We're answering the following questions about juicing and your juicer!
- What ingredients should I juice?
- How should I prepare my ingredients?
- How do I make juice recipes?
- How do I use my juicer effectively?
- How long does juice last?
- How often should I drink juice?
1. What ingredients should I juice?
You’d be surprised to learn that many fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, and herbs produce juice!
Here is a list of some staple juicing ingredients that can be used for many recipes.
Fruits
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Vegetables
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The best ingredients for juicing are water-rich and firm because they’re high-yield and easy to juice. When picking your produce, look for these traits to get the best ones for juicing.
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Firm = easily juiceable
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Vibrant color = ripe
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Pleasant smell = ripe
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Heavy = juicy
Avoid soft and dry ingredients like bananas, avocados, and overripe fruit. These will produce little to no yield and create a mess in your juicer.
If you're juicing to improve specific health conditions, research what fruits, vegetables, and herbs are known to help and consult with your doctor.
2. How should I prepare my ingredients?
Everyone has preferences when preparing ingredients. Below are suggestions and some hard rules. Choose the methods that work for you!
Cleaning
We recommend thoroughly washing your produce to remove any pesticides or chemicals, even if the items are organic.
You can soak your produce in a bath of water paired with baking soda, vinegar, or fruit and vegetable wash spray.
Scrub brushes for cleaning your fruit and vegetables also help to remove any dirt or bacteria on the peels.
Check out this video by @haroldleffall to see how he cleans his fruits and veggies.
Peeling and Deseeding
Most peels can be juiced in Kuvings juicers as long as they are cleaned well. The exceptions are thick, fibrous, or bitter peels.
Citrus peels are a special case. The sourness of lemons and limes overpowers the bitterness of their peels, so we don’t peel them before juicing.
However, we peel oranges and grapefruits before juicing. Their peels are bitter and can make a juice undrinkable.
You can juice ingredients with small seeds, but remove large seeds or pits before juicing. These types of seeds can potentially damage your juicer.
Read more in our "Should You Peel Your Ingredients Before Juicing?" blog here.
Chopping
Kuvings slow juicers have a hopper or wide feed chute to accommodate whole ingredients, so chopping isn’t necessary.
If your ingredients don’t fit whole, chop them to fit the juicer.
Cut fibrous ingredients in the opposite direction of the fibers. For example, pineapple fibers run horizontally, so it’s best to cut pineapple into vertical strips.
3. How do I make juice recipes?
Before sharing our recipe-making tips, we want to address whether mixing fruits and vegetables when juicing is safe.
This concern comes from the effect mixing fruits and vegetables has on the body. Fruits and vegetables digest at different rates and use different digestive enzymes. Therefore, some combinations possibly lead to bloating and gas.
But overall, it’s safe to mix fruits and vegetables, and most juice recipes combine the two. Fruits add a sweeter taste to an otherwise bitter juice, while vegetables keep sugar intake low.
If you’re looking to make your own juice recipes but don’t know how to, start with our simple tips! After some trial and error, you’ll soon discover your favorite recipes!
Start with 1-2 ingredients
Fewer and more familiar ingredients make it easier to predict the taste. You can add more ingredients as you become used to predicting the taste and determining what works with the recipe.
Juice ingredients of the same color
For example, if you juice celery and green grapes together, you’ll know that your juice will result in a green color. Mixing a lot of colors could create a brownish color that may not be appealing to drink.
Check out our “Juicing the Rainbow: Green Juices” blog for a list of green ingredients and juice recipes!
Create small batches of juice
Stick to making 1-2 servings of juice at a time. You don’t want to create a large batch and discover that you dislike the taste. You could also try taste-testing the juice before juicing more.
Get small serving recipes in our "Single-Load Juice Recipes" blog.
Use or take inspiration from existing recipes
All Kuvings juicers include a recipe book! We also share recipes on our website and our social media accounts @kuvingsusa.
4. How do I use my juicer effectively?
While using a juicer is pretty straightforward, some know-how tips will boost your juicer’s effectiveness and yield better results.
Layering
If you have a hands-free juicer like the AUTO10 or AUTO10 Plus, follow our layering technique.
Place soft, small, and fibrous ingredients at the bottom of the hopper and hard, large ingredients on the top.
This technique prevents clogging because the hard ingredients help push the soft ingredients through the juicer.
Notice how @grassroots.garden loaded soft leafy greens, fibrous pineapple, and hard fruits in this order.
Feeding
If you own a manual-feed juicer like the REVO830 or EVO820, feed your ingredients slowly.
This allows the juicer to crush and squeeze each portion effectively. Overfeeding your juicer can lead to clogging and slow down the juicing process.
Also, alternate soft ingredients with hard ingredients. We recommend inserting a hard ingredient at the end of the juicing session to push through any remaining ingredients.
Watch how @munching_meals inserted a soft tomato followed by a hard carrot, feeding one piece at a time and waiting for the previous piece to finish processing before feeding more. In the end, the juice flowed smoothly!
Ingredient guides
We also have a few juicing guides for specific ingredients. Check out our juicing guides for celery, pineapple, leafy greens, root vegetables (ginger & turmeric), and watermelon!
5. How long does cold-pressed juice last?
Fresh juice kept at room temperature lasts up to 2 hours, and refrigerated juice lasts up to 3 days.
Frozen juice lasts up to 3 months—note to fill bottles halfway or two-thirds to accommodate liquid expansion during freezing.
Some also choose to vacuum seal their jars, which prevents further oxidation and may extend the juices’ shelf life. If you vacuum seal your jars, don’t fill them to the brim to prevent liquid from being drawn into the vacuum.
6. How often should I drink juice?
It depends. Everyone has different bodies and health needs. Please consult a doctor or nutritionist for health advice tailored to your body and needs.
Read our three general recommendations below.
Drink juice with meals
Typically, you have a beverage when eating meals. Why not replace your typical beverage with a glass of juice? Eating while drinking juice helps you meet your fiber intake while getting the nutrients from your juice.
Drink juice as a snack
If you tend to get hungry between meals, juice is a healthy alternative to traditional snacks! You’d be surprised how filling juice can be even without the insoluble fiber!
Drink 1 glass of juice a day
Don't start a juice fast or juice cleanse immediately! Your body may react negatively to the sudden change in diet. You can drink just one glass of juice daily to be consistent with your juice intake without overdoing it.
Hopefully, you find our tips helpful! As you gain more experience with juicing, you'll become more comfortable experimenting and drinking juice. Happy juicing!
