Juicing: Worth It or Not?

Should I Juice or Not?
Juicing can be a great way to get in fresh vegetables and fruits, especially for people who cannot eat a lot of fiber because of surgery.The only drawback to juicing is that you lose the benefit of the pulp that the juicer removes.

For most of us who have not had bowel surgeries or other GI problems requiring a low residue diet, I recommend blending if possible. However, blending a carrot sometimes doesn’t taste so good!

A nice resolution to this problem is to use a juicer, drink the juice and then cook with the pulp!

Cooking With the Pulp

• Carrot and apple pulp muffins are a delicious way in which to use
  the juicer pulp to create a tasty treat.
• Soft fruits often leave a wetter pulp than hard produce such as
  carrots or apples and so the flavor left in the pulp is often more
  intense. These soft fruits such as the various forms of berries, grape
  etc can be easily mixed with a little water and frozen to make a Popsicle.
• Soft fruit pulp is also great for adding into your own home made ice creams and sorbets or for using as dessert toppings.
• Freeze the pulp in a
  container / freezer bag until you are ready to use
  it.
• You can use vegetable and fruit pulp in ‘layered’ recipes such as vegetable lasagna.

What Kind of Juicer Should I Get?
Here is a question I recently received: “I’m thinking of buying a juicer but not sure what name I should buy or where?  What features should I look for?”

Here’s my disclaimer… I am not a juicer! But it is starting to sound more interesting the more I read! For the most part, you need to make sure that the juicer you buy can juice the type of food you plan to use.

For example, are you going to juice just oranges and other citrus fruits, or do you want to juice vegetables like carrots and spinach as well?

Other than that, you will be choosing based on price. It’s like choosing a blender, the more expensive ones will probably be more efficient, but some of the less expensive ones work just fine.

If you have tips on purchasing a juicer, be sure to comment on this post and share with others!

Here are some recipes for those who are interested in starting to juice. I got them from the Dana Farber Cancer Center’s nutrition website!

Carrot Lemon Breeze

[PER 1/4 cup serving: Calories 60; protein 1 g; carbohydrate 15 g; total fat 0 g; cholesterol 0 mg; sodium 0 mg, fiber 4 g.]

Carrot Tonic

[PER 1/4 cup serving: Calories 60; protein 2 g; carbohydrate 14 g; total fat 0 g; cholesterol 0 mg; sodium 153 mg; fiber 4 g.]

Enjoy!
– Julie