Success Story: Testing My Healthy Green Juice & Veggie Pulp Combo

Here is my story about how I developed my daily green juice and vegetable pulp combo recipe. What were some of my concerns and goals? And what results did I get?

This is the story about how I have now successfully integrated green juice and vegetable pulp into my daily life.

Drinking this juice is, of course, not a prerequisite for mastering Law of Attraction. But it IS a good example of a practical result of mastering the Law of Attraction.

For when getting real good at Law of Attraction, both the inspiration and the ideas start flowing. So even if we many times can get excellent new ideas, we are not always inspired to really act on them.

In this case, however, it was just something that more or less effortlessly established itself, without much resistance or second-guessing. In other words, it just happened, in a smooth and interesting way, in an atmosphere of happiness.

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

I don’t like cold drinks. Maybe it’s because I may be categorized as having a kapha-vaata constitution.

So whether we are talking about cold water, cold Coca-Cola, or cold tea, I am not into it. Sure, some days when it’s very hot, I can tolerate it. Otherwise, though, I am always drinking warm drinks, and eating warm food.

Fresh Vegetable Juice: “But It’s COLD!”

So although I always have thought that drinking fresh vegetable juice certainly is healthy, in principle, I have avoided it. Since it typically is presented as a COLD drink, I have never gravitated toward it.

But that has been an “incorrect” judgement that I have now revised. For why discard something that is filled with so much beneficial nutrition, just because it is cold? So I got the idea: “Why not make it NOT cold?”

The potential downside, of course, would be that if we heat it up we would also destroy some of the goodies in it. But we could live with that, if the percentage of “destroyed” nutrition components were relatively low. [notes 1-3]

And even if the goodies were, say, to be cut in half (50%), we still would be ingesting an enormous amount of beneficial molecules, compared to if we didn’t drink any such juice.

So it seems like a very promising project. But how should we proceed? What are the steps? And how do we “streamline” the process so that it doesn’t become too complex and tedious to do?

PART 2: QUESTIONS ALONG THE WAY

Here in Part 2 I am talking about some of the more important questions that I encountered during this project. What type of utensils and appliances should I be using? How should I get the best quality juice and pulp? And how should I think about the temperature of the juice in relation to the nutritional aspects?

Juicer or Blender?

So then I started researching the issue. I found out very early that many people are using dedicated juicers to make their juice. Actually, I even have one of those myself.

But the problem is not only that the machine needs a permanent physical spot that I currently don’t have; it’s also, more importantly, that the machine itself is made up of half a dozen of parts that all have to be cleaned, and dried, and reassembled, after each use. Therefore, I’m not very attracted to using a juicer. But are there any options?

Yes, we may be able to use a normal blender instead (and it doesn’t have to be an expensive VitaMix). So what if I run my vegetables in the blender first, and then just use a sieve to collect the pulp while the juice slowly drips into the bowl under it? And then use a big spoon (stainless steel or wood) just to press out more juice. Surely that must work?

What About the Froth?

After some testing, it did work, in a sense. But the juice was not perfect. For even though the “holes” in my sieve are quite small, there was some foam or froth with bubbles that added a feeling of “drinking air” when I tasted it. So something had to be done. For I would not force myself to drink something that felt so “airy”.

To correct this issue, I started searching for a solution. One day I found some organic cotton cloths that were intended to be used for cheese-making. And then I also saw others being labeled as “cooking” cloths and “bread-making” cloths and “straining” clots. So I bought a set of one of those cloths.

And when I later put that cloth into the sieve, then everything just started to work much better. Now I could use my big spoon and run it along the “wall” of the sieve to let more vegetable juice drip down into my bowl, just as I had done previously. But the difference was that there was now MUCH less foam and froth created.

In other words, my experiment succeed in terms of producing a liquid that could be regarded as “clean” juice, i.e., juice that wasn’t filled with so much bubbles and air.

How to Heat It Up?

The question now, though, was: how should I heat this up? How should I streamline this process so that it didn’t feel too cumbersome?

One thought was to limit any potential overheating of the juice. So one option would be to invest in some kind of temperature-controlled oven or similar, where I could set a given temperature (say, 50° C, or 122° F) and let the machine do the rest, and “beep me” after a certain period of time.

However, the issue with that is that then I would have would transfer the liquid from my big bowl first into some smaller container, so that I could actually place it in the oven. And such an oven, just like a juicing machine, also needs a place to be. And for those reasons I decided not to do it that way.

How Should I Collect the Juice?

The solution was to NOT use just any big bowl when collecting the juice. Rather, by using a stainless steel cooking pot instead, I could thus quickly move those 25 centimeters (10 inches) from my cutting board area (which is where I typically pour the juice from the blender into the sieve) to one of the heating elements on my stove.

But, as I discovered, you cannot have just any stainless steel cooking pot either. You have to have a TALL one. Why? Because the sieve has to be large enough to be able to process all the blended vegetables in ONE batch.

So since we are talking about a volume of around one liter (a quarter of a gallon), we need a sieve that can comfortably house that. And when we find a sieve that can accomplish such a volume, we will discover that it typically is quite “tall”, because of its spherical shape.

This means that, if the juice is going to be able freely drip down into our cooking pot, then the pot has to be substantially higher than the “height” of the sieve. So the bigger the volume of the sieve is, the taller the cooking pot has to be.

Another factor to consider is the diameter of the sieve in relation to the diameter of the pot. The cooking pot must naturally have a bigger diameter than the sieve does; otherwise, you may get vegetable juice that does NOT end up in the pot.

What’s the Right Temperature?

The “right” temperature of the juice is that temperature where you actually will drink it (and hopefully also enjoy it). Since some people enjoy cold drinks, such people could potentially just drink it cold, without having to heat up the juice at all.

For the rest of us, however, that is not an option. The only option is to heat it so that it becomes “doable” to drink it. For the aim is, of course, to develop a new, positive habit that in the long will be very beneficial for our overall health and well-being.

So the only question now is: Which temperature should the juice have when I drink it?

According to some research done at the University of California Davis, the range of “acceptable temperature” for coffee drinkers at coffee shops is around 68-70° C (154.4-158° F).

Now that’s for coffee of course, and may not be the same for green juice. But the general principle is the same: there is a certain “Goldilocks” range where the drink is more enjoyable.

So it’s up to you to decide where that is. Is it at 40° C (68° F) or 55° C (131° F) or even higher?.

I personally found that body-temperature juice (37° C, 98.6° F) was too cold for me. At the same time, as you can see in my notes about enzymes, I also found out that enzymes are extremely sensitive to heat. And that made me reconsider my heat preferences.

Because I mainly drink vegetable juice for its health benefits, I decided to adopt a 45° C (113° F) policy myself, so that most enzymes still are active. That way, I still get a little warmer juice than body temperature, but not so warm that it destroys all the enzymes.

In order for me to prepare my juice to my new preferred temperature, I am just putting my index finger into the green juice in the cooking pot. If the juice feels a few degrees warmer than my body temperature, I take it off. So it’s not that complicated. It’s just a matter of practicing.

Just Juice, or Pulp As Well?

Before I discuss my experiences with regular consumption of this green drink, we also have to remember that there’s more to the story. That is because I decided already from the start that I would use the pulp also. So the evaluation will be including my consumption of the pulp as well.

Similar decisions are not always seen in articles about making green juice. It seems that many just throw away the pulp. There may be several reasons for this.

One reason they may decide to do that is because they are using a dedicated juicer. In such a machine the efficiency will produce more juice, but at the same time also produce a drier pulp. And because the pulp is so dry, they may just decide not to use it for anything.

Another reason may be that they simply were after the juice in the first place, and were not interested any solid or half-solid foodstuffs. It could be, for example, that their “health theory” is that we should drink more, and eat less, in order to relieve our digestion system.

Whatever the case may be, I have decided to use the pulp myself. For my own “health theory” is that we need not just the minerals and the vitamins that are in the juice, but also other things.

What About Dietary Fiber?

One of those “other things” in vegetables that we need is dietary fiber. This is, according to many researchers, an established scientific fact.

The first thing, though, we need to point out is that whenever we, or the scientists, use the term “dietary fiber” (or “dietary fibre”, if in Britain) it has a “vegan only” or “plants only” meaning. Thus, “dietary fiber” is not about “muscle fiber” in meat or fish or poultry, etc. Rather, it is about the structural elements of plants.

This is how Denis Burkitt, a famous medical scientist, describes the idea of fiber (1980, p. 39):

As Burkitt points out, few nutrition scientists before him had pointed to the role of dietary fiber in relation to overall public health. So we might say that Burkitt was one of the main people who, in the 1970s and 1980s, popularized the idea that there was an inverse relationship between how much fiber we consume and how healthy (or, better, as disease-free) we are. [notes 4-6]

Thus, the idea was the following (Slavin 2002, p. 445a):

The tentative conclusion I am making here is therefore that vegetable fiber is very important for our health. In fact, it may very well be that the fiber is more important than the juice in terms of our longevity and continued well-being.

So by adding the pulp to our daily consumption of food, we get the best of both worlds: we get the minerals and vitamins and other nutritional goodies from the veggie juice, while we get the wholesome fiber from the pulp.

Therefore, by choosing to consume both the green juice and the green pulp, we maximize our chances of improving our health. And at the same time we save money. For if we had not consumed that pulp, we would have had to consume some other bulky thing to fill our stomach to get a feeling of “I’m satisfied”.

PART 3: THE MANY DIMENSIONS OF SUCCESS

Part 3 is dedicated to the topic of success. How did my two-week test turn out? In what ways may I consider this experiment a success?

Success: The Nutrition Quality

One dimension of my success is the nutrition quality. Although my initial requirement was that I wanted rather hot juice, my research about enzymes made me realize the enormous difference in enzyme activity between juice at 60° C (140° F) and 45° C (113° F).

And once I understood that difference, it wasn’t very hard to motivate myself to lower my “heat demands”. So I abandoned my initial taste-driven desire for something hotter and instead settled for something like 45° C, in order to really accelerate my health and well-being.

Success: The Taste and Texture

Another aspect of my success are my two “end products” (i.e., the green juice and the accompanying veggie pulp). For they really turned out well, both in terms of taste and texture. And the pulp was also moist enough to be added to various vegetable stews and other preparations.

Because I later decided to lower my “heat demands” in regard to the temperature of the juice, I actually now think that the lower temperature is better. For not only can I now enjoy more of its natural taste, but I can also drink it quicker without burning myself.

And speed is important, because various chemical processes are gradually “disabling” the nutrition quality of the fresh juice and the pulp, as time goes by. So they should be consumed as quickly as possible.

This is why I now typically make my green juice right before I cook one of my main meals. That way I can consume not only the green juice quickly (within three minutes or so after I have prepared it), but also eat the vegetable pulp within, say, 30 minutes of making it.

Success: The Inexpensive Production Process

Yet another dimension of the success is that the production process only needs relatively simple and inexpensive kitchen utensils and appliances.

So even though I used an inexpensive blender and a manual straining method, the results were still amazing.

Success: The Repeatable Production Process

I also regarded it as a success to see that the production process ended up being very straightforward and repeatable and “doable”. By that I mean that there are basically no major “stumbling blocks” that feel too exhausting or problematic to encounter.

In other words, the sequence of the process is simple enough that my mind cannot find any major objections to it (although minor objections naturally always present themselves anyway). It’s a perfectly logical sequence that produces an abundance of healthy food.

Success: The Bodily Effects

My general evaluation of this two-week experiment has been that I really feel better in my body, compared to before. It’s hard to put that general feeling into words, but perhaps I can say that I feel somewhat lighter and more alert.

One particular health aspect that definitely has improved is the gum health in my mouth. Before starting with this greens program, I sometimes felt as some parts of my gums were “swollen” or something like that. That feeling has now disappeared, and my gums now also visually look better than they have done in a long time.

Also a success is that I now can enjoy the power of raw vegetables without having to grind down my teeth at the same time. By my soft “pre-processed” vegetable pulp I can more easily chew my veggies without risking the health of my precious teeth.

Success: The Enjoyable Experience As a Whole

As if all the above dimensions of success weren’t enough, there is also the “totality” aspect of success to be considered. For this little experiment was NOT a rigorously planned scientific study. It was an experiment that gradually developed and morphed into a very palatable form.

And because it was more of an inspiration-driven process than an analytical-thinking-driven one, it become less cumbersome and problematic, and more interesting and enjoyable.

And that is, of course, the essence of the philosophy of the authorized version of Law of Attraction: it’s about discovery and the journey and the fun along the way, rather than the “accomplishment” of milestones and “end results”.

CONCLUSION

All in all, this was a fun experience! And I really think that I succeeded in many ways when developing this method. As described above, both the product itself and the production method turned out very well. So I am very happy about that.

Therefore, I will be staying on this Green Juice & Pulp program and start experimenting with different recipes, in order to get a range of varieties, so that I can mix things up and make it more tasty and interesting in different ways.

I am also in the midst of writing another article about my healthy green juice & veggie pulp combo. That article will be from the reader’s perspective, and will explain, in a step-by-step way, exactly what to do to produce a basic variant of this combo.

Hoping this meets you in excellent health and happiness!

Chris Bocay

NOTES

1. Some of the most heat-sensitive nutrients in vegetables are the enzymes. Although the optimal working temperature for enzymes is in the fermentation range (38-42° C or 100-108° F), already temperatures at around 45° C (113° F) can start to compromise their function. And by the time the temperature has reached 60° C (140° F) enzymes are more or less completely denatured. So if one believes that veggie enzymes are crucial to one’s health, one should never heat up one’s vegetables (whether they are raw, or in the form of juice or pulp) beyond the fermentation temperature range (cf. Davis 2010, pp. 216-217).
2. It is interesting to see that some raw foodists use a temperature of 47° C (116° F) instead of the fermentation range that I mention in note 1 above (Davidson 2013, p. 949b). This means that they in practice are allowing a substantial amount of degeneration of the enzymes, since enzymes start to break down already several degrees below that.
3. Enzymes are a type of proteins that speed up certain chemical reactions. And because they are essentially proteins, they also have “weak bonding interactions, such as hydrogen bonds” (Baynes and Dominiczak 1999, pp. 43-44). And because they thus can be considered to be “relatively unstable molecules”, an increase of temperature will also increase the denaturation of the enzyme; so at 50° C (122° F) an enzyme such as the alpha-amylase derived from the pancreas of pigs is more or less unusable for industrial purposes (Smith and Wood 1991, p. 96).
4. My point here is that being “disease free” may not be entirely synonymous to being healthy, especially if “healthy” also implies “happy”. For the absence of “serious” diseases may still leave a person with lots of small things that, when considered together, may be perceived as very irritating and annoying (especially for a person who is not yet mastering the Law of Attraction). So being “disease free” is not a sufficient condition for being healthy. What we can say, though, is that being “disease free” is a necessary condition for being healthy.
5. It is also interesting to see that, simultaneously with Burkitt’s “fiber” discovery, there was another essential discovery: “Omega-3s weren’t recognized as essential to the human diet until the 1980s” (Pollan 2008, p. 126).
6. What is the explanation for the effect that Burkitt saw? Well, there may be many. But one plausible story would be the one Udo Erasmus proposes: “Certain kinds of fiber: pectins, mucilages, and gums found in apples, potatoes, beets, carrots, okra, flax, beans, and oats tie up bile acids, cholesterol, and toxins, and carry them out of our body. They lower cholesterol levels and reduce our risk of cardiovascular disease. Other kinds of fiber help prevent constipation, weight gain, colon cancer, and gallstones. Some even increase glucose tolerance, which helps prevent hypoglycemia and diabetes (hyperglycemia)” (Erasmus 1993, pp. 400-401).

REFERENCES

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