quantities of juice

[Angela]

Hi, I dont have a vitamix blender so I am using my greenpower juicer. Now I have just juiced a lot of vegetables and got two and a half pints of juice which if a quart is equal to two pints that is only just over one quart and if we are supposed to consume four quarts each day - thats an incredible amount to have to get through. If I was using the blender method then naturally your juice is watered down so Is it ok to make say four pints of straight juice and dilute it with four pints of water to get my four quarts per day??

[David Rainoshek]

Hi Angela,

This is an important question. First, you are hitting on how much produce it takes to make 4 quarts of juice. It is about 12-15 pounds of produce each day, which will cost around $20-$30 a day (eating costs $15-20 a day, so this is not much more for tremendous healing benefits).

Next, you are seeing that making this quantity of juice in a Greenstar or Greenpower juicer takes a lot of time. It does make good juice, but it takes time.

So the question of whether you can dilute your juice gets down to calories. If you are making juice with a Vitamix or Blendtec and straining it, there is some water used - but it is not anywhere near half and half. Katrina and I start with a cup of water, blend and strain, and then use some juice we just made as liquid for the next blender to blend up and then strain.

The reason for this is that we need calories. We are Juice Feasting, and we want to get sufficient calories from our juices. Diluted juice gives fewer calories.

A good quart of Green Vegetable Juice will deliver around 300 calories, and a quart of fruit juice (higher on the glycemic index) will deliver 300 or more. The highest calorie juice per quart is yam, which will give you around 600 calories per quart.

So although it takes 12-15 pounds of produce to make your juices each day, whether you Greenstar it or Vitamix it, do make sure you are feeding your body the calories it requires, and not diluting your juices.

Thanks for the great question!

With peaceful steps,

David Rainoshek, MA, www.JuiceFeasting.com

Find all my responses here: http://www.globaljuicefeast.com/profile/DavidRainoshek