June is National Fruit & Vegetable Month. All month long, we will help you identify fruits and vegetables as well as preparations of them to help you on your health journey. The Food & Drug Administration suggests our diets contain five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. It doesn't seem like a lot but when we really thinking about it, it's hard for us. We may eat a burger and french fries. We'll the lettuce and tomato on your burger barely qualify for a serving. French fries count as a starch, not a vegetable. Drinking our fruits and veggies is one of the fastest ways for us to get our recommended servings. After all, we all enjoy a good fruit juice. And, some love popular vegetable juices. Or do we, really? Below are reasons why we should juice our own fruits and veggies:
Quality Control
Most of us buy our juices from the grocery aisle, not even the refrigerated section. Most of those bottled juices have added sugar, preservatives, color, and maybe flavors. So, after all of that filtering, diluting, and adding, there is a juice that resemble the original fruit or vegetable. Juicing your own fresh fruits and vegetables allows you to control what goes into the juice. So, if you want apple juice...juice an apple. That way, you know it's 100% juice, no additives, color, or sugar. The quality of your juice is based ONLY on the quality of your fruit.
Cost Control
Bottled and can juices are becoming quite expensive. So is purchasing produce that sit and rot due to our natural tendency to reach for orange juice over an orange. However, buying a bag of oranges is much cheaper and more environmentally friendly than bottles and bottles of orange juice.
Flavor Control
When you juice your own foods, you get to choose what you put in it. We have found that many will drink vegetable juice when adding a sweet fruit like apple or pineapple to it. You can be creative and develop new recipes. There are only a few rules to juicing, so the sky is the limit to your flavor profiles. Below are some recipes to get you started, but don't be afraid to try some of your own. Try seasonal fruits and vegetables; they are the sweetest and most ripe. Summer is the best time to start!
Portion Control
You can control the amount of juice available when you juice. Oftentimes, we buy two-three bottles at the grocery store. Most will simply get another cup after drinking one. That means we consume more calories, sugar, and preservatives. That also means we are drinking less water and milk because of our ready consumption of pre-made fruit juice. Because there are no preservatives, you should drink your juices immediately. So, you will only need to make the amount you plan to drink immediately. Doing so allows you to control the portions and resulting fruit sugar intake of yourself and your family.
Nutrient Control
Eating fruits and vegetables in raw form is the most recommended preparation. Raw foods keep the nutrient and benefits of produce in tact. Cooking can dilute, destroy, or simply remove valuable nutrients from produce. However, when we think raw, we immediately think salads. And if you know like I know, your jaws will soon tire from chewing on lettuce. Juicing is a fast and delicious way to consume some of your foods in their raw state. However, I do suggest that you balance eating with drinking your fruits and vegetables. Chewing is a natural desire for humans. We must satisfy our oral fixation on chewing. Additionally, juicing separates out the fiber from foods. Fiber is important to our digestive system and has to be an important part of our diets. So, don't just juice, but definitely try it!
Choosing a juicer - I recommend a juicer with a large mouth hopper, warranted blades, and dishwasher friendly. The less prep and clean up, the more you will use it. I also suggest a great blender to extend the possibilities of juicing. These are two of my favorite summertime kitchen aids.
Some recipes - One of my favorite cookbooks,
Juicing for Life, includes recipes for specific health-related challenges. I have included a few for detoxification and body cleansing. They are also great for weight loss. As time goes on, we will share disease-specific recipes and the benefit for specific foods.
Warm Apple Pie (a hot apple tea)
1 tart apple
Water
Apple pie spice
Cinnamon stick for garnish
Juice apple. In small pan, bring 2 oz. juice and 4oz. water to boil. Season with liberal amount of spice. Serve in a teacup. Garnish with cinnamon stick. (Add honey or turbinado sugar to taste, if desired.)
Cherie's Cleansing Cocktail/Body Cleanser
1/4" slice ginger root or 1/2 cucumber
1 beet
1/2 apple
4 carrots, greens removed
Push ginger or cucumber, beet and apple through hopper with carrots
Mineral Tonic
Handful parsley
2 turnip leaves
1 kale leaf
4-5 carrots, greens removed
Roll up parsley in turnip and kale leaves, and push through hopper with carrots
Evening Regulator
2 apples
1 pear
Alternate pushing apple and pear through hopper
Ginger Hopper
1/4" slice of ginger root
4-5 carrots, greens removed
1/2 apple
Push ginger through hopper with carrots and apple
Berry Cantaloupe Shake
1/2 cantaloupe, with skin
5-6 strawberries
Push cantaloupe and strawberries through hopper
Garden Salad Special
3 broccoli flowerets
1 garlic clove
4-5 carrots, greens removed or 2 tomatoes
2 stalks celery
1/2 green pepper
Push broccoli and garlic through hopper with carrots or tomatoes. Follow with celery and green pepper.
NOTE: The resulting juice can have a lot of foam. You can simply stir it to mix the remaining fiber into the drink. Some prefer to strain the foam using a variety of ways. I suggest running it through a small drink strainer a few times to get it completely smooth. Or, you may use a blender.
Try juicing today...your life depends on it!
Happy National Nutrition Month! March is full of excitement. It is the intersection between winter and spring that keeps us on our toes. Some days it is nice outside, other days, you feel like a snow bunny. Well, one thing is for sure, you still have to eat! So, we felt that March should be our month of #NOEXCUSES! 
This unusual time of year leaves us confused over what to cook. Do you want a warm soup or something light and easy? Are you going to be home and able to caress a meal or will the hustle and bustle of life keep you going? Fear not! The slow cooker (or as we know it the Crockpot) is here to save the day! It's a flash from the past but remains a useful tool for healthy living. It saves you time. And, it saves your brain power from having to come up with excuses for not providing a healthy meal for your family or yourself. 
Until I realized how much I love soups, my slow cooker was a dust collecting large dip server or meatball warmer. Yes, I only used it when we were having a family gathering and needed an additional warmer. Occasionally, I would make a spinach and cheese dip (which I do not like) and take to a potluck party. But, mostly, it stayed on the shelf in the cabinet. About a year or two ago, my sister remodeled her kitchen and remarked that she needed to get a matching slow cooker. I didn't think anything of it until I started searching for a Christmas present for her. I found a very lightweight and reasonable Crockpot (brand) that matched her updated kitchen. It was shortly after that I fell in love with soups again. A coworker/friend and I would go to Olive Garden and get the chicken gnocchi soup. We wouldn't even eat our meal because the soup was fantastic! Soon, we only wanted soup, salad, and breadsticks, even for dinner. I needed to learn how to make this soup without all of the calories, salt, and fat. So, I pulled out the slow cooker and altered the copycat recipe I found online. From there, I've employed that slow cooker to do so much more. 
