Green juice is among one the healthiest things you can have: full of antioxidants, vitamins and with a high alkalinity that helps your body balancing the Ph in your system.
However, I need to be honest here: I truly hate green juice. Complete nightmare.
I drink green juice the same way I used to take cod liver oil when I was a little kid: holding my nose, closing my eyes and forcing it it down the throat while telling my body 'this is good for you now gulp it!"According to some “with a green juice in your system cravings for junk food will fade away quickly.”
Personally, after drinking a green juice cravings for (any kind of) food just disappear. Green juice makes me noxious.
So I decided to embark in a “green juice quest”. I collected as many recipes as I could find and tried them.
Green juices can be "made" with several different ingredients, as long as they are green (or greenish). The most common “items” include: kale, spinach, Swiss chard, celery, cucumber, parsley, romaine, apples, and lemon.
Almost 99% of the recipes I found are a combination of the above ingredients. There are other favorites though such as pear, kiwi, lettuce and beets.
However, if you ever meet a “green juice purist” he/she will tell you that adding the latter ingredients will alter the "purity" of the green juice.
Anyway, after much suffering and endless torture trying all sort of different combos, I honestly think this is the best green juice recipe. Hope you'll like too!
The Best Green Juice Print this recipe!
I really don’t like how apple tastes in the green juice but I know it’s a fave of many juice-ists, so I mentioned it as an optional ingredient. I’ll let you make up your mind on that one.
Ingredients
Serves 1
3 romaine leaves
5 celery ribs (leaves on)
1 cucumber
3 kale leaves (stems off)
3 Swiss chard leaves (stems on)
Handful of spinach
Handful of fresh parsley
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 green apple (optional)
Directions
Process all ingredients (except lemon) through a juicer and add lemon juice at the very end. Before drinking remove with a spoon some of the foam that forms on top.
Nutrition facts
One serving of green juice score 156 calories, 0 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbs and 2 grams of protein.
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Thanks for sharing. Could you tell me what kind of juicer do you use? any recommendations on the brand?
ReplyDeleteHi Hanna,
DeleteThe one you see in the picture is a Breville 850-watt juice extractor. It juices both whole fruits and vegetables with no chopping or cutting required.
I like it because it has an extra large centrifugal feed chute in which you can put as much as 4 carrots at the time. This make the whole process much faster.
Also it's not that hard to clean (even thoughI must confess that the cleaning process is quite annoying; but that goes for all the juicers I used so far).
Piece of advice: don't cheap out but don't buy the most expensive one either, as it doesn't make that much of a difference.
Hope this helps
Peace
Mike
I love the idea of juicing but I am a little concerned about the waste that is left behind. How many nutrients are still there , in the pile dumped in the garbage? I must research this first because I hate to be wasteful.
DeleteReally informative and enjoyable post - thanks! I haven't yet tried green juice, but this post has definitely made me want to. I adore celery and cucumer (well most green veg to be honest), so I'm hoping my experience will be a positive one.
ReplyDeleteI really hope that your experience will be positive from a taste perspective because from an health one I have no doubt that you'll feel benefits of the green juice as soon as you sip it!
DeletePeace
Mike
Green juice for a better health. One may also try avocado shake (using a blender). Try pouring low fat/skim milk or protein powder for a different taste.
ReplyDeleteTry a masticating juicer for parsley. The centrifugal is probably just spitting it out the pulp shoot whole
ReplyDeleteI really love vegetable juice! Thanks for the post. Let's make juicing known to everyone. Happy juicing!
ReplyDeleteWell, awesome post first of all. I saw some juicer comparison videos on youtube. The high power high rpm juicers will basically oxidize the juice and aerate the juice. Some purists will argue against such oxidation. There are other types of juicers that will extract by crushing after slicing, but I think it was really slow to finish juicing. Is oxidation of the juice that bad? I have a crappy old juicer at home, thinking about getting a decent one.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing I recommend adding to your finished juice is to put it in a blender and then add a teaspoon each of chlorella powder, and spirulina powder. Now that will give some serious nutrition kick. I can imagine I will just not feel like eating anything for lunch after that knock out breakfast punch, mmm..mm..mm..good.
thanks for this. i've been having a lot of trouble trying to down green juices, and this helps a lot. i have a champion, so i suspect my juices are just naturally really concentrated, but i'm still having trouble with this one (but it's much better than the others with sweet added in.) i had to run this juice through a strainer since the fibrousness plugged the outlet and squished a bit of grittiness through the juicer's filter, and it was making me gag a little. (if i make it again, i have to occasionally run a bit of the cucumber in it to help the fibers along. today, i added the whole cucumber at the end.)
ReplyDeletei read that salt helps mask bitter, so i added a little braggs and sea salt. it's getting there. slowly but surely. (also, this recipe definitely made 2 servings using the champion.) i might also throw in a handful of grape tomatoes.
Definitely agree with the apple bit! I just don't understand why people try to disguise their veggie juice as super sweet fruit juice...
ReplyDeleteHave you tried juicing fennel? Definitely one of my favourites! (along with watermelon... Okay okay, so maybe I'm contradicting myself a little here...)
I've been juicing 2x a day now for about 2 months. I love it. I dont like lemon or fruit in my juices either. All I ever add for sweetness is carrot or sweet potato (which by itself is actually quite a treat!)
ReplyDeleteMy normal recipe is:
Parsley, cilantro, romain and/or green lettuce, spinach, ginger, cucumber, radishes (with the tops), carrot and celery. For my afternoon pre-workout I add beets (or beet tops) as well.
When I buy beets I cut the tops off and separate them and I get a ton of greens (and reds) from just the tops alone. Great value there. :)
I wish I could cut it down to 3-4 ingredients but it's too hard. The local grocer finally figured out why I buy so many veggies now.. haha.
I tried kale but it doesn't seem to produce much juice. And it's a little more expensive and spinach works great.
I love green juice! I make something very similar and add the green apple. It's so good and tastes like sour apple.
ReplyDeletewhat is the reason for scooping off some of the foam that collects at the top? i am curious. thanks!
ReplyDeleteSo I decided to embark in a “green juice quest”. I collected as many recipes as I could find and tried them.best smoothie blender
ReplyDeleteSurprised you haven't used Lime and Ginger but otherwise tasty recipe!
ReplyDelete