Although I spend much of my week either juicing, or writing about juicing with kids, I am by nature a frugal person at heart. Yes, even when it comes to buying a juicer.
I’ve never parted with big dollars to purchase a juicer, and I have no intention of ever doing so. Having used cold press, masticating juicers and centrifugal juicers I fully understand the differences on offer, but I love my basic, affordable centrifugal juicer the best. It makes juicing easy and quick and that means, as a family, we do it every single day and to me that is what’s most important.
Juicing Problem Solver
Being frugal has its benefits. It has demanded that I become good at solving juicing problems – one of which is how to juice herbs with a centrifugal juicer. Yes, it is true, despite what juicer manufacturer’s say, you can juice herbs successfully in a basic centrifugal juicer.
Every Juicing Problem is a Juicing Opportunity in Disguise
Centrifugal juicers are known for being too clumsy and rough when it comes to juicing delicate leaves of herbs.
However, as the saying goes, every problem is an opportunity in disguise and I decided to take the opportunity and find an easy solution to the herb problem. My solution is what I call the ‘Herb Menu’.
Herb Menu
1. Stuff it Style (you need a juicer with a wide mouth feeding tube for this) – using a corer, core an apple and stuff herbs into the cored space. Feed into juicer and plunge.
2. Sandwich Style – Get two pieces of fruit or vegetable and sandwich your herbs in between them and feed all three (as a stack) into the feeding tube of your juicer at the same time and plunge.
3. Wrap style – Wrap your herbs tightly in a large leaf feed into juicer mouth and plunge.
4. Hot Dog Style – Slit a cucumber/zucchini and stuff herbs inside, put in feeding tube and plunge.
Kids Love To Help
Kids love to help out in the kitchen and juicing herbs can be a fun thing for them to do, so get them involved. At the age of seven my son’s favourite kitchen task is chopping (especially with the big knives), but the apple corer is also a hit with him. He gets the herbs ready for juicing, while I organise the other ingredients. Handling the herbs and naming them helps him learn about them and get used to them so they aren’t so foreign when it comes times to consume them. Win win.
Happy Juicing
Juicingkids.com helps parents and carers create life-long juicers out of their children.
As a child I stood at the juicer with my mother and now my son does the same with me. Experience has taught me how to start a child drinking fresh, raw nutrient dense vegetable juice and then keep them doing it as a daily habit.
In our home now we make a daily vegetable juices with a little low sugar fruit added for taste. Kids need parents and carers to to guide them lovingly through this over processed and hyper marketed world of foods to teach them how to love and nourish their bodies.
www.juicingkids.com
