A Simple, Easy Green Juice Recipe

Let me start by saying that this started innocently with a smoothie. And then I got curious. So I ordered a juicer on Amazon. I got a few well-respected opinions…. wait, this reminds me of something David Wolfe (raw foodist and superfood freak) said in class when he was asked: “What do you think is best juicer on the market?” His response: “The one that’s in your cabinet that your not using!” Excellent point.

So a week after I ordered it, my juicer arrived and if you had told me five years ago (heck, a year ago) that I’d one day be this excited about an appliance arriving on my doorstep I would have called you crazy pants. No joke, that juicer came on a Friday and you know what I did that night? I juiced all the produce in our fridge. Dork? Yes. I juiced a carrot. An apple. A beet. I was having fun playing with my new toy. Then I spilled beet juice all over the floor. It looked like a murder scene in our kitchen. Good thing I was out of veggies at that point. My juicing skills have gotten a little more sophisticated since then. I tried out a few different green juice recipes, tweaked things a bit and came up with the recipe here. I make juice maybe 2-3 mornings a week. I’d love to have it daily, but it’s a time investment. We’re talking 5-10 minutes to prep and make the juice, then 5-10 minutes to clean the juicer. Given that I don’t like to clean much of anything, you can guess my least favorite part of the process. I suppose there are worse things… like cleaning the fridge or unclogging drains. But I can think of a bajillion other things I could do with those 5-10 minutes. Like, sleep. Time and cleaning aside,  juicing is an incredibly healthy practice if you can squeeze it in (see that?), especially if your idea of eating greens is the lettuce on your cheeseburger. Think about it. You could eat all of this…

Or you could drink a glass of this….

It tastes pretty good too (a lot better than it looks anyway). When you drink juice from fresh vegetables and fruits it’s like cutting out the middle man. You remove the fiber, which your body would ordinarily have to break down to extract the nutrients itself. When it’s just the juice, the good stuff (vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, chlorophyll) is more readily available and easily absorbed. It goes straight into your system and gets soaked up by every cell in your body. You don’t have to chew up that big pile of veggies and your body doesn’t have to use energy to digest it. That means more energy for you.

There’s a lot of information out there about juice fasting/feasting to detoxify, heal and re-energize the body. The idea is to consume fresh vegetable and fruit juices for a few days to give the digestive system some well-deserved time off, allow the body to release toxins, and focus its energy on other tasks besides digestion, like healing. If you’re interested, I suggest doing some research before jumping in and, of course, consult a health care professional before doing anything drastic.

Me? I’m satisfied for now getting my dose of green juice when I can. I look at it as my insurance for the day. No matter what the day may bring I know I have already had a days worth of veggies before even leaving the house. But considering my track record from green smoothies to full on juicing, a juice feast just might be next. Stay tuned…

Green Juice

What you need:

2 ribs celery
1/4 large cucumber
1/2 cup parsley
2 leaves of kale
1/4 a lime
1 small apple
1/4 inch piece of peeled ginger (optional)

What you do:

Wash everything well. Feed all the ingredients through the juicer. Save the lime for last so it can help clean the juicer. Pour green juice over ice and enjoy!