Juicing 101

What is the difference between juicing and blending?

Juicing is the process of extracting liquid and nutrients from produce and discarding the pulp. Removing the fibre from vegetables and fruit allows the liquid juice to be absorbed into your blood stream quickly. This means your digestive system won’t need to do all the hard work.

Blending includes everything, nothing is separated or removed. Blenders pulverize the whole produce to make a smoothie.

The benefits of juicing vs blending are:

There are 2 main types of juicers:

• Centrifugal juicer -A centrifugal juicer extracts the juice with a spinning metal blade which presses the contents against a strainer. The juice drains off into a waiting container, leaving the pulp behind for disposal. This type of juicer is more popular as it’s cheaper than masticating juicers. There is a claim that centrifugal juicers heat up the juice and destroys the nutrients…this is up to you to make your own judgement. Philips and Andrew James are popular brands to look at.
• Masticating juicer – The masticating juicer works by pressing and crushing the ingredients to remove the juice. It is also known as a slow juicer because of the longer juicing time. These juicers are lot more pricey but it is said to produce a higher quality juice. This is ideal for dedicated juicers who are keen to get the best possible health benefits from their juices. Omega and Kuvings are 2 popular brands to look at.

I have the Andrew James Professional 850W Whole Fruit Power Juicer which I use to make carrot and ginger juice. About 1,5kg of carrots makes 850ml of juice.

Juicing can be a bit time consuming. I usually make enough for 2 days and store it in an airtight glass bottle in the fridge. Cleaning the juicer can also be a bit tedious. I like that this juicer has a separate pulp container which I line with a compostable bag to collect the pulp. It gives me one less thing to clean! A hard bristled brush also makes removing the remaining bits of pulp easier. I then leave the parts to drip dry.

In my opinion the speed and convenience of a centrifugal juicer can be a good pay off compared to a small loss of juice quality – especially if you have a busy lifestyle. The more you actually use your juicer, the more you will benefit.

It is worth mentioning that it is best to keep your juices fruit free or use small servings of green apple. Fruit juices can cause major sugar spiking because it gets absorbed into the blood stream so quickly. High sugar is cancer’s friend.

Besides for carrot and ginger juice, other vegetable juice ideas are:

• Spinach, kale, broccoli, cucumber and celery
• Carrot, celery, beetroot and ginger
• Spinach, cucumber, parsley, celery, broccoli

We all need plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit in our diet, whether we eat, juice, or blend them. I have concentrated on the topic of juicing as I feel that it is an important part of a cancer-fighting diet. Juicing is an effective method of delivering a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals into your body. So let’s get juiced!