juice fasting & an update on my review of the omega vrt juicer

After watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead last winter (my post here with a link to the movie) we were pretty fired up to try a juice fast.  If you’ve seen the movie (and you haven’t, don’t wait another second, you totally should), you’ll completely understand that statement.  It is a very inspiring movie.  This prompted us to get a juicer, the Omega VRT350, and I did a review here.

Finally, months later, Paul and I are doing it.  The goal is ten days of just juice and water, but I seriously doubt if we’ll make it.  It’s day six, that’s right, six days of only juice, and god I really kind of hate juice right now.

It’s true what they say.  1-The first few days are the hardest. 2-After that you stop being hungry.  3-There are periods of having tons of energy.  4-And also days where you want to stay in bed.

Biggest thing we’ve noticed: our faces are de-aging.  Not our primary goal, but no shit, it is totally happening.  In six days both of us look demonstrably younger, no bags, fewer wrinkles, bright skin.  So that’s interesting.

Second thing impossible to miss: Paul has lost almost ten pounds.  If he sticks it out, at this rate he’ll hit 15 or 20 pounds lost in just ten days.  He looks great.

I’ve lost a few pounds—again, not my primary goal, as I was fairly skinny already. So what IS my goal?  Energy.  I struggle with feeling tired a lot.  I wanted to see if this would charge me up.  So far, not so much, but I’m hanging in there.  Ask me in a couple days.

Which brings me to the juicer report.  Making juice four times a day for two people means I’ve put in some serious time with my juicer lately.  Seemed like an updated review might be in order.

1. The Omega VRT juicer makes great juice.  Strong flavors, deep colors, little foam, little separation, stays bright for several hours (Paul is taking his to work and putting it in the fridge there, so it isn’t fresh made when he drinks it—he says it holds up very well).

2. It has a lot of pulp.  I’ve implemented a DIY solution I’ll describe in a minute.

3. Clean up is easy, but use the toothbrush thingy.  Mold can build up in the crevasses when you aren’t looking, especially in the kind of heat we’ve been having (everything is molding down here lately).

4. I appreciate the small size a LOT with my tiny kitchen.  Big plus when you’ve just got a couple square feet of counter space, period, in your entire kitchen.  Might not be such a plus if you’ve got a big space.

5.  Clean up is very fast.  Just three minutes or so.  A big deal when you are juicing as much as I have been the last few days.

Okay, the Pulp Problem.  I like a bit of pulp, but when the pulp out-flow on this thing gets partially clogged, which happens regularly (the hole is small, to allow for greater juice extraction, and fibrous veggies jam it up pretty quickly) some of the sludge tends to slosh over into the juice out-flow.  This is compounded by the length of time you spend juicing—meaning, the more juice you make at once, the more the pulp-clog builds up like arterial plaque.  And I’m making a quart of juice at a time for Paul to take to work.  That’s a lot of juice.

I like pulp but I don’t like sludge.  And in a juice fast, you really don’t want any pulp at all.  What to do?

You could buy another juicer, but yeah, that isn’t happening right now with our budget.  Instead, I bought a five dollar mesh scoop thing and I sit it in the juice container so that the out-coming juice runs through it and catches any sludge that might be coming through.

This is carrot-kale juice, thus the orange and green color.  You can see the sludge and a bit of foam over on the right there.  Here is the stuff left after making about 20 oz of this stuff:

One might feel that if one had spent this much on a juicer, one ought not be having to mess with sludge in the first place.  I do think about the juice in this sludge that I am not getting to drink.  I kind of stir it around with a spoon and give it a press or two to try to mash the remaining juice out, but its still pretty wet by the time I thwack it into the compost bin.  A tablespoon or two of juice lost (per 20 oz or so of juice).  Not ideal.

So…conclusions?

Pros: The space issue is huge for us, so the small size is a BIG plus.  The clean-up being so fast is a big plus, too, when you’re doing this four times a day.  The juice is very high quality.  I also like that this juicer is quiet (although squeaky).

Cons: I’m a little annoyed at this sludge thing.  It does add a step, although a small one (the stirring of the sludge).  It’s a very minor issue when making a glass of juice and is only really showing up when making these large quantities.  Definitely cut up fibrous veggies like celery and greens, chop chop chop, before putting them in, as the strings are the worst cloggers.  And the wire scoop thingy is a MUST or you’re drinking a smoothie, not juice.

Would I buy this one again.  Yes.  For a quick glass of juice, this juicer is awesome and we use it every day (when not juice fasting).  However, if I had a giant kitchen (or just a normal sized kitchen), I might consider the Omega 8005 instead. I hear clean-up is more involved so that would be a down-side.  But still, it is more versatile, costs less, and there are not the reports of too much pulp.

As for the fast, I’ll make a post-fast report to let you know how far we make it and the results.  I’ll tell you, the hardest part by far has been cooking yummy things for the kids to eat.  They were eating blueberry muffins yesterday and I had to leave the room….