Juice Guru Review

I wish I could afford to juice daily, but it's just not in my budget. Juicing is expensive, especially when you're trying to buy high-quality, organic produce for your juices. But I've compromised by scheduling morning juices on my non-running days. Before I do yoga or strength-building workouts on Tuesdays and Fridays, I always whip a healthy, fresh juice in my Breville juicer. Nothing beats waking up to fresh, pure energy in a glass!

But I tend to fall into the same old ruts of kale-cucumber-apple-romaine juice. That's why I jumped at the chance to review Juice Guru by Steve & Julie Prussack. Steve and Julie's paperback juicing guide encourages daily juicing, and it certainly has more than enough recipes to mix things up for months on end without repeating the same juice from day to day. If you can afford that life, go for it! If not, just do what you can.

The 100 or so pages of Juice Guru are packed with information about the health benefits of juicing (anti-inflammatory, detoxifying, etc.), the nutrition in juices versus smoothies, and some myth-busting about juices containing no fiber (they do contain soluble fiber, which helps lower cholesterol).

There's even a section about juicing on a budget, and the authors make the claim that what you'll save in medical costs from eating an unhealthy diet makes up for what you'd spend on fruits and vegetables. That may be true for people with a history of medical problems who are just getting off the Standard American Diet, but as a long-time vegan with great health, I can't say that it's really true for me. But like I said, I'm juicing as often as is feasible for my budget. And I think that's okay.

The next couple hundred pages are filled with juice recipes for every ailment, health concern, or mood. There's a chapter on green juices, one on cleansing juices, one on root veggie juices, and another for superfood tonics and elixirs (that chapter contains a recipe for a Cold Cure juice with elderberry that I will definitely be trying next time I get the sniffles).

First, I tried the Carrot Kicker — a juice of carrots, beets, celery, and cayenne. The cayenne gave this super rooty juice a spicy kick that really got my blood circulating first thing in the morning.

I did notice something weird though. About 30 minutes after I drank this, I started to feel slightly nauseous. I googled and found that nausea from beet juice is a common thing. Most sites recommended simply cutting back the amount of beet juiced next time. So when I made this a couple days later, I used a half beet instead of a whole one, and I was just fine!

The next juice I tried was the Juice Guru Cleansing Juice. This carrot-apple-ginger juice is one of the Juice Guru template recipes designed for swapping out and changing up with a number of substitutions listed with the recipe. But I stuck with the original for this. Suggestions included adding fresh parsley, swapping the apples for pears, or using fresh turmeric root instead of ginger. This was probably my favorite juice that I tried from the book because carrot-apple-ginger is the best combo ever.

I couldn't review a juice cookbook without trying a green juice! So for the past week, on non-running days, I've been enjoying this Super Greens juice with kale, spinach, celery, green apple, and lemon. It's cool and refreshing and energizing. I love lemon and celery in sweet green juices!

When you're juicing, you end with a LOT of pulp. I typically just toss it, but sometimes, I do save carrot pulp for a raw vegan "tuna" salad. But that was about all I knew to do with it. Thankfully, Juice Guru also lists recipes for using up carrot pulp. One of those is Chef Babette's Carrot Mango Dressing. It's made with carrot pulp, fresh mango (I used soft champagne mango!), vegan mayo, apple cider vinegar, tamari, and turmeric.

This creamy dressing was amazing!! It reminded me of the carrot-ginger dressing I used to buy from the deli section of the grocery store. Plus, it has all the anti-inflammatory properties from turmeric, which is much-needed since my running routine often leads to me suffering from inflamed joints and sore muscles.  

I've bookmarked a ton of other juices to try. And I'd highly recommend this book if you're looking to add more juices to your life, even if, like me, you can't really do it daily. Something is better than nothing!