ADVENTURES IN JUICING

I haven't told you about the rest of my annual physical. I had excellent readings and results in all categories. My cholesterol number was 169, which is good, especially since it's been as high 269. My blood pressure was 120/60. In the days following my physical, my blood pressure readings were even lower. My last six readings were 95/63, 99/62, 96/58, 92/65, 100/62 and 109/68. All these readings were developed without the aid of my blood pressure medication (lisinipril), because it lowered my readings to unacceptable levels, so I have now quit taking it.

Moving on, let me tell you about my juicer. I bought a standard Jack LaLanne model, and I'm very happy with it. I know Jack says you can juice a whole apple in it, but I prefer to quarter mine when I feed them to the juicer. After all, why create an unnecessary load on the juicer motor when you don't have to. I have also found that I can juice cherries by popping them into the juicer. It juices everything but the pits, so when I'm done, I just open the top of the juicer and take the pits out. When I juice other fruits that have a pit in the middle, like plums or apricots, I cut the fruit the way you would cut avocado (sometimnes I make a similar cut perpendicular to that cut, depending on the size of the fruit. Then I twist the fruit away from the pit and put it into the juicer.

As I said earlier in a different blog entry, I'm taking the fruit in a blended smoothie every day to raise my dairy and protein content. Here is a typical recipe:

Take one small carton of nonfat yogurt and add it to a blender. Next, add the following fruits to your juicer:

1-green apple
1-small carton of blueberries
1-bosq pear
6- or 7- large strawberries
1-handful of black or red grapes.

Take the juiced mixture and pour it into the blender. Pulse this mixture 25 to 30 times. Serve. (Serves two people).

Sometimes I will add other fruits, such as blackberries or raspberries, plums, grapes, apples and apricots.

Try it! You'll like it.

Until next time, this is THE JUICED AVENGER, signing off.