Juicer Recipes(?)

The wife of my boss (a really great lady) is sending a very expensive juicer to me on Monday. I was embarrassed to tell her that I really don't know much about them. I am thinking it is similar to a Vegamatic that I saw 35 years ago at a county fair (?). Anyway, since I am going on all liquid meal plan for the next 3 weeks before surgery and then two weeks after, is this something that will be useful to me? Just what can you do with a juicer? Once you produce the "juice", is it something I could add protein powder to? Does it make smoothies or just crush up fruit and veggies? I really need to know so I don't embarrass myself when my boss brings it to me. Thanks!

I'm sure you figured out that (if it's what I think of as a juicer) it doesn't "crush" the fruits and veggies as much as extract every bit of liquid life force out of it! I wouldn't want to go through mine if I were a vegetable! I use mine periodically throughout the year and then about once a year I do a liquid juice fast for a 'cleansing.' I've done this most years for quite a while. My favorites are the apple ginger and the carrot beet and apple. I like a small amount of apple in a lot of the drinks just to make them a little sweeter. Most of them are carrot based, and I follow a certain schedule when I do the fast, but some are just plain good for you all on their own. The ginger apple not only tastes good, but helps digestion. Sometimes I'll do a small juice glass of this in the mornings to get my digestive tract off to a happy start. Bear in mind, if you do end up using this a lot, you very well might go through a phase where your stomach hurts because it's cleaning you out. If you eat a bunch of beef, fried foods, and other stick to your colon kinds of things, the juice will make you feel really crappy for a few days... then it's GREAT!

I've been looking into buying a juicer. As a 13 month post-op I still don't eat the amount of food most post-ops this far out eat, I talked to my nutritionist about juicing vegetables and she said its a good idea because we would absorb the nutrients from the juice. Can you tell me what your "cleansing" juice consists of? It sounds like such a good idea to do that once and a while!

The best tips I can give you are to buy a really good quality juicer. Check the models out in person, feel how heavy they are and look at all the parts to see if they are heavy... you kind of want them to feel industrial. Then, check the prices out online. It's not just one juice... it's a whole series and program. They have whole books on the topic. You really need to research if you want to do a cleansing juice fast/diet. If you google it there's a lot of information. The about.com site (I'm pretty sure that's which site it was) had some good clear info. You will decide between an all juice fast or a juice and food cleansing diet. The juice recipes go in a cycle... I sure wish I could remember the book I read... I loaned it out and you know how that goes. The biggest thing is, if you decide to go all juice PLEASE remove food from your diet slowly!! Like over 2 weeks... taking meat out first. You can have brown rice, tofu, and steamed veggies for most of the two weeks. For the 3-4 days before it, you'll want to stick just with the tofu and veggies, then just the veggies. Going back on food is a similar thing. I imagine if I did this now I would look into doing a protein shake every day... I don't know how that would change the mix. It may not give as dramatic effect (in my experience you will feel crappy the first few days, then you will feel like you are on serious happy drugs... so long as you are doing all the steps) It's really something you need to really research before (really...lol) though because you need to do things like rub yourself down with a dry loofa (sp?) and/or salt scrubs and probably enema once or twice (or more). If you're not going with a fast, and you just want a drink here and there, I do ginger, apple, and beets (with the greens) for a 'whenever' drink. It's really strong, so you may want to add a little cold water and ice. Sometimes I use a little bit of lemon in that mix too. Some of the juice fast drinks are gross... but I just suck them down and move on. Good luck