'Green Machine' Trial

Since the Breville Juicer arrived today, I decided that it was a great time to try the actual 'Green Machine' recipe used by Joe Cross in the "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" documentary.  Joe drank it for 60 days and lost 100 lbs.  More importantly, I was dying to know how it tasted - because as you know, for me - taste is ultimately the difference between success and failure in this endeavor.

The recipe is simply what you see above in the first picture for this post:

• 6 Kale Leaves
• 1 Cucumber
• 4 Celery Stalks
• 2 Green Apples
• 1/2 Lemon
• 1 piece of ginger

All of this gets put through the juicer - cut up, but unpeeled, unseeded. I forgot the kale so I substituted with 6 Romaine leaves.

The Breville juicer is a pretty piece of appliance to be sure and it looks impressive and there is even an ad for Joe Cross' documentary on it in sticker form - OMG!!  Make sure you REMOVE the sticker before using...

Anyhoo ~ I added all the ingredients into the wide mouthed chute - cut into halves or chunks but not peeled or seeded.  It's a bit loud but literally as fast as I could put them down the feed chute, the produce was blasted into pure, silky liquid form with a slight froth on top.

Vibrant green and actually very pretty - pure smooth watery, juicy liquid - unlike the pulverized smoothie mixture of the NutriBullet or the stone-ground look of the Ninja blender.

The recipe makes about four cups and so I poured two 16 oz.glasses of the classic 'Green Machine' and we clinked glasses and gave it a taste.  Now for the review:

It is very smooth and it is pure extracted juice - no pulp, fiber, or tiny un-blended bits - perfectly smooth juice the consistency of water almost.

The taste is not overly sweet - it is a predominantly a citrusy, veggie-like taste - but not unpleasant at all.  I hesitate to describe it as 'grassy' because that description has such a negative, off-putting description for most people.  I could taste the sweet-tart of the apples, the bright flavor of the lemon and definitely the spiciness of the ginger - I put in too big of a chunk of ginger and it was spicier than I anticipated.  Not bad for me but some might find it overpowering.  In any case, it went down smoothly and I have to say, I liked it - I could drink it regularly with no complaints at all.

Once I cleaned up the juicer - which was the biggest job in all of this - I dried it and put it back together quickly, ready to use tomorrow.  This is a very cool and powerful juicer, but definitely an appliance for the home because of the cleanup.

The NutriBullet is perfect for the office since it is the easiest and quickest cleanup and the Ninja blender could be used in either place because it also is a very easy cleanup - but it does not blend the veg/fruit mixture smooth like a lump and chunk-free smoothie.  The NutriBullet does that perfectly.

I also downloaded a FREE app for my iPhone called the Weight Recorder: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weight-recorder/id416294111?mt=8 so that I can track my weight during the whole process - you enter your data (height, current weight, goal weight etc.,)  and then start adding your weigh-in weights and it creates a graph for you and tracks your progress to your goal.

The countdown to 

Friday, November 13, 2012 

has begun!!!