Hannah the Juicer is a Voracious Eater!!

Thank you to those of you who have shown an interest in our juicing journey.  A number of you have asked that we post the recipe for our juice.  We have absolutely nothing written down but have ingredients that we use repeatedly.  Here's a list of the ingredients and the approximate amount we use.  Keep in mind that we make enough juice for Bree and Ginny to each have a 10 ounce glass...  Another note about the ingredients:  as much as possible we try to buy organic produce for Hannah.  We want to make sure that we aren't letting any toxins squeeze through our juicer and into our body.  That's not always possible, but using organic produce is definitely the best.

carrots - 4 medium size
celery - 2 - 3 stalks
brussels sprouts (yes, brussels sprouts!!) - 4
green beans - a good sized handful
broccoli - not the florets; use the part you'd normally throw away - one good sized stalk
zucchini - about a half of a large one
beets - about a third of a medium sized one
asparagus - a good handful of the ends that you would normally throw away
red, yellow or orange peppers - about a third to a half of a pepper
kale - 3 - 4 stalks
chard - 3 - 4 stalks
beet greens - a couple of stalks
ginger - a quarter inch slice about the size of a quarter
cilantro - a third of a bunch
parsley - a quarter to a third of a bunch

You can use any vegetables like cauliflower, parsnips, turnips, etc.  It's truly a matter of taste and availibility.  Bree and I don't use everything in our ingredient list each time because we don't have each ingredient all the time.  Here are our "we won't make juice without these" ingredients: carrots; ginger; cilantro

Here's what we don't use:  spinach and garlic.  Our friend Barb Bacon really tried to get us to use garlic because it has so many wonderful health benefits, but we couldn't handle the taste.  Now that we've been at it a few months we may reintroduce some garlic to the mix.  We found that spinach didn't stay fresh long enough for it to be economical. 

Needless to say, Hannah keeps us at the Farmer's Market and Whole Foods a lot.  Ginny has gotten Whole Foods to give us their broccoli ends if they aren't using them for soup.  They would normally compost them and have been generous about letting us have them.  The first time we "scored" some broccoli ends, they gave them to us in a clear lawn trash bag - seriously!!  Ginny could hardly lift the bag and had to answer some pointed questions just getting out of the store and across the parking lot.  Now they give them to us in manageable plastic bread loaf bags.

When we put all those raw vegetables out on the counter before we make the juice we are astounded at the amount of good nutrients we have before us.  It would be impossible to eat our way through all of these raw veggies, so that's why it's so wonderful to have the juice.  Making juice with the vegetables does NOT provide you with fiber;  the fiber is what Hannah spits out.  She extracts so much juice that what she spits out is the consistency of sawdust.  Ginny throws it into the flowerbeds around the house!!  So - if you want to join us on our juicing adventure remember that you still have to eat your raw veggies to get the fiber from them.  Just a salad a day should take care of that!

Our Juice Log: A Healthy Addiction!

MEET HANNAH THE JUICER

We have posted a picture of Hannah the juicer, along with some of the wonderful vegetables we feed her every day. The picture also shows you what Hannah gives back to us - 8 - 10 ounces of fresh, raw vegetable juice that has become a healthy addiction for us.

Hannah is officially known as a twin gear juice extractor. She is not a disc model juicer that you might find in Bed, Bath and Beyond or other stores. She is a twin gear model and literally takes fine bites out of the vegetables as she extracts the juice. The twin gears generate very little heat and incorporate magnetic and bioceramic technologies that produce fresher juice that can be stored longer, with minimal loss of the enzyme and vitamin content in the juice. (Bree and Ginny don't really know what all that means, but someone out there might!) The pulp that Hannah leaves is almost as dry as sawdust so we know we are getting as many nutrients as possible.

Hannah the juicer came to us from Green Star. You can see Green Star products at www.greenstar.com and/or callthem at 1-888-254-7336.

You may wonder why we named our juicer Hannah. First of all, we knew we needed a name because we talk about her so often. Hannah was the sweetest honey colored cocker spaniel, a beloved member of Bree and Aaron's household until she got old and sick and left us 3 years ago. We decided to name the juicer Hannah because the juicer, just like Hannah, is faithful, always waiting for us, and gives us great pleasure with every minute we spend with her.

Please visit us again to hear more of Bree and Ginny's adventures with Hannah.

A Healthy Addiction!

Welcome to Ginny and Bree's juice log.  We are mother and daughter and have been making raw vegetable juice together since April of this year.  We both had heard about, and read about, juicing for years, but were always intimidated by the process and, frankly, a little turned off by the prospect of drinking something that looked uninviting.  We had read about the benefits of extracting nutrients from raw vegetables and getting them into our system in that form, but it wasn't until Ginny's trainer started talking about juicing that we put the gears in motion.

Ginny went to talk to Barb Bacon, who lives in the Northern Virginia area and has been a serious juicer for years.  After tasting the juice Barb made, Ginny said it was a "neutral" experience, enough of an affirmation to actually purchase a juicer.  At Barb's suggestion we went online and purchased a juicer from Green Star.  It is as big as a sewing machine and has a gear driven mechanism.  When it arrived in April, Barb showed Ginny and Bree how to use it and we were off on a grand adventure!

After 5 months of daily juicing, we are truly addicted.  We have been talking about posting our experiences on a blog and have just now actually put one together.  We credit it to the fact that today's juice was a particularly good one and really charged us up!  We aren't experts in nutrition; we aren't experts in healthy living; what we do know is that we LOVE the juice and it has caused us to investigate other avenues to healthy living.  Bree is a realtor in her mid 30s with small children and Ginny is in her mid 60s - retired but with two jobs that take her travelling around the country.  We both strongly feel how important it is to stay as healthy as we can because of all the stresses (good and not so good) that face us every day. 

Join us on our journey!