A friend of mine asked me recently a very simple question. Why juice?
Why make your own juices?
Why not buy juices in a shop?
There’s probably a lot of articles “out there” on the benefits of making your own juice and they’re probably backed up by lots of “fancy” data and numbers. I don’t have that.
What I do have, however, is my own motivations for juicing.
At the simplest level, making your own juice means you know it’s fresh. It’s as fresh as when you make it.
A lot of the juices that are on sales in shops aren’t “real”. They’re made from concentrates of some kind or have added sugar.
Sure, you can get 100% fruit juices these days without any additives, but have you seen how much they cost?
A small bottle of “freshly squeezed” orange juice will cost you several Euro. And it might not taste that good.
Tesco sell oranges by the kilo for around €2 / kg, while Innocent’s orange (which is damn tasty) is around €3 / litre.
And if you start exploring the world of juice you discover that there are a lot of different combinations possible.
Since I began making my own juices on a regular basis (as well as making smoothies from time to time) I’ve discovered an entire universe of flavours that I didn’t know even existed.
Ginger, for example, when added to carrots, gives the juice a little “kick”, which I really like. As for beetroot, sure, it’s an acquired taste, but it’s fantastic once you get past that initial “oddness”.
Imagine combining all these different fruits and vegetables together and getting both the amazing flavours as well as all the nutrition.
Sure, it’s more effort than simply taking a bottle of juice out of the fridge, but when you get used to making your own fresh juices you realise how tasteless so many of the “things” you’re served under the name of “fruit juice” are.
I’ve got a couple of recipe books by Jason Vale and there are hundreds of sites offering recipes on juice.
As for juicing for health reasons. ..
I’d recommend watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It’s inspiring.
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