Juicing is DELI!
G'day to you!
During the last week of December, I embarked on a quest to New York City (well, more specifically to Twin Rivers, NJ) to spend New Year's eve with my family. While I was there, indulging on some seriously delicious Colombian food, I was introduced to the world of juicing. It first came up as a word of advice from my lovely aunt, who suggested that once I got back to Canuck land, I should give it a try to compensate for my holiday over indulgence.
The idea kind of stuck to my head, but I must admit I was not very keen about drinking green goo all day long until who knows when... I just kept on picturing a slow and painful death caused by starvation. Keeping always in mind that old refrain: "You are what you eat", all I could think of was a starving Yours Truly with pale-green skin and celery leaves growing out of her scalp (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH NOOOOOOO!!!), being guarded from all sort of wild herbivores, by a carnivore father...
Papa Briceño: Where are the groceries?
Fraulein Yours Truly: (holding grocery bags full of leafy greens in both hands) Here!
Papa Briceño: If anyone were to come over, they would think we own a cow...
Fraulein Yours Truly: (Makes a confused-face and wonders if he's implying she looks like a bovine? o_0!? ) What do you mean...?
Papa Briceño: Because all you seem to buy is GRASS!
After 20 minutes of laughter-induced seizures, brought to you by Papa Briceño, Mamma and I decided to start our juicing experience. To my surprise I discovered that we did, in fact, own a juicer but it had obviously never been used (Mamma has this tendency to buy all sorts of kitchen gadgets that she never ends up using, therefore they are left behind until Yours Truly discovers them buried under a pile of dust bunnies and chooses to rescue them from oblivion).
After inserting what seemed to be 10kg worth of vegetables and getting the equivalent of a glass of juice, we got fed up and decided to take a step back and go full OLD SCHOOL, meaning that we resorted to use our blender. The greatness of going RETRO is reflected on the amount of fiber ingested (which, of course, is great for cleansing purposes). The end result looked rather unappealing (that was the less repulsive word I could think of) but in the hopes that the means justify the ends, I gobbled it mindlessly. The experience was so traumatizing that, for the sake of humor, I decided to refer to our concoction as DELI and make a happy face at the end (not implying delicatessen, or anything of that sort. "DELI" is an abbreviation of the word "delicious" and it is a popular expression among Colombians. So, if you are ever around one of my co-nationals and you hear such expression, know that it may imply: gastronomic excitement, event excitement and/or general excitement).
In other words, I turned an unpleasant experience into what could be the next marketing campaign of the Juicing community - You Are Very Welcome World. I don't know if this happens to you, but I personally cannot fake something for more than 24 hours, so I had to gently insert a mental mine into Mamma's head, with the hopes that it would serve its purpose and result into an explosion of flavors! Don't ask me about specific details; all I know is that I am now a happy juicer, meaning that I went from loathing it to loving it. I still have to give Mamma the credit she deserves, because she added two special ingredient that made a tremendous difference: Love and oat bran.
I was a bit skeptical at first about adding the latter to our melange, but since Mamma knows best, I accepted unquestionably. Quite frankly I didn't even know that oat bran existed, so Mamma clarified that we were dealing with a cereal. Mind you, when I think of cereal instantly both Toucan Sam or Tony the Tiger pop into mind, and not some powder-looking stuff. Therefore, I could have never imagined that this stuff had a whole bunch of amazing properties. Turns out this oat bran thing reduces levels of cholesterol, serves as preventive action for diabetes, protects both colon and rectum against cancer cells, causes feeling of satiety in the stomach and helps intestinal transit among others. I don't know about you, but I'm game!
Thanks to the new horizons introduced by old bran, I left my comfort zone and started experimenting with other ingredients to continue the legacy of explosive flavors. I started adding almond, walnuts, pralines, bananas, prunes, pineapple, ginger, mango, almond milk and anything else I could think of. The end result: PORNER! You may think I'm bias, but believe me, the juices have turned out so great that even Carnivore Papa Briceño (yes, the one that refers to everything green as grass and refuses to eat anything that does not come from an animal) is drinking it. Never have I ever been so egg-cited about drinking green goo but after trying the above ingredients, I now look forward to seeing this every morning:
Making the story short, as you may conclude, I am now a juicing-philic, my skin looks pretty awesome, my hair not so much (but that may have to do with the fact that a haircut is long-overdue) and, overall, I feel pretty epic! Join me in merriment☺:
After inserting what seemed to be 10kg worth of vegetables and getting the equivalent of a glass of juice, we got fed up and decided to take a step back and go full OLD SCHOOL, meaning that we resorted to use our blender. The greatness of going RETRO is reflected on the amount of fiber ingested (which, of course, is great for cleansing purposes). The end result looked rather unappealing (that was the less repulsive word I could think of) but in the hopes that the means justify the ends, I gobbled it mindlessly. The experience was so traumatizing that, for the sake of humor, I decided to refer to our concoction as DELI and make a happy face at the end (not implying delicatessen, or anything of that sort. "DELI" is an abbreviation of the word "delicious" and it is a popular expression among Colombians. So, if you are ever around one of my co-nationals and you hear such expression, know that it may imply: gastronomic excitement, event excitement and/or general excitement).
I was a bit skeptical at first about adding the latter to our melange, but since Mamma knows best, I accepted unquestionably. Quite frankly I didn't even know that oat bran existed, so Mamma clarified that we were dealing with a cereal. Mind you, when I think of cereal instantly both Toucan Sam or Tony the Tiger pop into mind, and not some powder-looking stuff. Therefore, I could have never imagined that this stuff had a whole bunch of amazing properties. Turns out this oat bran thing reduces levels of cholesterol, serves as preventive action for diabetes, protects both colon and rectum against cancer cells, causes feeling of satiety in the stomach and helps intestinal transit among others. I don't know about you, but I'm game!
Thanks to the new horizons introduced by old bran, I left my comfort zone and started experimenting with other ingredients to continue the legacy of explosive flavors. I started adding almond, walnuts, pralines, bananas, prunes, pineapple, ginger, mango, almond milk and anything else I could think of. The end result: PORNER! You may think I'm bias, but believe me, the juices have turned out so great that even Carnivore Papa Briceño (yes, the one that refers to everything green as grass and refuses to eat anything that does not come from an animal) is drinking it. Never have I ever been so egg-cited about drinking green goo but after trying the above ingredients, I now look forward to seeing this every morning:
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| DELI! |
Excitement for me is the main motivational force behind commitment. I was recently in Toronto at the Eaton centre, killing a few hours before getting back to L.dot. Starving, I decided to indulge in the variety offered by the Urban Herbivore, juices included. I ordered a tomato-basil soup (DELI!), some sort of biscotti (DELI!), and a green juice (not so DELI), all of which came to $6. Although the soup was pretty badass, the juice was a huuuuuuuuuuge disappointment. It took me back to the first day I juiced when, to make the best out of a bad situation, I smiled even though the juice was absolutely horrendous. WHY would you do that to me Urban Herbivore!? I almost lost hope in juicing, but fortunately enough that was my first and last experience juicing there. I no longer rely on commercial juices offered to me outside of my kitchen (haha!), except for the one they sell on Saturday at the London's Farmers' Market, which is pretty epic. I make gallons of mine and have a few containers to take on-the-go -best idea EVER!
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| Fudge You Urban Herbivore and your disgusting juice! |
Making the story short, as you may conclude, I am now a juicing-philic, my skin looks pretty awesome, my hair not so much (but that may have to do with the fact that a haircut is long-overdue) and, overall, I feel pretty epic! Join me in merriment☺:
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| DELI! |
Bon appéttit tout le monde!
Yours Truly,
Fraulein Andrea
Hi there! Nice stuff, do keep me posted when you post again something like this!
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