Day 0: The Preparation

Juicing. From fruits and vegetables, and not steroids. For some reason, people kept on thinking that I meant steroids when I would say "I'm thinking about starting to juice." On second thought, I could have probably phrased that better. After hearing about juicing for a while now from my sister and from various friends, I started to get more and more interested. It wasn't until I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, a documentary about the benefits of juicing, that I really became interested. 

I bought a refurbished Breville juicer from Amazon for about $100 (they seem to be sold out on Amazon for the moment). I took what I learned from the documentary, friends and family and headed out to Whole Foods to get some fresh fruits and veggies. I started off getting a variety of produce; apples, carrots, kale, cucumber, spinach, lemons, and celery to start. I cleaned and assembled my juicer for the first time, and then I started experimenting. 

My first juice was over the weekend on a Saturday. I made an apple, carrot, and celery and it turned out orange:

It was pretty good! Apples give a lot of juice. Carrots are very sweet. Celery smells the strongest. Just a few things I noticed with my first juice.

The next day, I tried an apple, carrot, celery, lemon, kale, spinach, and cucumber juice. This one was mean and green:

I was a bit apprehensive about the kale since I heard how bitter it could be, but it all worked out well. This one smelled a lot like fresh lawn clippings, probably thanks to the kale and spinach (which give the least amount of juice I've seen yet). I really enjoyed it.

Here are some tips I've learned and wanted to share:

1. Buy organic. The point of this is to eat cleaner, so why waste the effort on fruits and veggies that have a bunch of pesticides and other "nasties" (as Pret would call them). However, fruits that need to be peeled/skinned (e.g. pineapple, oranges) don't need to be organic. 
2. Wash all of your fruits and veggies and prep them beforehand.
3. Clean your juicer as soon as you're done juicing!
4. If you want to store your juice for later, get an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 8 hours. Of course, drinking the juice as soon as its juiced is optimal. 
5. Don't juice berries except for strawberries. You won't get much out of them and its a waste of $$$.

Now, it's onto Day 1!