Thank you to Mama Maple for taking this beautiful photo.

So everyone thinks that juicing takes FOREVER which is a big reason that a lot of folks stay away from it.

But I just made 1.25 gallons (5 quarts) of juice in less than 50 minutes…

1.25 Gallons (5 Quarts) of Fresh Juice Made In Less Than 50 Minutes.

And that included set up and clean up time.

(Yes, I totally rock!)

Here’s what’s involved:

Juicer Set Up

This is easy if you have the juicer cleaned from the time before when you used it. Never let your juicer sit over night with pulp and food in it. That will be bad for your machine and also make it way less enjoyable to clean later on. The more it sits there, the more caked on the stuff gets. So always clean your machine so that it’s ready for your to put together in a jiffy when you’re ready.

Food Prep

I put a cutting board across the non-disposal side of my sink. That’s where you’ll do all your chopping. You will rinse things on the side with the disposal in case things fall down and off your foods.

Food Storage

Keep similar foods grouped together in your fridge. This makes it easy when you go to get things out.

• Spinach: all in one bag. The bag I have in the fridge has like 5 huge batches of it in there now.
• Romaine: Shove 3 or 4 heads in one huge plastic bag. Make sure you keep them in a bag or they will wilt like crazy.
• Celery: This will also wilt a lot if you don’t keep it in a bag. (I am all for using sustainable bags, but when I go to the produce store and they give me big sturdy plastic bags I reuse them for my storage for a long time.)
• Cilantro, kale, chard, red bell pepper: I keep these things in the same bag since I don’t buy tons at a time.
• Carrots: Do not require being in a bag immediately
• Apples, lemons, oranges, limes, tomatoes, bananas: I leave these on the counter top
• Strawberries: Rinse after buying and put them in ziplock bags. Use fairly quickly. They will go bad and get soggy even when in the bags. You can freeze them for smoothies, but frozen strawberries don’t go through most juicers very well. (Champion juicer is an exception. You can put frozen fruit in there and make sorbet.)

Recipes

Using recipes is going to make your job easier and go faster because you won’t be looking at all your produce thinking, “Okay, what the hell should I put in next?”

Here are some of my simple favorites:

Bugs Bunny:
5 Carrots
1 Head of Romaine

Green Monkey:
1 lb spinach
2 apples
2 bananas
Float ice cubes

Sweet Morning Juice
1 big orange (peeled)
1 apple
3 carrots
1 stalk celery
1 inch ginger (always put ginger in first so that it can be pushed through the juicer by the other ingredients)

Crisp Veggie Juice
1/2 head romaine
2 stalks of kale
2 stalks of celery
5 inches of cuke
4 carrots

Green Bloody Mary
2 big tomatoes
3 stalks celery
1/4 red bell pepper
2 stalks chard
2 cups green cabbage
handful cilantro
fresh baby garlic
salt/pepper/cayenne afterward

Pineapple Delight
1/2 of a pineapple
1/2 head romaine
3 stalks celery
1/2 cuke

(Some of these recipes are adapted from www.ChoosingRaw.com. Thanks for the inspiration!)

Storage

Mason jars are a beautiful invention. I got like 12 of them at Albertson’s for about $1 a piece…if that. It was awesome. Juice is best to drink right after you make it, but when you’re Juice Feasting and drinking THIS much juice, it’s totally impractical to make each batch right before you go to drink it. So store them in these jars, put them in the fridge and then enjoy them all day.

Clean up.

Clean up as you go and the mess won’t be so bad afterwards. Take the garbage can out from under the sink if that’s where you usually keep it and have it handy for scrap things that fall on the floor and extra pulp that pops out of different places. You’ll also need it for bags that are no longer usuable, rubber bands that were around your produce, stickers that were on your apples, banana peels, and wires that were wrapped around celery stalks and things like that.

A note on bananas:

Not all juicers like having bananas put through them. My JackLaLanne doesn’t seem to mind. I push them slowly and then push other hard fruit down to get the Essence of Banana flavor to come through. That’s all I’m looking for in mine. If your juicer does not like bananas, make your juice in your juicer then put it in your blender and add a whole banana or a half of one. You’ll get some fiber and if you’re okay with that, then go for it!

Timing

The way I timed myself this morning was by playing a CD while I juiced. (Actually it was my Erasure playlist on iTunes.) When I was done setting up, making the juice and cleaning up, I looked at how many songs had played and added them all up for the length of each song. It came out to 49 minutes and 57 seconds. Just under 50 minutes and I had ALL this delicious juice to last me all day long.

The more you do your juicing the more you’ll find your flow with it. I’ve been doing this for 20 days now, so I’m getting pretty good at chopping, prepping, juicing and cleaning my machine. You’ll get great at it to. I believe in you and you can do it!