Haven’t tried juicing yet? Get involved

Fancy trying your hand at juicing, but not sure where to start? Check out our top tips to make sure you don’t miss out on this healthy trend. We chat to some juicy experts to help you get going. Haven’t tried juicing yet? Get involved!

Why juice?
It’s a great way to all those nutrients in. ‘Juicing is a convenient way to flood the body with alkalising nutrients that are easily assimilated into the bloodstream,’ says Kara Rosen, founder of Plenish. ‘Think about this: one bottle of cold pressed juice from Plenish contains almost 3kg of veggies. It would be near impossible to eat (nor would we encourage) that in one sitting.’ It’s a great way to help the body rebalance. ‘When we overburden our system with acidic food and drink such as coffee, alcohol, meat, dairy and refined/processed ingredients, flooding your system with nutrient-dense alkaline forming juice balances the body’s PH and helps all of our cellular processes to fire on all cylinders!’ says Karen. And juicing is becoming incredibly popular, Juice Producer Ltd, based in Bournemouth, Dorset, has seen a 75 per cent rise in the sale of juicers and blenders! ‘Adopting a healthy lifestyle has become a big part of everyone’s life. Many people are looking to get into better shape to help keep health risks low and a good way to do this is using the juicing method,’ explains Mark Snare, owner of Juice Producer.

What sort of juices are best?
It really depends on your tastes and what you fancy day to day. But it’s important to make sure you don’t go overboard on the fruit content.‘A 3:1 veg to fruit ratio is a great goal to keep the proportions of vegetables heavier than fruit, which is the goal of the greens!’ says Karen.  ‘Greens are really the powerhouses of veggies in terms of their nutritional density and detox properties.’ But you can use a little fruit to add to the flavour. ‘You can use some low GI fruit to sweeten like apple or pear to make it more palatable, as they should taste great!’ says Karen. Check out our juice and smoothie recipes for some tasty ideas. ‘If we had to choose a ‘once size fits all’ juice it would definitely be a green vegetable based juice, like our Mind Body Green or Sweet Sexy Green,’ says Karen.

What’s the best way to make juices at home?
Making your own can be great fun. But where to start? Well, with a juicer! ‘We prefer masticating over centrifugal juicers, but ease of use and cleaning are a top priority to make sure you do it regularly,’ says Karen. As far as ingredients are concerned, stick with a good base then build on that with some interesting flavours. ‘Cucumber is a great base, then layer on the dark, leafy greens and one piece of fruit,’ says Karen. ‘Although always do the dryer ingredients – like kale or spinach – first, and use the cucumber or pear/apples after to ‘wash through’ the ingredients that don’t yield as much juice.’