's market - a great source of fresher foods with more nutrients. A CSA may even deliver a weekly share of fresh produce to your door. For more info on CSAs, visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/csa.html.)

What else? Experiment with what you like. Take the time to learn a little about what the different nutrients in foods do for you. Just a few examples:

Cabbage – High in Vitamin C; important for healthy cell function.

Shitake mushrooms – contain essential fatty acids and antioxidants to support a healthy immune system (I get these in my CSA every week - they are awesome!)

Kale – Rich in fiber and helps reduce calorie intake with less hunger. We like that! (Another common CSA item.)

Barley – Loaded with niacin, fiber and iron and is important for healthy blood sugar.

Pumpkin – Very rich in fiber and vitamins; also helps reduce appetite by filling the stomach with indigestible fibers.

Cooked Foods On a Raw Diet

Obviously since this is a cooking blog, we don't spend a lot of time on raw foods! However, some prefer to follow a raw food diet as much as possible for the health benefits (and in fact, even if you don't go full-out raw food, a raw food fast can be VERY beneficial for cleaning and detoxing your system, so it's a great thing to throw into your healthy diet once in a while). I thought I'd throw in an article here for those looking for ideas for their raw food diet (or raw food fast) during the winter months.

Image via WikipediaDoes moving to a raw foods diet mean never eating hot food again? No, it doesn’t. Sometimes you want something hot. Hot food has always signified comfort for many of us. And on a cold, rainy day, carrot sticks or wheatgrass juice probably won’t cut it for most of us.

Most raw food, like our bodies, is very perishable. When raw foods are exposed to temperatures above 118 degrees, they start to rapidly break down, just as our bodies would if we had a fever that high. One of the constituents of foods which can break down are enzymes. Enzymes help us digest our food. Enzymes are proteins though, and they have a very specific 3-dimensional structure in space. Once they are heated much above 118 degrees, this structure can change.

Once enzymes are exposed to heat, they are no longer able to provide the function for which they were designed. Cooked foods contribute to chronic illness, because their enzyme content is damaged and thus requires us to make our own enzymes to process the food. The digestion of cooked food uses valuable metabolic enzymes in order to help digest your food. Digestion of cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food. In general, raw food is so much more easily digested that it passes through the digestive tract in 1/2 to 1/3 of the time it takes for cooked food.

Eating enzyme-dead foods places a burden on your pancreas and other organs and overworks them, which eventually exhausts these organs. Many people gradually impair their pancreas and progressively lose the ability to digest their food after a lifetime of ingesting processed foods. (I was actually just listening to a very interesting audio on this topic recently, and may post more about this soon....)

But you certainly can steam and blanch foods if you want your food at least warm. Use a food thermometer and cook them no higher than 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Up to this temperature, you won’t be doing too much damage to the enzymes in your food.

Related articles on Raw Food Diet:

• The raw food diet and a better quality of life (justslimming.com)
• Raw Food Diet: Ready To Take On the Challenge? (justslimming.com)
• Why is the "raw diet" considered healthy? (greenanswers.com)
• Raw Food Diet Explained (socyberty.com)
• Raw Foods for Longevity and Health (+ Walnut Pate Recipe) (eatdrinkbetter.com)