Juicing for beginners can be quite a daunting task at the start. Like any other new practice, creating juice gets better as you continue to do it regularly.
But how do you really get yourself up to speed with juicing?
This article is written to help you learn the basics. From having a clear understanding of what a juice can and cannot do right down to choosing your juicer, you’ll be able to start juicing with confidence as soon as you’re done reading this.
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Juicing For Beginners
Juicing, in its simplest definition, is a process to extract juice from fruits and vegetables. It is something that we naturally do when we eat apples or chew on celery sticks. Not everyone wants to eat raw celery sticks, though. Drinking it mixed with pineapple and apple juice makes the experience a lot more enjoyable.
Perhaps one of the reasons why juicing has gained popularity really fast is because it’s so approachable. Anyone can start adding this to their routine without necessarily following a diet plan. There are no rules on which juice to drink first or which set of produce you should have on the 2nd week.
Unless you have some allergic reactions to a specific fruit protein, you should be able to drink just about any fruits and veggies you want. In fact, this is one of the best ways you can gain nutrients from veggies in case you don’t want to eat them in the first place. Kids will surely enjoy drinking fruit juice without noticing you sneaking up some veggies in there too.
Juicing For Better Health
The desire for better health is the major reason why most people would start including juice in their diet. My mom would always say to me that “health is wealth”. It may be a little cliche to some, but it is actually true. The healthier you are, the less you spend on medical bills when you get sick. With good health, your body can resist any illness that might affect your work like the flu for instance.
When you start juicing, you need to understand that it is a lifestyle change. Fortunately, it’s not too big of a change that can disrupt your current way of life. Whether you’re planning to drink juice once a day or as seldom as twice a week, you’ll definitely experience health improvement.
Some people may choose to completely forego on eating solid foods, but this is not really recommended. Our body is designed to break down solid foods. If you replace your entire meals with just drinking juice, you’ll actually end up craving for more food.
The best way is to mix it up with your diet. Whether you’re going on a strict diet plan or just cutting down on carbs, drinking juice will always be a welcome addition.
Drinking Juice vs Eating Raw Fruits And Vegetables
So why create and drink juice in the first place if you can naturally extract them by eating the same fruits and veggies? The best way to answer this is to provide you with a list of practical benefits you can get when you drink a juice:
- A juice can be easily absorbed by the body at a much quicker rate.
It takes a lot less effort for your body to extract nutrients since they’ve already been done by the juicer when you drink the juice.
- Not all people are comfortable with eating veggies.
This is true even if their health benefits far exceed their texture and taste. Fortunately, you can still get the nutrients when you incorporate it into a juice.
- Bringing slices of fruits with you to eat on your lunch break is too cumbersome.
Additionally, it is time-consuming to eat as well. Turning them into a juice is a more practical approach.
- You can soften up strong flavored veggies like ginger when you mix it with a juice.
Even if I love its nutritional benefits, I don’t think you’ll see me chewing on raw ginger any time of the day.
- With juicing, you don’t have to peel your fruits.
Depending on the type of juicer you use, you don’t even to cut them into bite-size pieces.
- Even your kids will get the nutritional benefits of veggies in a more enjoyable way.
As most parents know, it can be really stressful trying to make their kids eat veggies, especially the leafy greens.
I believe creating juices at home is one of the great innovations these days. Just the act of doing it will make you feel healthy already, since you know you’re making something good for your well-being.
Juicing: Pros and Cons
Now that you know how it can be more practical and convenient to drink juice than eating your fruits and veggies raw, it’s time to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of juicing. In this section, we are going to focus on its effect on our body, and ultimately our health.
Pros
- Easy & More Complete Absorption of Nutrients
This is one of the best effects of juicing that I’m sure most of the people will really come to benefit. Although humans are particularly classified as omnivores, most of us have a hard time digesting our vegetables. The undigested food is not the issue though since our body will just excrete it naturally. The issue is that our body is unable to absorb the necessary nutrients it needs.
When we drink juice, these nutrients are already extracted. All we have to do is chug it down and they can then be easily absorbed by our body. No longer do our stomach and intestines have to work overtime in breaking them down if they were completely broken down after the process.
Why would you give your body such a hard time when there are better and easier ways for it to gain nutrients. Why just take some vitamins since it’s so much easier that way?
It’s like taking your vitamins with the big difference of being all natural and refreshing as well.
- Very Versatile Since There’s Always A Juice For Specific Needs
Once you start creating your own juice, you’ll get full control as to what nutrients get absorbed by your body. A whole new world literally opens up. I used to just think of veggies as nutritious but never really understood on what specific benefits we get from them. It’s the same for fruits; all I know back then was that most of them tasted great.
When I started into this juicing lifestyle, I became more conscious of specific health benefits that each ingredient could give. It’s like a science experiment for me and fortunately, the internet is teeming with recipes.
There are recipes for both prevention and cure. If you want to remain healthy and keep the flu away, you can find extract specific fruits and veggies for that. If you want to keep yourself from being burned out in facing a tough day ahead, load yourself up with the right nutrients.
If you want to get rid of headaches, proper rest and a juice can help you with that. Speaking of headaches, there are even some hangover cures available.
There are so many ways to create your juice and they can each be tailored fit to suit your current needs. You can start doing so without even knowing specific information like if lime is acidic or alkaline.
- Juice Can Easily Disguise Very Strong Flavors
Some fruits and veggies have flavors too strong that you can’t even bear to eat them. The funny thing is that most of them are full of amazing health benefits. It’s like nature’s way of testing us if we really are serious about our health.
Fortunately, with juicing you can easily avoid the test in the first place (and just passed with flying colors). Mixing ginger roots with other sweet ingredients can actually hide its strong flavors. Same goes for other veggies like broccoli.
In fact, the process is so effective that a whole new range of easy juicing recipes exists for these fruits and veggies. You’ll be surprised by how good these drinks taste.
- Increases Your Fruits and Veggies Intake
Perhaps the most obvious benefit of juicing is the increase in your consumption of fruits and veggies. As you have already read above, even if you’re not fond of eating veggies or certain fruits you can easily go about this by drinking juice instead.
Even if you’re someone who loves eating leafy greens, you can’t just bring along a salad bar with you all the time. Let’s say you prepared your salad beforehand or brought with you a couple of slices of pineapple for your lunch. It is still more efficient to drink your own juice concoction since you can pack more nutrients into a juice.
Compared to munching down on a few small pieces of celery, you can pack more volume (and thus more nutrients) into a juice. You don’t even have to take the rind off your pineapple, allowing you to get more nutrients as this is where they are mostly located.
Since you can combine more than one ingredients into a single juice, you are definitely increasing your intake more than what you can normally eat.
- Highly-Concentrated
You know that your body needs more nutrients, but you can’t just go eating carrots or chewing on kale every day. In fact, you might not even have enough time for all the other sources of nutrients. This is another big plus of juicing.
You can easily combine kale with other leafy greens and some fruits to create your juice. You now have a highly-concentrated nutritional drink that is both refreshing and enjoyable to gulp down, taking only a few minutes of your time.
Cons
- Having Less Fiber Can Be Detrimental To Health
The same benefit you get from a juice can be a source of health issues if completely ignored. With less fiber, your body can easily absorb nutrients but it also can greatly affect your health in the long run if left unchecked.
Fruits and veggies are great sources of dietary fiber. These fibers clean up our digestive tract and help greatly in the easy removal of wastes. Juicing effectively remove these fibers. They are the pulp that gets discarded by the juicer during the entire extraction process.
You don’t have to really drink juice without fibers at all. You can add some of the dry pulp back to your drink. If you want your drink to be smooth with no pulp, you can create muffins or soups with the pulp to still get the fibers your body needs.
- Prep Time And Clean Up Can Be Too Tedious
Drinking a glass of juice may be one of the easiest things you can load up on nutrients, especially if you just bought it. It so much different when you create your own juice.
Depending on your preferences, you may or may not like the entire process of creating your juice. It will also depend on the time you can spare or allocate.
When you create your juice, you will need to do research and buy the ingredients that will give you the benefits you’re looking for. You’ll then need to cut them into sizes that can fit the juicer chute. After the juicer is done with extracting, you will need to disassemble and clean it.
In the end, there are people who love to eat and there are those who love to cook and eat. This goes for juicing as well. There are those who just love the entire process of juicing while others just love the part of drinking juice.
You don’t need to slave yourself away with prepping up and cleaning your juicer. There are a lot of available models on the market today which are designed to reduce the time spent on these activities. So it’s best that you choose the right one for you.
- Highly-Concentrated Juice May Lead To High-Concentrated Sugar
Since each juice drink can be packed with a lot of nutritional benefits, it can also be packed with a lot of sugar as well. This is especially true with juicing fruits. Did you know that concentrated apple juice has more sugar than a Coke?
This is not something to be alarmed with if you’re conscious of the number of fruits and veggies you place into the juicer. That is why juicing is both an art and science. You need to make it flavorful but you also need to make sure to use the right kind and amount of ingredients depending on your body’s needs.
One great thing about making your own juice is that you can actually lessen the disadvantages from occurring to a significant degree, sometimes even preventing it from happening.
With your knowledge of the pros and cons of juicing, you now have a clearer picture if this is something you want to regularly experience. It’s now time to move on to more practical matters. In the next section, we’ll be discussing if creating your own juice at home is more cost-effective than buying at the store.
Is Juicing Expensive?
With your understanding of how beneficial a juice can be, it’s time to check if this is healthy for your wallet as well.
With cooking, the food can be quite expensive depending on the ingredients you used. This is exactly the same as juicing. Creating a simple carrot juice is packed with nutrients and is inexpensive as well but the price can add up to be quite hefty if you use organic ingredients only.
You can also adjust the amount you spend on your ingredients. If you’re craving on the nutritional benefits of a particular juice recipe but the ingredients are quite expensive, you can always find an alternative recipe with the same nutrition and less cost.
Perhaps one of the most important thing that every beginner should know before committing to juicing is the juicer itself. Before anyone even starts juicing, one has the buy the right juicer. A juicer may cost from around 80 to 500 bucks. It will all depend on the brand and the features that you want.
Fortunately, even the most basic and affordable can help any newbie to get into juicing real quick. Even popular brands like Breville have a cost-effective model that is great for those who are just starting out and who do not want to spend too much at the beginning.
If there’s one big rule of thumb when it comes to choosing your juicers, it’s that masticating juicers are generally more expensive than centrifugal. In the next section, I will be expanding on their differences. The first step into juicing is to find the right juicer. This could be the make or break part of the entire lifestyle change.
Masticating vs Centrifugal Juicers
These two types of juicers are designed to extract juices from fruit and veggies with much less or no fiber at all, but the rest of their features have differences like night and day. This is a good thing since it can help to clearly define both their strong and weak points and ultimately, help you decide which one to choose.
Centrifugal Juicers
When I started juicing I went for a centrifugal juicer. Perhaps it’s because I had experiences with using a blender and this type looks quite similar.
This type of juicer extracts juice by spinning and cutting motion. When you drop an ingredient into its chute, the blades cut them into small pieces much like what a blender does. Then the juicer spins it around at very high speed, for up to 15,000 rpm, depending on the model. The pulp gets separated from the juice through a mesh strainer.
The operation is very fast and prep time involves roughly cutting down some of the fruits and veggies into smaller pieces, enough to fit the chute. Most of the centrifugal models have chutes bigger than that of masticating, Breville juicers, for instance, have a standard 3-inch wide chute.
When it comes to size, this type of juicer has a generally small footprint since it occupies a surface area almost comparable to blenders.
Perhaps one of the most obvious disadvantages of using a centrifugal juicer is the noise of the operation. It can get really loud, like that of a blender more or less. Depending on your household members or neighbors, the sudden loud noise generated when you’re making your juice may disturb them or elicit complaints.
Another factor you’ll need to consider is the time of day you’re planning on creating your juice. You certainly don’t want to wake up your kids in the wee hours of the morning.
If you’re very much concerned with the amount of juice extracted, or consequently the dryness of the pulp, there are only a select few models which are very efficient with this. Most centrifugal juicers discard pulps that are still moist compared to masticating juicers. I did not concern myself with this issue when I was starting out and personally, I don’t see it as a major concern at all.
Masticating Juicers
Masticating juicers, or slow juicers, are oftentimes mistaken as an intermediate juicing machine. The truth is, operating a slow juicer is just about the same as a centrifugal type.
A masticating juicer operates by slowly crushing and grinding the produce at a speed of less than 100rpm. It pretty much simulates how we chew our food. It usually has 2 openings, one for the discarded pulp while the other is for the juice.
The pulp is very dry which means you get higher juice yield with this juicer. This is why if you’re planning to juice very often, this type of juicer gives you more value in the long run. The ingredients you need to produce the same volume of juice with a centrifugal juicer is significantly halved.
Since the gear moves at a very slow speed it does not produce any heat at all, which is why it’s also known as cold press juicer. Some studies show that heat can harm enzymes necessary to prolong a juice’s freshness. The juice itself has a very smooth texture and is richer in flavor.
Slow juicers are the exact opposite of centrifugal when it comes to noise. The low rpm makes the machine very quiet. If the only time you can allocate for juicing is at odd hours of the night, usually due to work schedule, you can certainly do it with a slow juicer.
Except for some few brands and models, masticating juicers have a larger footprint. The gears are installed horizontally so the machine itself needs a larger surface area. This is another point to consider when choosing a juicer especially if you have limited kitchen space.
The 4 Phases of Juicing
To better help you understand the main difference between these two, I have outlined the 4 general phases in juicing and how they actually compare to each type of juicer side-by-side.
| Phase | Centrifugal Juicer | Masticating Juicer |
| 1. Cutting the produce | can be chopped roughly | requires smaller cuts |
| 2. Extracting the juice | loud operation which extracts by spinning | quiet operation which extracts by crushing and grinding |
| 3. Drink up or store | best for drinking immediately | best for drinking immediately or for large batches to drink later |
| 4. Clean the juicer | mesh needs to be scrubbed | no mesh screen to brush |
Which Type Of Juicer Is Best For A Beginner?
To choose between these 2 types of juicer, these three most important factors need to be considered.
Click on the specific factor that is most important to you below and check which juicer is right for you.
As you use your juicer regularly, you will have a more concrete idea which additional features you do want. This can help you a lot should you decide to upgrade later.
If you’re planning to get a centrifugal type of juicing machine, be sure to check our ultimate Breville Juicer Reviews article.
Juicer Tips Every Beginner Should Know
Here are some juicer tips that help your experience more fulfilling. Knowing these tips and tricks can help you make the best out of juicing, which in turn will keep you coming back in the kitchen for more. The items below apply to both types of juicers.
- Dry pulp may seem a waste, but you can add them to your soups or even as compost to your garden
- Drinking juice should not replace your meals. You will need to eat solid food as well for your fiber and other nutrients
- Remember to clean your juicer immediately after every use as dry pulp can be very hard to brush later on
- Try to juice mostly veggies at first and gently increase the amount of fruits to prevent high sugar intake
- It is best to prepare your juice beforehand and store them in your refrigerator so you can just grab them later, saving you a lot of time
- When juicing leaves, roll them up before dropping into the chute
- Alternate soft and hard produce for better juicing efficiency
Easy Juicing Recipes for Beginners
Below are some easy juicing recipes that will get you up to speed. They are all in beautiful card format so you can either save the image or share them easily. You can also pin them to your Pinterest board for easy access later.
This recipe is great especially during the summer months. It is so refreshing and will help to keep you hydrated.
Here is a simple anti-inflammatory juice recipe. It also helps to prevent cancer!
This easy juice recipe has a sweet earthy flavor, which is perfect for detoxifying the skin and kidneys.
A simple juice recipe that boosts your immune system. It also helps to improve digestion and circulation.
This morning juice recipe is so easy to make and will definitely give you that much-needed boost of energy.
Drinking juice is one of the easiest ways to make a switch to having a healthy lifestyle. In fact, it is so accessible that you can buy it almost anywhere. There’s a big difference though when you start creating your own juices. It becomes more beneficial to you as it is custom-made based on your needs. On a deeper level, it raises your awareness on your body and become more conscious foods you eat.
Juicing for beginners is a lot of fun. It’s a time for experimentation and a time to start experiencing a whole new world of healthy living. It’s pretty much like learning how to drive. You get better with practice and before you know it, everything becomes second nature. Be sure to check this site regularly for more recipes and useful articles on juicing.