Old Jack leaves the basement and becomes part of my daily routine. A fresh glass of GREEN juice for breakfast and a mason jar of GREEN juice for later in the day.

Hey there veggie challengers,

9 cups of veggies and fruit can be a challenge to consume but with juicing you can consume about 5 cups in one go.  I LOVE juicing.  Why?  Because it makes me feel amazing!

So what is juicing…..no it is not drinking 5 cups of fruit juice – that would be about 10 cups of fruit.  Way too much sugar and the 9CupChallenge is about getting 6 cups of veggies and 3 cups of fruit.  OK – so then what is the juice that I drink?  I drink GREEN juice.

Here is what my morning routine looks like:

Get up and heat up some filtered water.  Add a squeeze of lemon to my regular morning mug and then pour in the warm water.  Drink.  Repeat.  This is to help me detox my liver.  Your liver is one of the hardest working organs in your body and it is key to how your entire body functions.  Treat it with respect.  This approach to drinking warm lemon water will help you replace the joyful mug of coffee that you may have enjoyed in your morning routine.  And it helps hydrate you  instead of dehydrating you like coffee does.  After I consume my “lemon hydration” I start to assemble my green juice.

I use a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer that my hubby gave me for Christmas in 2010.  We used it for a bit, then took the beast to the basement to rest beside my bread maker.  Doing the 9CupChallenge means old Jack gets back on the counter for a daily workout.  I know there are better quality products on the market, but when a juicer arrives as a gift, you use it until you are ready to upgrade to what you might need.  The bread maker misses his friend Jack in the basement.

So why do GREEN Juice?  Juicing allows your body to absorb all the nutrients from the veggies without having to spend energy breaking down the food.  I get so much energy from my daily green juice that I no longer need coffee.

I am frugal so when I juice, I do a couple of things that juice purists may not agree with.

• I reuse my pulp by putting it through the juicer twice.
• The first time I just press it down and get about 1/2 cup of juice.
• The second time, I add a bit of filtered water to the pulp and get more green juice.
• Then I run a bit of filtered water through the juicer until it comes out clear.  This second pulp run adds about 1.5 cups of juice/water.
• In total I get about 4 cups of juice that I split between a 500ml mason jar and a 500ml glass.

• The 500 ml glass gets consumed as I clean up my juicing area and machine.  You should drink it slowly, allow it swish in your month and “chew” it.  This will allow your mouth to release digestive enzymes and kick-start the digestive process that will happen in your stomach.
• Allow about 20-30 minutes to pass before you eat anything solid so your body has time to digest and take in the green goodness.
• The 500 ml mason jar gets filled right to the top, I add a lid and put it in my fridge right away for later in the day.  I usually have it mid afternoon or as I am making dinner.  Or to distract my wine and beer loving friends I drink it in a wine glass in the evening as an alternative to wine or beer.  It causes a lot of strange looks and interesting discussions.

It is very important that you clean up after juicing right away.  The small particles will harden on your juicer and it will be very hard to clean if you leave it sit.  Just make clean-up part of the routine.  The entire process takes 30 minutes to feel amazing!

Other tips

• Use organic produce – the nutrients from the juice go right into your body – so you want as little chemicals as possible and maximum nutrients
• Don’t use rotten fruit or veggies – it will ruin the taste and will spoil the rest of the produce
• Avoid wearing good dress/work clothes when making your juice and for that matter drinking it.  Green is great in juice – just not on your favourite white shirt
• Do your first trial runs of juicing when you have extra time.  It does take a bit of time to get the hang of it.
• Be sure to fill the mason jar right to the top so air can not get in to speed up the loss of nutrients.
• A full mason jar will be almost guaranteed to spill on your white shirt.
• The mason jar will have less nutrients than the freshly consumed juice.
• Be sure to wash all the veggies and fruit  as well as trim off any stems, seeds, and ends before you juice.

Here is what I add to my GREEN juice to start my daily 9CupChallenge

• 2 stalks of organic celery
• 1 organic carrot
• 6 stems of organic curly parsley
• 2 stems of organic cilantro
• 1 handful of organic baby spinach
• 2 leaves of organic curly kale
• 2 leaves of organic black kale
• 1 inch of organic ginger
• 1 organic Bartlet or Bosc pear
• 1/2 English cucumber (I buy conventional and peel it if I remember or have time)

Not every day is the same as I may run out of ingredients and substitute an apple for a pear, or romaine for spinach, or only add one type of kale.  Get creative and try different combinations.

If you don’t have a juicer – just ask your network if they have one sitting in the basement beside their bread maker.  They might just let you take it.  Beware, when you look and feel amazing, they will want to know what you did and will want their juicer back.  You may have to purchase your own juicer and your friends will now be asking you all about the power of green juice.

I hope you are juiced about making your own green juice.

Cheers to going GREEN!

Jo, your 9CupChallenge partner.