I really, really love vegetable juice. Before you cringe and shut your laptop, you must know that before I loved it, I hated it. I thought it was nasty, until I tried a diet that required lots of vegetable juice, and provided lots of good recipes. (Note: Diets are for lame-oes. I currently believe that unless you have special dietary or health needs, educated moderation is better. Although, I could just be a bitter diet-flunkee.) The book was The Coconut Diet by Cherie Calbom, and though the diet didn’t stick, her recipes were delicious, and juicing vegetables has become a way of life in our household.
To make vegetable juice, one must have a kick-ass juicer. So, we bought the Champion Juicer, which I like to think of as God’s Gift to Vegetables. They last a SERIOUSLY long time if cared for properly, which is easy to do unless you enjoy throwing your kitchen appliances off of your roof. My mother-in-law bought hers in the seventies, and it’s still going strong.It’s a little pricey, and before I bought ours I did a little research on who was carrying it for what price. The typical cost was around $249, and there wasn’t very much variance from one store to another, maybe a dollar or two. So, I bought ours at Whole Foods, since it was exactly the same price as everywhere else I could find in town. Nevertheless, when I got it up to the register, the guy ringing me up suggested I get in somewhere else because it might be cheaper. When I explained that I had checked every retail outlet in a twenty mile radius, and that no, it wasn’t any more expensive at Whole Foods, he looked at me like an insane person. What I really wanted to say was that DUDE, you WORK at this store, you probably should know that NOT EVERYTHING is more expensive here, GEEZ.I did find it for a better price a few months later, however, just not at any retail outlet I could drive to. There’s a website called Discount Juicers, and they carry it for $199. I checked to see what it would cost to have it shipped to where we live, and it was about $12. That’s still cheaper than if you bought it in the store. If you can stand the wait, it’s a better deal.Price aside, my beloved juicer was worth every penny. I use it nearly every day, and I’ve learned that you can juice almost anything with a lemon and a little ginger, and it’s good. I’m sure there are vegetable juice recipe resources out there, I just haven’t looked. My favorite recipes are from the above-mentioned book, so if you want to start easy, that’s a good place to begin.Happy juicing!
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