I often receive e-mails from juicing friends on tight time-schedules, asking me 'How can I store fresh juice?' or 'Will I lose some of the benefits of juicing if I store the juice in the freezer?' Many folks find it tough to go through the whole juicing process on a daily basis.
Some people need to take juice to work. Some want to make extra and freeze it for use over a period of time.
To tell you the truth, I myself used the freezer for juice storage when we first started to prepare juicing recipes! However, that didn't last long. It simply affected the quality of the juice to such an extent, that I decided that fresh is best. It didn't look good or taste good after time in the freezer. So, I soon learned how to make vegetable juice daily and it has now become second nature.
One of the main reasons for juicing is to gain access to the maximum amount of nutrients. The minute the vegetable juicing recipe has been prepared, your juice starts to lose some of its nutrient punch. Nutrients such as vitamins and live enzymes react to exposure to light, oxygen, heat, etc., degenerating quickly.
Remember that most juicers, especially centrifugal machines, produce heat during the juicing process. Machines such as twin gear juicers are better when it comes to this. The lower the rpm's of the machine, the better if you want to reduce heat production.
If you do have to store juice, there are things you can do to improve your results. Let's run through them quickly.
10 Easy Tips For Storing Freshly Made Vegetable Juice
- Try to use a glass bottle with a wide mouth for safety and ease of cleaning. This may of course not be a suitable option if you plan to freeze the juice.
- Don't store the juice for longer than a day. The sooner you drink it, the better.
- Fill the bottle right to the top. There can even be some overflow. The idea is to make sure that you get rid of as much of the air as possible. This is one way to reduce oxidization - one of the most damaging factors.
- For even better results, you can use special vacuum food storage containers or a vacuum sealing pump to get rid of air completely. One example of this is the NutriVac Manual Vacuum Sealer. These can be highly effective and are fully hand operated.
- Make sure that the lid you are using, seals tightly.
- Wrap the container in aluminum foil to keep light exposure to a minimum.
- Always add some lemon to juice you are planning to store. This will help to preserve the juice.
- The colder you can keep the storage jars and the fruits and veggies, the better. This also means that you need to get the juice into the refrigerator as soon as possible.
- Don't freeze the juice if you can help it. This really doesn't produce good results and you will lose much of the benefit.
- The shorter the duration of the storage, the better and the more nutrients will be retained.
In the end, I guess it is better to drink stored veggie juice than no juice at all! But, to get true value for money and to experience all the health benefits of juicing, fresh is absolutely best. Once you have learned how to make vegetable juice daily, you will not look back!
