Juicers Getting Juiced

I blogged yesterday about my foray into Whole Foods to get a chair massage.  The setup in our store is that the massage chair is stationed in the back of the cafe seating.  Kind of in the corner.  Not bad, and you can have a coffee or juice while you wait your turn.

I ordered a mochacchino frappe while I waited.

The gal in line in front of me, ordered a Veggie Juice "With Everything".  By the time Nathan started mixing her juice, I had nabbed a stool where I could see the blender/juicer setup and watch the progress.  Now, first, a disclaimer:  I'm not a veggie juice drinker.  If I want some vegetables, I'll eat 'em.  That said, I couldn't take my eyes off the process.  Nathan was THRILLED that this guest wanted "Everything".

First thing he crammed into the industrial, stainless steel juicer was three long carrots.  Then he shoved in a bunch (greens and all) of three small beets.  Then he crammed in a handful each of spinach, wheat grass, kale and some other leafy green.  Four more carrots.  He flung in a teaspoon each of ground garlic and ground ginger.  Then he shoved in about six stalks of celery, four more carrots and some more greens.  What flowed out of the juicer pour spout was darkly rich and about 16 ounces of juice.

If you were following the action, what you will see is the same as I observed.  They used so many vegetables in that one juice portion, that I could have made a vegetable soup for 16.  I understand that some people drink juices to avoid eating the vegetables.  You get the vitamins and most of the phytochemicals, but you don't get any of the fiber.  You also don't burn any calories eating it like you would chewing and digesting celery (which is calorie negative for all practical purposes).

So, this woman wasted a ton of food so she could drink something to be 'healthy'.  The store had the leftovers falling into a 'green' waste can for recycling into someone's compost pile, but it was a lot of stuff that was not utilized in the making of that single serving of juice.

I wonder how many healthy things, or 'green' things that are done actually have some component of waste built into them?  I'm not picking on Whole Foods.  I'm sure that machine at Jamba Juice or Smoothie King is full of the waste product of the fruits also.  It just concerns me that one person is consuming so much and creating so much waste.  And for what?  Better digestion?  I don't get it.

If you understand the vegetable juicing craze, please explain it to me.

--Sandee Wagner