juice me, baby

On January 23, 2012 · 14 Comments · In food, mayalife

Okay, after watching Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, I’m thinking I need a juicer. Plus, we went to a big museum full of people and their kids oogling the dinosaur bones (we looooove the dinosaur bones) and I was struck in a painful, eye-popping way by the huge percentage of hugely overweight and sickly looking North Carolinians that were out and about. I kept thinking, “yo, people, juice fast, you totally need to try this, and watch this movie—”

No, I did NOT turn into a proselytizing nut-case, but I kind of was one on the inside, a little bit. Just a little.

So, anyway, Paul, hearing my thoughts on this, did his amazing instantaneous manifestation thing and found a used Champion juicer for $20 bucks at a yard sale. The four of us crowded around that bad boy, taking turns feeding stuff into it, like, “here, stick this frozen banana in!”, “what about oranges and kale?”, “what else is in the crisper?”, and “can you juice corn?” (No.) The frozen banana was AWESOME, like soft serve ice-cream. The kids liked carrot and apple, which truly was amazing. We even tried some of the green juice that Joe in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead lived off of: kale, cuke, celery, lemon, ginger, and apple. Bright green, a little like grassy ginger-ale. It was okay. Not as good as the frozen banana. But man, I’m sold. Fresh juice is terrific. Who would have thought?

But this old juicer is a behemoth. I live in a yurt, okay? I’ve got about eighteen square inches of counter space and no kitchen cabinets. The Champion takes up all the space I’ve got and I’ve got no place to store it. Plus, it’s kind of rusty where the auger slides on which makes it super hard to put together and take apart… It ain’t ideal. In fact, its primary selling point is that it’s here. The best juicer is the one you’ve got, right? But still. I’ve been casting longing glances over other juicer alternatives….

And MAN, juicers have a lot of hype attached to them. It’s hard to imagine this kind of hyperbole and snake-oil vibe surrounding, say, a toaster. I guess anything that someone sells via infomercial is automatically going to be artificially pumped up. Anything associated with weight loss, especially. Makes it hard for a girl to hack through the weeds to find a decent juicer—I mean, I’d love it if the dang thing cures cancer, makes all who touch it multi-orgasmic, and does the dishes for me, don’t get me wrong. But basically, I just want to drink some juice.

A while back, I heard this guy, John Kohler, speak about how he had turned his tiny suburban lot into a bounty of intensive food-producing gardens and started a little youtube gardening show about it. He seemed cool and was on fire about growing your own stuff in a tiny amount of space, re-mineralizing the soil with rock dust, and self-watering raised beds.

Look, here he is walking through his garden, showing off about a million different kinds of vegetables and fruits all crammed into this tiny, property-line to property-line space:

Isn’t that cool? So, anyway, I’m clicking around, looking for juicer info and I stumble upon Mr. Kohler again, and it turns out he isn’t just a gardener, he sells juicers, too. And when he isn’t youtubing about gardening, he does all these little vids comparing different juicers, doing reviews, etc. Nice. He had some cred with me already because of the gardening thing, so I tooled around his juicer site a bit and he likes this juicer which has a small footprint and does greens (not all do), so yay, looks great. But the price tag! Oy!

Enter my amazon points card. I run everything through that card and I get gift certificates to amazon every month as a result. Woo hoo! Our last points-cashed-in freebie was a Playstation 3 for Christmas. Score! So, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Kohler, I’d like to buy a juicer from you, but you see, I’ve got a hundred bucks already saved up in the form of amazon points. And I feel kind of guilty about this because I looked through your vids and used your research…. Plus my very generous mother just kicked in several thousand $$$ towards part of Luc’s broken-arm hospital bill (YAY, THANKS MOM! You’re keeping the wolf at the door away, you rock!) so when I pay that amount off today (using the amazon credit card) that will be another hundred dollars of amazon money and I’ll be almost to that sparkling new juicer….

So yeah, Juice Party at the yurt, and you’re all invited! Like, soon. Maybe by my birthday, 41 fast approaching. I’m telling you, I’m going to have health just exploding out of me with a golden wattage that is BLINDING. I’ll probably even levitate. You watch. Maybe I’ll even set up a little stand outside the museum and feed juice to the sickly-looking North Carolinians. They need it.

Tagged with: juicing

14 Responses to juice me, baby

anna says:

January 23, 2012 at 12:48 pm

Hi Maya! Just cannot believe you were even *charged* for Luc’s broken arm, let alone thousands of dollars. I don’t know how you Americans survive, I really don’t! It must be a complete nightmare.
Angela says:

January 23, 2012 at 8:49 pm

Hi Maya,
You’re making me jones for a juicer, and I haven’t even watched the movie yet!
btw – finished Raine, loved the ending, want more!
Thanks for a really good story!
Angela
maya says:

January 24, 2012 at 9:30 am

Hi Angela, I’m so glad you liked Raine, thanks for that!
And Anna, tell me about it. Sometimes I don’t know how this yurt-full of Americans is going to survive, either. thanks for stopping by, though.
anna says:

January 25, 2012 at 4:45 am

It’s such a shame the US won’t vote in a good national health service for all and free at the point of need. Just one little accident and it’s financial meltdown!
maya says:

January 26, 2012 at 12:16 pm

Hi Anna, Yes, seems impossible that that would ever happen. We’re caught between the people who have money and jobs and insurance and the really down and out people who qualify for medicaid. It’s a hard spot to be in.
Michele says:

February 6, 2012 at 3:36 pm

Ok, I’ve gone and done it and took the juicing plunge after doing loads of research. I bought a Hamilton Beach 67650 Big Mouth Pro Juicer (yay Amazon Prime!)at a really reasonable price, and lemme tell ya, it sounds like a jet engine but cleans up like a dream. I think I could juice an entire buffalo with that puppy if I was so inclined.

The first night it arrived, we were scrambling around trying to find juicing items and wiped out the contents of the vegetable crisper in our juicing euphoria. We are now armed with a huge list of juicing combinations to try and are acting like we’ve just been to a tent revival and have accepted juice into our lives as our personal savior. I have not yet resorted to going door to door with pamphlets spreading the good news, which is probably in everyone’s best interest. How annoying would that be? “Hi, I’m your neighbor and I would like to tell you about Juice. No, not Jesus, JUICE.” But I digress…

The buzz surrounding the documentary (I watched it) and juicing in general seems to be well deserved, and I’m pretty sure this is something most people could incorporate into their daily lives (even just a glass a day) without too much effort. Thanks for sharing! Your post was probably the 10th thing about juicing that had landed in my lap recently and I’m not one to jump on the band wagon (I scoff at and mock the band wagon), but there were too many benefits to this one not to give it a try and your posting pushed me over the edge.
maya says:

February 6, 2012 at 5:24 pm

Buffalo Juice! Yuck! Don’t do it!

But that’s so cool, evangelical impulse aside, that you’re juicing! I’m excited to get going with it, but haven’t gotten the juicer yet, still waiting for some amazon points to accrue, haha. What’s your favorite juice so far?
Michele says:

February 7, 2012 at 10:54 am

I’m absolutely repulsed by kale so I’ve gone the spinach route instead. I had a mighty tasty spinach-carrot-cucumber-granny-smith-apple concoction that will remain in the arsenal. I also like spinach-carrot-apple-pear (more of a breakfast juice, ya know), and today will dip my pinky toe into the uncertain waters of beet combinations. That’s right, it’s gettin’ CR-azy up in here.
maya says:

February 8, 2012 at 11:33 am

BEETS! You are wild child, fo sure. Hey, you should try a few leaves of kale in with sweet things, just to start getting your taste buds used to it. I’m totally serious, I, too, was once repulsed by kale, but hand-to-heart, my taste buds have changed as a result of sneaking the darkest a kale in with other stuff. Even a little bit.

But hey, listen, I just ordered our juicer yesterday, so psyched, it comes tomorrow! We’ll try your spin-carr-cuke-apple concoction…

I don’t know about beets thought. I mean, my gawd woman. BEETS???
Michele says:

February 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm

BEET REPORT: I have suffered in the name of science and can report they are completely, thoroughly and utterly repulsive. From here on out, if beets go past my lips they will be of the pickled variety. But hey, I tried. Win some, lose some and now I can tick that one off the To Try list.

I’m still suspicious of kale… *gets out the 10-foot pole for kale poking* Maybe I’ll work up the courage in a week or two.
maya says:

February 9, 2012 at 12:17 pm

Oh no! Beets are a no go? Not even disguised with other items? They are SO pretty. I admit, I am a beet nay-sayer, but that was the cooked variety and I haven’t given them a try since my whole Green Smoothie thing. I hope your kale poking is a success. I had a kale smoothie just this morning–never though I would say such idiocy–but I could barely taste it, hidden as it was behind the banana, pear, and blueberries. Surely a beet could so hide? Have you read Jitterbug Perfune by Tom Robbins? There is a wonderful, wonderful speech in there about beets that might change your mind….
maya says:

February 9, 2012 at 12:17 pm

Oh no! Beets are a no go? Not even disguised with other items? They are SO pretty. I admit, I am a beet nay-sayer, but that was the cooked variety and I haven’t given them a try since my whole Green Smoothie thing. I hope your kale poking is a success. I had a kale smoothie just this morning–never though I would say such idiocy–but I could barely taste it, hidden as it was behind the banana, pear, and blueberries. Surely a beet could so hide? Have you read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins? There is a wonderful, wonderful speech in there about beets that might change your mind….
Michele says:

February 9, 2012 at 4:22 pm

Oddly enough, Jitterbug Perfume is the only Tom Robbins book I haven’t read. (He does have a whole vegetable thing in every book, doesn’t he? Yam, asparagus, beets…) I am willing to admit there could be a glorious attribute belonging to the noble beet that I have not yet discovered. Perhaps it can be disguised and I may revisit the possibility once the emotional scarring has healed.
maya says:

February 12, 2012 at 5:46 pm

Oh, you should totally read Jitterbug Perfume, one of my favorite books. Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t say that since I haven’t read it in over a decade. But I can confidently say that at the time that I read it, it was hands down my favorite Tom Robbins book.

Emotional scarring, ha! Collards are my emotional scarring vegetable. I used to call them pond scum. I live in the south, they get cooked here until they are olive colored mush, flavored with fat back. I’m trying to get over my collard PTSD, but it’s a long process with expensive therapy and many tears. I can, therefore, empathize with your beet problem. Maybe medication? Or, I know, hypnosis!

We are now using our new juicer, I totally get your desire to proselytize. I’m sure there will be a blog post soon about our further juicing adventures.