Hi raw food-ers:
(This is long; please skip to the bottom for the basic questions if you wish, although concealed in the jungle of text is a recipe you might like!)

I recently went paleo and raw and have begun to really enjoy the flavors and textures of raw, freshly made juice. The problem is, I don't know if I'm doing it in a way that could be simplified/made more convenient, or in a way that is very good for the nutritional quality of my juice.

I make my favorite juice drink with a lemon and apple and lots of greens/herbs/spices: kale, parsley, celery (and its root), spinach, dandelion and lots of ginger. I blend all of them in a very old (10 years or so) 12 speed "Osterizer" blender, with which I can still crush ice and make decent almond flour, but not really almond butter--and I'm unsure if it is obsolete/not high-powered enough for my purposes.

I put the juicy lemon and apple in first but have found that it really needs a good cup of water to function without straining and emitting a horrible burning rubber smell/sounding like it will die. I chop everything up into bits smaller than a shift or caps-lock key. The whole blending process takes a good 15 minutes (including chopping, feeding it in, popping large air bubbles so stuff on the top can go down to reach the blades). If I'm lucky I can avoid the rubber smell... Then I strain through a nut milk bag and try to squeeze the pulp (rather than stressing the bag). The whole thing with clean up took me about 25 minutes.

It was really fun the first time I did it and I liked that I could mimic my favorite packaged raw juice drinks that cost like 10$ a pop. But the half-hour ordeal has felt less and less rewarding each time I do it, especially since I only get a 16 oz mason jar full of juice (+enough to taste in a small drink immediately after). It feels less good knowing that probably 1 cup of it is water that I had to add to get my blender to work.

I've found that the juice is drinkable for about 2 days if I make it in the evening. Great fresh. Good/OK the next day, drinkable the day after...and not any later.


In juicing my chief concern is to be able to make cool drinks like this one (with ginger, dark greens, and a hint of lemon and apple, perhaps some carrot and beet juice as well) as well as to make almond milk (currently use the same method).

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Is there a better way to do this?

Is my blender in need of upgrading? Should I have to blend in stages? (lemon + water, then add apple, then kale, then spinach, then ginger, etc) Or is my blender fine/powerful enough and I just am doing something wrong/not working smart? How much better is a Vitamix than this? Does it too sometimes produce the burning rubber smell? On one occasion my blender even warmed my juice to lukewarm...would a vitamix or blendtec or waring do this too? It seems odd to me that my blender can easily pulverize a cup of almonds without adding water into flour, but it can't do a lemon, apple and some greens and ginger and carrot without water and a ton of patience. Is there a technique to this?

Would a slow juicer be better for this sort of activity? (Omega, Green Star?) I find that prep and cleanup, as well as the 15 minutes it takes me to blend, with this method is enough work...would I just be creating even more chores with a "real" juicer? Would the juice last significantly longer so I could at least make more days worth at a time? How long would the whole operation (16 oz of juice) take on, say, an Omega? Would I still end up having to add water with these?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2013 10:46PM by juicemouse.

decide on a budget, get both a juicer and blender. If you decide you have a price point, let us know your budget. If you have $1000, get a Vitamix and an Omega 8004 (less than $1000 total). Tried and true and you'll keep them for 10 years plus with the Vitamix under warranty 1/2 that time and the Omega all of that time with 5 years to go. Just my thought.

It should never be juicer vs. blender. It should be juicer and blender and don't juice fruits other than the occasional apple or pear that John Kohler talks about in his recipies. Fruits are preferably eat whole or blended, not juiced.

Paul

if you are under $500, get a Dynablend and an Omega 8004. If I were limited to $500, I would put the blender and juicer ahead of the dehydrator, food processor and stand mixer (all of which I own)... and make good. Juicer and blender first. Everything else is secondary. And now I will not show a gratuitious picture of David Wolfe just to piss off Harley..... you can thank me later.. }

Paul