A Definative Guide On How To Properly Store Your Juice

In this post, we will work to break down all of the essential elements of juicing from start to finish to better understand how to store and protect your valuable juice.

The Benefits of Juicing

Some people enter the world of juicing by hearing about its ability to encourage weight loss while others might be more focused on how incorporating juice into their diet can help combat aging, disease and medical conditions. To best understand just how drinking fresh-made juice can improve your health, happiness and well-being, it’s essential to start with seven of the most important benefits of consuming juice.

5 or More a Day

Countries like Great Britain exhort people to consume at least five portions of fruits and vegetables a day while other countries like Canada recommend up to 10 or more portions. Juicing is an easy and simple way to ensure that you don’t just reach this bare minimum but get the full benefit of the thousands of micronutrients, enzymes, vitamins and minerals found in fruits and vegetables.

Consuming five portions of carrots per day (10 medium-sized carrots) would take up to an hour and require some heavy-duty chewing. But juicing the same amount of carrots results in a delicious glass of fresh juice that you can easily enjoy, benefiting from all of the nutrition but without the effort of chewing. Most juicers find that they get their five portions a day at breakfast time alone!

The Real Five-Hour Energy Drink

Millions of people wake up every morning exhausted and bleary-eyed, turning to stimulants just to be able to function. Millions more consume expensive drinks laced with sugar and chemicals in order to make it through the day.

Instead of relying on stimulants, chemicals and temporary exhaustion blockers, people who juice get to experience a smooth and steady state of alertness thanks to the natural energizers found in juice made from raw fruits and vegetables. Plants, by their very nature, are designed to convert sunlight into energy, and juicing is the process by which humans can quickly and safely unlock these real energy drinks.

Improved Digestion

The past few decades have seen cases of digestive disorders skyrocket ranging from mild bouts of acid reflux to chronic illnesses like Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Juicing ensures that the digestive system has to expend only a minimal amount of energy in order to absorb the invaluable nutrients because juice is in liquid form.

One of the age-old causes of indigestion was failure to properly chew one’s food. Juicing eliminates any issues with this by breaking down tough raw fruits and vegetables into a simple format that is easy to digest.

Fiber, although it is essential for health, is and has always been the part of plants that the human body cannot digest. Many people suffer from digestive disorders because of the different types of plant fibers that they consume as part of their diet. Juicing removes this indigestible fiber from fruits and vegetables, allowing you to effortlessly absorb all of the nutrition locked inside. Once you’ve incorporating juicing into your diet, it’s really simple to add a little dietary fiber from foods that your digestive system can comfortably tolerate.

Ensuring Proper Hydration

Health advocates often debate the proper amount of hydration that each adult needs on a daily basis, but there is no disputing that the human body requires water in order to function properly. Everything from hormone regulation to clear skin requires adequate levels of hydration and yet many modern affluent people suffer from dehydration as the result of failing to drink enough water.

Juice made from whole, fresh fruits and vegetables is the real “vitamin water” made from pure water that has been distilled by the plant combined with essential minerals, vitamins and living enzymes. Incorporating juice into your diet will ensure that you will stay properly hydrated.

The Natural Stress Reliever

In this hectic, modern-day world where there never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything, it’s no wonder that many people turn to prescription medications, drugs, and alcohol in order to try and reduce stress.

Nature, however, has a rich menu of stress-relievers that can be tailored to your individual needs by extracting the essential phytonutrients and ingredients locked in the juice of fruits and vegetables. For instance, spinach contains tryptophan, the same relaxing ingredient that is found in turkey meat. Fresh-made juice also contains antioxidants, proven to help repair and rejuvenate the body from damage caused by living in a stressful environment.

Building Strong Bones

For decades, a dedicated lobby has been pushing the message that the only way for children and adults to maintain healthy bones is by regularly consuming calcium in the form of milk and dairy products. Despite this marketing push, it is well-known that billions of people around the planet are either lactose-intolerant or come from cultures where dairy and milk have never been consumed, and yet they get plenty of calcium in their diet.

How? The “secret” is that the best source of calcium, by far, is from vegetables and fruits. Calcium from natural plant sources is far more easily absorbed in the body and doesn’t require the human digestive system to have to work hard to break down complex animal molecules.

Fruits and vegetables high in calcium include: oranges, tangerines, apricots, kiwi, dates, rhubarb, prunes, mulberries, prickly pears, kumquats, kale, collard greens, broccoli, spinach, and kelp.

Get Ready to Juice!

In order to get the very most out of your juice, it’s important to be prepared.

There are dozens of models of juicers on the market ranging from cheap imported centrifugal juicers to sophisticated cold press juicers that can efficiently extract juice with a minimum of oxidation and heat damage.

 

The best juicers are classified as triturating juicers from a chemistry term that refers to converting a substance into dry powder. While no juicer can truly produce 100% powdered dry pulp, triturating juicers use a system of twin augers (large turning screws) that effectively crush and mash fruits and vegetables to extract the maximum amount of juice.

The resulting pulp is extremely dry, proof positive that all of the valuable liquid nutrition has been successfully extracted from fruits and vegetables. Below are two triturating juicer models which are outstanding at maximizing juice extraction from fruits, vegetables, soft leafy greens, and wheatgrass.

This multi-purpose device uses a powerful motor to slowly and safely extract juice from fruits, vegetables, wheatgrass, and soft leafy greens with a minimum of heat damage and oxidation. Available in three different color designs, the Green Star Elite comes with a carrying handle for maximum juicing portability. The included attachments allow the Green Star Elite to also make baby foods, nut butters (by extracting oil from nuts instead of juice), bread sticks, rice cakes, and delicious sorbets.

The automatic pulp extraction system permits continuous juicing with a minimum of clogging that could lead to overheating the juice. The special twin-gear press and filter preserves the maximum amount of minerals from juice thanks to an advance pressure adjustment mechanism. The secret to the Green Star Elite’s efficiency in juice extraction are the twin augers that contain a sharp cutting edge to both slice and crush fruits and vegetables.

Jocuu Slow Masticating Juicer

Jocuu gives you everything that you need to make juice at home with this juicer except for your ingredients. The included cup sits on the front of the juicer and has clear measurements to show you how much juice you make, which comes in handy when trying new recipes. You can pick between HARD and SOFT modes when you want to juice apples and carrots or celery and apples. Though it fills the cup with juice, it moves all of the pulp and other waste into a separate container. Jocuu added a smaller feed chute that accepts pieces of your ingredients, which lets you remove the peels and other parts that give the juice a bitter taste. This is a nice juicer to use around kids because it produces less noise and has a chute that is too small for them to get their hands inside.

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Before heading to your local supermarket or farmer’s market, it’s essential to be prepared. Make a list of all of the fruits and vegetables that you want to purchase. Another good tip is to design your favorite juice recipes ahead of time based on taste, nutritional balance, and seasonal availability. Websites and published books contain hundreds of recipes for juice that not only tastes good but have the right balance of nutritional elements to keep you healthy, happy and fit.

Because the human palate will grow “bored” when you consume the same thing over and over again, always be sure to try a new juice recipe once in a while to add much-needed zing and zip to your daily juice regimen.

If you’re pressed for time in the morning, there are several steps you can take the night before in order to get a quick and refreshing glass of juice made before you head out to work or school:

• Decide on which recipe you’ll use for your morning juice.
• Select the necessary fruits and vegetables.
• Wash all the ingredients and give them a light shake to partially dry them.
• Keep the ingredients in a special drawer or container in your refrigerator.
• Pre-assemble your juicer in the kitchen.
• Wake up and juice!

Now that you’ve got a selection of tasty and nutritional juice recipes, the right juice machine to maximize juice extraction, and a kitchen full of fresh, raw fruits, vegetables and leafy greens, you’re ready to enjoy all of the benefits that daily consumption of living juice provides.

There are wonderful communities online and in most major cities for juicing enthusiasts. These are great places to trade and learn about new recipes, compare experiences with different juicing machines, and continue your education about the innumerable benefits of incorporating juicing into a healthy and happy lifestyle.

How to Properly Store Your Juice

Ideally, juice should always be consumed as soon as it’s made, but this isn’t always possible. Many people are pressed for time in the morning and may grow frustrated at their inability to enjoy a fresh glass in the morning due to the constraints of their schedule.

Other individuals have to be considerate of family members or other people in the household when deciding to operate their juicer at different times of the day. Whatever the reason, you may find yourself needing to make more juice than you can immediately consume and want to safely store the extra juice in a way that minimizes degradation of the juice’s critically important phytonutrients, enzymes and minerals.

Juicing is always better than not juicing, but it is important to remember that vegetables and fruits begin to start degrading the moment that they’re picked. Always opt for the very freshest fruits, greens, and vegetables when possible.

Once you’ve juiced your fruits and vegetables, the juice is exposed to air and the oxidation process begins. Most juicing experts recommend consuming fresh-made juice within 20 minutes to ensure you get the maximum benefit from the nutritional content of the juice. Properly preparing for the juicing ahead of time can allow most people to make juice for immediate consumption much of the time, but it isn’t always possible.For times when you do need to store your juice, the race is on, a battle between preventing heat and oxygen from destroying the nutritional viability of your juice.

In order to avoid dangerous interactions with petroleum-based chemicals, never store your juice in a plastic container. Metal pitchers are not commonly found these days, but be sure to avoid anything made from aluminum. Some juicing enthusiasts use water bottles/thermos/canteens that have a steel lining.

The best and cheapest way to store juice is in a glass container. Some people prefer to recycle old bottles or jars. Remember that juice is packed full of natural colorants, so clear bottles and jars may become tinged with color over time.Optimally, you want to store your juice in a container that is the size of a single serving for you. Every time you open a container of juice, oxygen will enter into the container and continue to accelerate the degradation process. If you’re bringing juice to work or going on a trip and know you’ll be consuming multiple servings, bring several bottles or jars that are the right size for a single serving for you.

The enemy of juice is air as it is the most important environmental factor for causing juice to lose its nutritional punch. Fill up your jars or bottles as close to to the top as you can with a minimal amount of air left in the container. If you don’t have enough juice to completely fill a container, add some purified water.

• The type of juicer you used.
• The fruits and vegetables being juiced.
• The containers used to store the juice.
• The temperature of the juice.
• The amount of air in the storage container.

More sophisticated masticating and triturating juicers are better for storing juice because they use low-speed “cold press” methods to minimize oxidation and heat damage to the juice when it is being made.

Some fruits such as apples are prone to more rapid oxidation than fruits like oranges and grapefruit. Cabbage, in particular, tends to oxidize much more rapidly than dark green vegetables.

Juice should always be stored in an appropriate container. The less air that is in the container, the more slowly the juice will oxidize. An additional factor is the storage temperature. Freezing juice (see below) poses some issues but otherwise the colder the temperature you can store your juice, the better.

As a very rough guide, juice will last approximately:

• 8 hours if made by a centrifugal juicer,
• 24 hours if made by a single auger masticating juicer, and
• 72 hours if made by a high-end triturating juicer.

If your juice has changed color or has gotten much darker, this is a bad sign and you should dispose of your juice. If you open your juice and smell a strange or unpleasant odor, discard it. Never consume juice that has an “off” or strange taste.

Freezing juice isn’t generally recommended as you’ll be destroying the living enzymes in the fruits and vegetables. But if you must store juice for longer periods of time, freezing is an option.

Ice cube trays are great ways to store small amounts of “extra” juice or smaller portions. If you’re storing larger quantities of juice in the freezer, use plastic jugs or bottles. When it comes time to drink the juice, defrost it gently and then consume all of it. Never defrost and then re-freeze juice.

• Citrus fruits, particularly lemons, are an excellent natural preservative. Run an extra lemon through your juicer to add citric acid that’ll help slow down the oxidation process.
• Use fresh, organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible. Organic produce usually has a higher nutritional content than non-organic produce.
• Keep your fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator until you juice them. This will help slow down the degradation process.