Fresh Green Juice

This morning started early for us with our usual trip to the farmers’ market. It seemed as though half the city is on their sailboat or at their beach house. We were a little later than normal this morning and there were fewer people at the market. That just meant more stuff for us literally. Today we brought home the following: collards, kale, oyster mushrooms, ginger, beets, cucumbers, zucchini (regular, yellow and Italian), cantaloupe, tomatoes, blueberries and corn. Sometimes I just don’t know when to stop. ;-)

When we got home I wanted to make an all green juice. Normally I add carrot and apple to provide sweetness for Dan but today I wanted something different. I really enjoyed this juice, but Dan thought it was perhaps a bit “too healthy”, though he did drink his portion. This may become my new juice, I liked it that much. Here is what I made:

Fresh Green Juice
Makes 3 servings

Ingredients:

4 cups cucumber (1 enormous cucumber)
4 leaves kale stems included (I used red kale)
1/3 pound raw spinach
1 lemon
2 stalks celery

Directions:

Run all the items through the juicer and serve with ice.

Nutrition Information (for 1/3 of the recipe):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 67.21
Calories From Fat (11%) - 7.57

Total Fat-  0.95g
Saturated Fat - 0.12g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 87.65mg
Potassium - 852.27mg
Total Carbohydrates - 14.87g
Fiber - 0.00g **
Sugar - 3.21g
Protein - 4.6g

** I manually changed this to zero

Comments:

To me this tastes mostly of lemon with a little “grassy” undertone from the greens. I found this to be refreshing, but as I said earlier Dan was less enthusiastic. He definitely prefers his fresh vegetable juice when I add carrot and apple. However if you like lemon you may want to give this a try. It would probably be good with a little stevia if you prefer sweet things.

The nutrition for this was quite good, especially given the few calories it has. Each serving contains approximately 11,850IU of vitamin A, 100mg of vitamin C, 170mg of calcium, 2.8mg of iron, 145mcg of folate, 630mcg of vitamin K, 100mg of phosphorus, and 80mg of magnesium. I chatted with my nutritionist friend about the nutrition value of juice compared to the whole vegetable. Apparently other than fiber the nutrition remains basically intact which I thought was great to know.

Unrelated note:

Today for lunch with my parents I have decided to make something that may appeal more to my less than healthy mother. Only time will tell if my attempt will be successful, LOL. I am making a lemony chick pea mash with cumin carrots. We will have a green salad with the lemon tahini dressing. I have not decided what else yet. I will be back later to share what I end up making.

I hope everyone is having a great 4th of July.