Rare Juicing Tips! ;)

We recently started juicing vegetables and a little fruit and after doing a LOT of research, here are some things that I thought might help other people.  This is mostly stuff I learned the hard way, and couldn't find on other websites.

Juicing Tips - yes, you can freeze your juice. Sure, it may lose some enzymes, but it's still better than eating junk food!  I can not get fresh produce more than once a week, MAX, so I have to freeze it, or waste produce which goes bad quickly, especially if it's organic.

I put our juice in quart jars, leaving a couple inches for it to expand so the jar won't break when frozen, then suck the air out with a Reynolds Handi-Vac.  You poke a hole in the lid of your jar with a tack, then place a small piece of electrical tape over it and suck the air out with the Handi-Vac. It keeps the juice fresh longer, whether you are keeping it in the fridge or the freezer.

I turned the edge of the tape under to make removal easier. 

That's why it looks like it is sticking up. 

Think you can't afford to juice? Well, that's what I thought too... until I found a wholesale produce place in San Antonio that sells to the public! Excitement! You can save huge amounts of money buying your produce this way.  BUT, you need to use up your boxes of produce before they go bad, and I personally do NOT have enough fridge space to keep much in there. I do use ice chests for a day or two because my juicer can only do so much before it gets hot and needs to cool off, but my goal is to have all the produce juiced within 3 days of buying it.

We started out with a Jack LaLanne centrifugal  juicer and despite the fact that the manual said you can juice kale with it... well... you can't. At least, not very much. It's going to burn up the motor sooner or later.  I was very careful to alternate harder veggies with the kale, and only push small amounts in at a time, but we still went through 2 JL juicers in 3 weeks.

So, after that we moved to a Fusion brand centrifugal juicer.  This one isn't too happy about the kale either, but handles it better. In an effort to make it last longer, I quit buying kale and switched to spinach instead. Bummer.

Some people say that if you can't afford a masticating juicer you might as well just not be juicing at all. Phooey on that! You are doing the best you can with what you can afford. It is FAR better than eating fast food or processed foods.  We have been saving up for a masticating juicer, and finally were able to order one! It's an Omega J8006 masticating juicer - can't wait to try it out!

Next post - ways to avoid wasting the leftover pulp by throwing it away.