How to Make Delicious Juice Without A Juicer

Juicing is a wonderful way to detox your body and fill it with delicious nutrients, but you don’t have to spend loads of money on a fancy juicer to get it at home, now you can learn how to make delicious juice without a juicer!

Detox and nourish.

Nobody’s gonna argue with the fact that drinking fresh juice is good for humans. Juicing provides large concentrated amounts of vitamins and minerals, more than you’d get from just eating a piece of fruit or a raw veggie. Since juicing pre-digests the produce and removes the non-soluble fiber, your digestive system has practically no work to do. This leaves your body free to easily assimilate all the vitamins and minerals into your system in less than half an hour!

Juicing helps our body detox by pulling out heavy metals stored up inside of us and pumping our bodies full of antioxidant, antiviral, and anticancer properties. Drinking fresh juice about 30 minutes before eating will also stimulate your stomach acid and pancreas with the enzymes it needs to properly digest your food. 

Why homemade?

Unfortunately, in order to sell pre-made juices in stores, the FDA requires juice to be pasteurized. This process destroys all the enzymes in the juice, as well as most of the vitamins and nutrients. When juice is processed and sits on a shelf it basically becomes a source of processed sugar, which will feed the bad bacteria and fungi in your body. The juice might taste yummy, but it’s pretty much useless in terms of detoxing and nourishing your body.

Freshly pressed juice is a very un-shelf stable product. The more contact with air juice has, the faster it will oxidize and spoil. If you’re not planning on drinking the juice right away, you might want to wait to make it. If you need to store it, place it in a glass jar filled all the way to the top and sealed tightly. Refrigerate for up to 24 hours, but no longer. 

How to Make Delicious Juice Without A Juicer

Generally speaking, there are about four different types of juicers out there. Only two of them are usually used at home, though, due to cost. Centrifugal juicers are the most popular because they’re not super expensive and you can find them in most stores. They make juice by first chopping up the produce and then spinning it at a very high speed to wring the juice out. Masticating juicers smash the fruit or veggies into pulp, letting the juice release slowly. These juicers aren’t as popular, since they’re rather expensive.

Just so you’re prepared, I don’t use either of these juicers. We’re all about not buying things that only have one function over here, so I make my fresh juice using my blender. I use a Blendtec, but you can just use whatever you have on hand. The main thing you need to remember when juicing with a blender is that you don’t want the produce you’re juicing to get hot. Heat will damage the nutrients in the veggies and fruit and cause the juice to start to oxidize.

In order to get your juice quickly without allowing your blender to heat up, you want to start out by chopping your fruits and veggies into small pieces. I generally use 1-inch chunks for soft things, a little smaller chunks for harder veggies. For things like lettuce and greens, just tear it up into a few pieces.

Now make sure you have an clean, old t-shirt on hand, and you’re good to go…

The right combo.

What should you put in your juice? There are so many tasty options out there, and as someone who loves her fruits and veggies, I can go a little crazy. Not that it’s a bad thing, but when you’re trying out different combinations a good rule to remember is 50/50.

In the book Gut and Psychology Syndrome, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride says that juice should be 50% therapeutic ingredients, and 50% tasty. 

Therapeutic ingredients:

• carrot (roots & tops!)
• beet (roots – only a little bit at a time – & tops!)
• celery
• cabbages
• lettuces
• spinach
• herbs (parsley, dill, basil, fresh nettle)

Tasty ingredients:

• pineapple
• apple
• orange
• grapefruit
• grapes
• mango

I know, it can be hard to stop with the tasty fruits, but please make sure you get a good amount of those therapeutic veggies in there as well!

Does it need to be organic?

Short answer: yes. Sorry, friends. Since your body is digesting and using all of the juice, it’s important that the ingredients you use are as clean as possible. Some fruits and veggies you can get conventionally without too much worry, but quite a few you’re going to want to get organic, or local, if possible. According to the EWG’s 2017 guide, the most pesticide-laded fruits and veggies are spinach, celery, lettuce, kale, strawberries, apples, peaches, and pears. BUY THESE ORGANIC, if you can. Otherwise your delicious juice will be full of toxic pesticides. Cucumbers are also a high source of pesticides, but the amount goes down significantly if you peel them first.

In the recipe card I’ve linked to some of the products from my affiliate partners that I like to use. Purchasing through these links won’t cost you anything extra. Thanks! 😉

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