Juice Extractinator

Yes, that was my attempt to make the juice extractor sound tough by merging it with The Exterminator.

Joe and I recently watched the documentary Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. It's a documentary about a guy who was overweight and wanted to make a change. He spent 60 days in the US (he's actually Australian) on a juice diet. Why the US? He said because in his past experiences in the states, the amount of greasy and fatty food available was absurd. He always found it hard to control himself and would ultimately gain weight. Along the way he challenged others to join him on the diet. Let's just say the documentary inspired us.

Lucky for us I had some points from an incentive at work (just like my bread machine). We did a bit of research and found out the juice extractor offered through my points at work was actually a really good one. It's a Cuisinart so we knew it would be quality. Like I said, we were lucky because these suckers aren't cheap! The juicer quickly found it's spot on the counter in the kitchen.

Our first trip to the grocery store was interesting. We had done some research online to find out what were some good combinations and good vegetables and fruits to use. This is what our cart looked like. Pretty healthy looking huh? Please ignore the cereal, bacon and beer. This was the weekend of the Super Bowl so I'll use that as an excuse.

After more research and thinking hard about what combinations would taste good, we came up with a few. We found out that carrots and apples make for a good base for the juice. We also wanted to pack as many vegetables in there as we could with a few fruits to make the flavor better. Here is what one day looks like. We learned the hard way what too much celery tastes like, now we keep it down to 1 or 2 stalks. It's completely trial and error with hopes of less and less error.

No, we're not on a juice diet like the guy in the documentary. We each have been drinking about 10-12 ounces of juice each morning for breakfast. We've gotten pretty good at estimating how many fruits and vegetables will produce about 20-24 ounces of juice. Some of the veggies are more fillers while other veggies have such a strong taste (celery, broccoli, etc.) we try to use very few of them in each batch. Then we pour it into two cups and sip on our drive into work. So far so good!