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Coffee Day

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Apparently today is “Coffee Day” in several countries around the world. The fact that it falls on a Sunday is unfortunate, as it’s probably the day when people drink less coffee (apart from Saturday)

I tend to drink most coffee during weekdays, as I need the “kick” more, though I do drink coffee at the weekend as well.

The guys over at Mashable published this graphic that playfully explains your “type” based on your choice of coffee. It ignores that some of us don’t drink particular coffees due to calorie concerns, but it’s still semi-amusing:

What your coffee says about you

 

Grapefruit, Carrot & Ginger Juice

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Grapefruit, ginger and carrotI quite like grapefruit. Sure, it’s a lot more bitter than orange, but the bitter taste sort of adds to its attraction.

Yesterday I picked up a few grapefruit specifically for juicing, but I wanted to add something else to them.

So carrot and ginger seemed like a reasonably good idea.

The end result was excellent đŸ™‚ Very tasty!

Grapefruit, carrot & ginger juice

Here’s the recipe – which is, of course, incredibly simple.

Print

Grapefruit, Carrot & Ginger Juice

A vibrant juice
Course Juice
Keyword carrot, fruit, grapefruit, juice, juicing
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 2 minutes
Total Time 7 minutes
Servings 1

Ingredients

  • 2 grapefruit
  • 2 medium carrots
  • slice of fresh ginger

Instructions

  1. Peel the grapefruit
  2. Clean and chop the carrots
  3. Slice up the ginger
  4. Juice everything alternating ingredients

 

 

Hurom Slow Juicer First Impressions

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HU-400 Hurom Slow Juicer

HU-400 Hurom Slow Juicer

I took delivery of the Hurom juicer yesterday. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I still haven’t explored all the device’s options yet, but I will over time.

To start with the box itself was heavier than I was expecting. In some ways this is a good thing. If it’s heavy then it’s probably going to last longer than a flimsier machine. The build quality of all the machine’s parts appears to be very good, though considering how much they sell for retail you’d expect it to be.

The model I bought is the HU-400, which happens to be black. If I’d been paying full price for it I’d have chosen a black model anyway, so it was just my good fortune that the discounted one I found on eBay was black.

The standard retail price for the HU-400 is around  €350 – €400 depending on where you buy it. I picked mine up for €270 including shipping (via courier).

Unfortunately this particular model doesn’t come with a recipe book, or at least the one I got didn’t have one included. You don’t really need a recipe book for making juice, but the Hurom is powerful enough to do a lot more than simple juices. Whether I’ll get round to exploring some of its more advanced features and options is a different matter entirely..

Assembly of the machine is pretty easy, though the instruction manual referred to two variants of the same model and I couldn’t work out which one I had, nor could I find the “spot” that part of the machine’s body supposedly has. Like a lot of electric kitchen gadgets, the Hurom juicer will not switch on unless it has been put together properly and all its parts interlock exactly the way they’re meant to.

The power button has three options:

  • Off
  • On
  • Reverse

For normal usage you simply turn it on and off, but the “reverse” option is there to help clear any possible blockages if you get fruit or vegetables stuck in the machine. (I haven’t so far!)

I had got the impression that the Hurom would take up less counter space than my Philips machine, but in reality there isn’t that much difference. The Hurom is taller, so you can’t operate it on the counter until you’re clear of the cupboards. While that’s not exactly a “deal breaker” it means that I’ll have to rejig my counter space, as I’ve ended up with the machine precariously perched on the edge of the counter which is far from ideal.

So what about the actual operation of the machine?

The fruit and vegetable chute is much smaller and narrower, so you need to cut or slice into much smaller slices. You also can’t “ram” things into the machine, as it doesn’t have any sharp blades or burrs like the centrifugal has. The cold press juicers work mainly on pressure, with the motor rotating the main shaft at about 80 rpm compared to the 18000 rpm of the Philips!

But who really cares about rpm? It’s a juicer, not a car!

Last night I took it for its first “drive” and I was truly impressed.

While it does take a bit longer to prepare the fruit for juicing (I personally hate peeling oranges) the end result is worth it.

Orange juice from my Philips centrifugal juicer was always a bit pale and unimpressive. It lacked “oomph”

With the Hurom cold press slow juicer the juice is a much deeper orange and the taste is far richer.

So far I’ve found that it can handle soft fruit easily, but without getting clogged up. Harder stuff, like ginger, goes through it pretty well.

Cleaning up afterwards is relatively easy, as you can simply pour a jug of water down the chute and turn on the machine. Due to the way the machine uses filters and some kind of mesh the water doesn’t just flow straight out, but works its way through the machine and expels a lot of the leftovers.

I’ll freely admit that I am impressed by how much juice it extracts from the fruit. You can see it in the pulp that’s expelled after – it’s practically dry!

I’d love to get my hands on the recipe book that the manufacturer publish, but it’s not available for download or purchase, or if it is I haven’t been able to find it! (Admittedly I did find one seller in the US, but with the price of the book plus shipping it would have been a very expensive read!)

Why Juice?

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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.

 

 

 

High Tech Plate To Control Your Diet?

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I’m always interested in new apps and devices that can help you with dieting. I use several, though probably not as regularly as I should.

A new concept caught my eye earlier today. It’s still in the conceptual phase and is far from perfect, but it definitely “has legs”

The “my diet plate” is a concept design for a plate that uses all sorts of funky technology to help you control how much and what you eat.

The video does a pretty good job of explaining the concept:

You can read more about the concept here.

 

 

 

A Cold Press Juicer Could Save Me Money

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I’ve been using a centrifugal juicer on and off for the last 18 months. It’s a Philips HR1861 and cost around  €100 when I got it. I’m now upgrading to a cold press juicer, even though they’re considerably more expensive.

For someone who was new to the entire concept of “juicing” that kind of investment seemed reasonable. I wanted something that would “do the job” and wouldn’t break, but I didn’t see any point in investing several hundred Euro in it. Like a lot of people I’m happy to try out new things, but I don’t always stick to them, so spending several hundred euro on something that I might have used two or three times before leaving it to gather dust at the back of a kitchen cupboard seemed silly.

Over a year later and I’ve re-considered my options.

Why?

While I might not make fresh juice every single day, I have gone through phases where the juicer is used at least 5 times a week. It isn’t sitting in a cupboard gathering dust and is one of the kitchen gadgets that permanently “lives” on the worktop.

The other reason is economics.

If you live in a country like Ireland buying fresh fruit and vegetables in the kind of quantities needed to make juices all the time, smoothies when you feel like it and like cooking with fresh vegetables or living off salads, it can get quite expensive.

According to several sources the more expensive cold press juicers are more economical, as they get more juice out of the fruit and vegetable.

So if you could get a glass of apple juice out of one apple instead of two you’re not only getting more of the fruit’s goodness, but you’re also saving yourself money. And I won’t even mention the more expensive fruits and vegetables.

This video, which doesn’t have any audio, illustrates this very well:

http://youtu.be/fs1L_J9KkN8

What about nutrients?

This graphic illustrates the difference:

Nutrient differences between cold press and centrifugal juicers

Nutrient differences between cold press and centrifugal juicers

The buying guide here is very helpful and the Horum models are available via a number of online retailers in Europe, though the pricing does vary quite a bit!

If you’re considering getting one shop around a bit. I generally compare prices between eBay, Amazon and a few of the specialist online retailers. While the specialist shops are generally more expensive for electric goods than Amazon or Pixmania, they’re more likely to run special offers on this kind of equipment. A bigger retailer will probably stick to discounting the cheaper equipment, like my trusty Philips machine, as they sell in higher volumes.

Do cold press juicers work better with some types of fruit and vegetables?

The Horum  “slow juicer” range  appear to be a lot better at handling things like kale and other leafy vegetables. My centrifugal juicer “can” handle them, but not particularly well:

http://youtu.be/hCGOviSKN9s

I also like the way the device is “self-cleaning”. While my Philips machine is relatively easy to clean you still need to take it apart if you want to get all the pulp out of it.

Another advantage with the Hurom machines is their physical footprint. They take up less counter space than centrifugal juicers.

My kitchen worktop space isn’t particularly big and for things that need to be plugged in they usually end up squeezed in the space between the draining board and the microwave. While this could be down to bad design, I suspect a lot of people are a bit tight for space in their kitchens. (Admittedly my mother’s kitchen has a very generous worktop space, so maybe my theory is flawed!)

Are there any obvious drawbacks to cold press juicers?

From what I can tell the only drawback is that you need to cut the fruit and vegetables up into smaller pieces before feeding them into the machine. So it might take a couple of minutes longer to slice up everything, but that’s not a big deal. I usually use a good sharp knife to prepare vegetables – I got a set of WĂ¼sthof knives a couple of years ago and they’re in constant use.

I placed an order for my new cold press juicer this afternoon and hope to take delivery of it towards the end of next week. I opted for the Hurom HU-400,  partly because I was able to get a refurbished model for a lot cheaper than a brand new one.