When I trace back to how I started, it was actually my mother who was the first person that introduced me to juicing. She would talk about how good juiced celery and ginger was, and so I got together with my siblings and bought her a juicer for Christmas. Fast track 6 years later and juicing has become an integral part of my life. Whenever I make juice I try not to put too much fruit in as my mum has diabetes and reducing the intake of sugar has always been at the back of my mind due to this.

The first thing I would say to anyone new to juicing is to look firstly at what juicer to buy, obviously if you want to buy juices, this is also a more efficient way to start, but always look for ‘cold pressed’ juices.This will indicate what juicer was used to make the juice and ‘cold-pressed’ in a nutshell means jam-packed with more nutrients.

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So back to the first juicer we bought my mum, a Panasonic something, it was a centrifugal juicer, which span high speed and had a metal razor which cut up amazingly whole apples and magically poured out the juice on the other side. Little did I know that the high speed razor was creating such heat that in order to not lose the nutrition of the freshly pulped fruit and vegetable I needed to drink it asap to avoid the oxidization process, which basically exposes the juice to oxygen and the juice loses nutrition.

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What I actually  invested in now is a masticating juicer, picture on left, which grinds and chews up the cut up ingredients especially leafy greens and herbs like mint leaves amazingly well without creating any heat and hence the term ‘cold-pressed’. Cold-pressed juices can last 72 hours and maintain its nutrients if stored correctly in an airtight seal and refrigerated. A bit pricier but totally worth the money for all saving in nutrients.

To get you started, try my highly recommended Easy Peasy Green Juice which is great in the morning, for recovery straight after exercise or a healthy pick-me-up replacement for all you coffee lovers out there!

Easy Peasy Green Juice (always go organic when you can, makes 3 glasses)
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1 packet of celery
1 cucumber
3 carrots
1 apple
1 bag of kale
Ginger (amount that you prefer – I personally put in loads cos I love it)

Clean and cold-pressed away!

Ginger has amazing health benefits from helping with digestive problems, nausea, anti-blood clotting, boost immunity, diabetes stomach ulcers to reducing high cholesterol. Mixed with the Kale that’s a double whammy as it also helps lower cholesterol. Kale also protects against prostrate and colon cancer, is anti-inflammatory and high in iron, protein and calcium so a total must in any vegetarian’s diet.

Bon Appétit!