Should I be at all concerned about juicing something and drinking it several hours later as opposed to right away? Am I losing much?

Two scenarios where this comes up:

1) Bringing juice to work

2) Juicing in large quantities and keeping stuff in the fridge. (If I drink too much at once it upsets my esophagus)

-DaveK

The longer you wait to drink it the more oxidation occurs—the destruction of its nutritive quality.

But how much, how soon? Two hours make a difference?

Two hours should be okay but you're still not going to have the same quality as you would if you ate it whole or right after extraction. What some juicer and smoothie advocates are doing is they use bottles (preferably glass) which can have the air suctioned out to produce an airless-tight storage of the juice or smoothie. Then they always make sure the bottles are dark so no light can penetrate the food content inside.

It's said that air + light + time = oxidation. So if you remove air and light you're only left with time, which means you'll have a stored product that's usable for a longer period of time. Even if that's true I still wouldn't want to consume food that's been extracted more than a day and that's if I had a dark glass bottle that's had its air suctioned out. But personally, if I was to juice or make a smoothie, I wouldn't wait no more than three hours to finish it if I was only using a simple glass storage container with a air tight cap. And I would never put any juice or smoothie in plastic due to the acids leeching plastic into your food. I'd rather not take that chance and only use glass.

Thanks!

-DaveK

There's tons of threads on this on this forum. Basically you need to use mason or ball canning jars and suck the air out with a pump. Such as..
[www.vitalityplus1.com]

Dave -- By necessity I have to juice ahead of time (I work 12 hour shifts and there is no opportunity to juice fresh) and I have been juice feasting for 7 weeks by juicing 4 quarts of juice in the morning, sealing with a vaccuum device (mine's Foodsaver) in mason jars, keeping them in a sealed insulated bag and in the fridge at work. While this works very well for me on work days, the juice tastes better freshly made and not refrigerated. I have, on occasion, not been able to drink it all in one day and had it the next morning, but I wouldn't go longer than that if possible. HTH.

Hi, that's about the same situation I'm in. I need to get some good containers to bring the stuff in. I work 10 hour shifts with no lunch break.

-DaveK

I juice ahead so I have enough "food" for the day

then when I get home I drink straight from the juicer

I have so many different types of flask, mason..jugs.. tis easy and effective

I am in a similar situation as you long shift workers because I have a long commute. I also have activities after work that don't allow for juicing time. I am going to try storing the juice in either a small white BPA-free bottle, or perhaps a Mason jar and see how it goes. I see that you all have been juicing for a while. I'm relatively new to it, but I just went to the "New Life Expo" at the New Yorker Hotel in NYC this past weekend. That's where I heard for the first time that protein is available in greens, and that some people survive on mostly green juice. So I'm going to take the plunge myself, and start drinking more juice through the day. I'll try and post back after a while with some more notes on my experience. I know that there may be nutrition loss or degradation over time, but I feel like drinking day old juice has got to be better than not having any to drink at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2008 01:12AM by garrettwilkin.