a few great books and films, we were catapulted into a new way of thinking and living around food that has served us very well and made all the difference in the quality of our lives.
This is the story of our exploration into the world of juicing, how we decided upon the Omega Juicer and what we have learned along the way. We hope it provides useful insights and helpful information for anyone considering the path of juicing, and in particular, anyone who is interested in the Omega Juicer.
Before moving on, it must be stated that we have no connection to the Omega Juicer company, any of its employees, executives, advertising staff or anything like that. Our sole connection to the company is that we are happy customers of their juicer. We are not endorsed, supported or in any way authorized by them or by anyone else to write this book. We decided it should be written because we are enthusiastic juicers and we love our Omega Juicer. That’s it. No strings attached.
Juicing – What It Is, What It’s Not, and Why That Matters
Plenty of people have heard of juicing by now, and plenty more have a complete misunderstanding of what it is.
This is due in part to chain stores like Jamba Juice, who, while they do offer a limited number of actual vegetable juices, namely sell ice-based fruit smoothies. These smoothies are made of various frozen and fresh food products blended in a high-speed blender. Whenever you take whole fruits, vegetables or any parts thereof, and throw them into a blender and whip them up into a frothy concoction, you are making a smoothie. This might seem like nit picking but really it is not.
Smoothies contain the whole kit and caboodle of whatever the ingredients are that go into them. Naturally, you peel the oranges or citrus, just as you do in juicing, but the difference is that the end result contains all the parts of the fruit or vegetable, just all blended up. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, honestly.
It’s just not juicing.
The Omega Juicer allows you to do real juicing. In real classical juicing, aka Max Gerson style, or the real nutritionist style of juicing, the fiber is separated from the liquid of the fruit or vegetable during the juicing process. The fiber is extruded separately and is very dry, while the liquid is extracted and drained off into the juice-receiving bowl or cup.
The reason this is an important distinction is that when the nutritional components are separated from the fiber, the juice that is produced is extremely nutrient dense and instantly bio-available. What this means is that as the juice enters your mouth, the cells of your tongue and surfaces inside your mouth can literally take in those nutrients instantly. Furthermore, nutrients will be delivered to specific parts of your digestive system exactly as appropriately needed. In some cases, this means nutrients will retain their complexity throughout the early digestive processes in order to deliver specific functionality to the large intestine.
You can actually feel this difference when you drink a juicer-created juice. It hits your palate and instantly the nutrients are flowing into your blood stream from every surface it comes in contact with as it moves through your body. In fact, when you first begin juicing, you may discover that this action is so fast that your digestive system is stimulated almost immediately upon drinking your juice. But don’t let that dissuade you, or cause alarm. It’s natural. Your body’s entire system is stimulated and put into action as you begin to drink the juice.
In the beginning, this can cause concern for some people, who might suppose something is wrong with them, or with the idea of juicing. This is not so. It is simply your body’s reaction to a super nutrient dense and extremely bio-available food. Taking your time to sip the juice slowly, starting with smaller servings and continuing to juice regularly, will all work to reduce the ‘instant’ response. The good news is, this is your body’s way of telling you that the juice is working. Your body is responding quickly to a powerhouse of nutritious and healing food extracts. This is what it really is, after all, when you extract the nutrients in their liquid form from the various fruits and vegetables.
You can think of it this way: it’s a sign that the juice is working and your body is responding appropriately. Depending how far from such direct nutrient intense experiences your body has strayed, your experience will be more or less intense.
Over time, this instant digestive response will diminish, although juicing will do wonders for anyone with a sluggish bowel. Once you become a regular juicer, your digestion will level out and you’ll be less prone to such an ‘instant’ response. You will stay regular and find you have fewer issues with constipation or diarrhea as well.
There are those who caution that juicing is dangerous because you are eliminating the fiber and therefore somehow creating a problem for your body. This is simply not true. First off, you are not only consuming juice as a complete diet, unless you are doing a short term fasting program, and second, there is nothing intrinsically harmful about giving your body super nutrient-packed vegetable and fruit juices extracted from whole organic foods.
Just realize that the benefits of real juicing come from separating and releasing the nutrients from the cells of the fruits and vegetables, and not blending them together. For those looking to increase fiber in their diet, the fiber extracted when juicing can be used in soup stocks and stews to increase fiber content, or frozen for later use. The fiber can also be composted, added to the garden, or fed to poultry and/or pigs.
This brings us to the next issue with juicing which is all about juicer types and how different juicers work. This, in fact, is what led us to the Omega Juicer in the first place.
Different Types of Juicers – Masticating and Centrifugal
There are essentially two different approaches to extracting juice from fruits, vegetables, grasses, herbs and/or roots. Although they both result in juice separated from the fiber of the item being juiced, they accomplish it in completely different ways.
The first is the masticating juicer. This type of juicer uses a slow rpm (revolutions per minute) and either a single or double gear system which uses pressure to quite literally ‘chew’ or squeeze and crush the juice out of whatever is being juiced. Many of these juicers can also be used to make nut butters, baby foods and even frozen desserts.
The second type of juicer is a centrifugal juicer. This type of juicer first breaks up the item to be juiced into small pieces and then extracts the juice through a high speed centrifugal action which spins the juice out of the fiber pieces.
The principles of their actions are completely different: one is moving very slowly to crush the juice out of the fruit or vegetable; one is breaking the fruit or vegetable up and then spinning out the juice.
The major differences which really matter between these two approaches are: one is low heat, and slow pressure. The other uses fast spinning which introduces heat. The result is that the slower and heatless process produces more juice from each thing juiced and can also juice grasses and fine leaves. The centrifugal juicer is not effective at juicing grasses or fine leaves (barley grass, wheat grass, parsley, mint, spinach etc.). Because it relies on a high speed spinning action, these more delicate plant structures are not completely juiced and the pulp or fiber extruded has a much higher liquid content, meaning the juice is being left in the fiber and not fully extracted. It also, through its spinning action, introduces a lot more oxygen into the juice; as well as heat. The oxygen causes the juice to oxidize, or break down, much faster. The heat introduced in the high speed spinning destroys some of the nutritive value of the juice.
Both forms of juicing will work. However, for the best nutrition content of the resulting juice, a masticating juicer is preferable. Without heat, it can retain the highest living content of the enzymes, vitamins and nutrients in the juice. Its slow action does not incorporate oxygen into the juice leaving the juice able to be stored for up to a few days without degradation.
When oxygen is introduced to the juice, the vital nutrients begin to break down immediately, and the juice must be consumed right away and cannot be stored