This is the juice I make again and again and again. Most mornings, in fact. I grab the ingredients on autopilot out of the fridge, stick them through Oscar The Juicer, pour it into a jar and head off to work.
Good stuff in this juice:
Apples hit you up with potassium, phosphorus, calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron and zinc (and makes all the green stuff in the juice more palatable).
Celery is alkalizing and provides vitamins A and K. It also contains a heap of sodium which is what makes it taste kind of salty. The good news is that natural plant sodium is soluble and organic and is essential for your body. Organic, or live salt lets your body use the other nutrients you’re consuming. It works like this: all the cells in our body are constantly bathed in a salt solution. If this gets out of balance, we get dehydrated. So celery juice is a winner in summer for staying hydrated. Nature’s sports drink, minus the bright blue colouring.
Lemon juice is full of vitamin C and boosts your immunity.
Kale looks after your blood and bones – it delivers masses of vitamins K, A and C.
Mint is sweet and cooling and provides a little vitamin A and manganese.
DAILY GREEN JUICE
2 GREEN APPLES 1/2 LEMON, PEELED 2 LEAVES KALE, WITH STALKS 2 STALKS CELERY, WITH LEAVES
2-3 SPRINGS OF FRESH MINT
Run all ingredients through a juicer, stir or shake before drinking. It’s good on ice, too.
Make it into something else: If you blend this juice with 1/2 an avocado, it makes a yummy raw soup for a light summer meal or snack.
Is a raw soup really a soup, or is a juice with some salt and herbs sprinkled on top and put into a bowl? I don’t know, but I’m calling it a soup because that’s how I eat it.
This recipe is like locking sunshine in a bowl – the carrot juice is good for eyesight, bones and teeth, liver and nails, skin and hair as well as betacarotene and vitamin A, there’s the obvious vitamin C from the oranges and the ginger, well, it seems ginger is good for you for pretty much everything.
CARROT ORANGE & GINGER SOUP
2 CUPS FRESH CARROT JUICE 2CM FRESH GINGER ROOT, JUICED WITH THE CARROTS
2 CUPS FRESHLY SQUEEZED ORANGE JUICE
1/2 TEASPOON SALT FLAKES
FLAT LEAF PARSLEY, CORIANDER, BASIL OR CHIVES/CHIVE FLOWERS
Juice the ginger with the carrots til you have two cups worth of juice. Then juice the oranges until you have two cups of orange juice. Mix together in a jug, sprinkle in the salt and pour into two bowls. Top with fresh herbs (I used chive flowers and flat leaf parsley because my coriander was dead. I really wanted to use fresh coriander, but oh well).
For a more substantial soup, blend the soup with 1/4 of an avocado.
For a warm soup, gently heat it in a double saucepan over a low flame until it is warm.