What I Eat Now - Fruits

ER, a friend who had stage 4 breast cancer advised me to start consuming more juice.

The Why
... I'll try to add the links that I came across while researching

The Fruits
Juicing fruits meant I needed more fruits. We used to have cut fruits after dinner and occasionally smoothies on weekends. With juicing, I'd need to buy more fruits and that's when I started scouting around for fruits delivery. Figured that we would have to cart more fruits from the shops nearby else have them delivered. I didn't consider organic fruits (which has delivery starting at $25) due to high cost. So we had KSY deliver fruits to us at $80 per delivery. We've had 3 deliveries so far and the main grouse I have is that they sent 1 rotten fragrant pear. Else, the fruit selection is great - we had

• premium South Korean strawberries that are really sweet
• Australian mango, with it's smooth and creamy thick flesh with that tangy taste
• crunchy cantaloupe with rich orange colour and lots of juice
• Thai red jumbu that are sweet and juicy
  
• Thai coconuts (first order had 2, second had 5, third had 10... need I say more?)
  

Thank God for fruits!

ps: a note about buying beetroot. Inorganic beetroot that I've bought ranged from S$4/kg at Carrefour to S$2.30 from KSY. NTUC sells them at $2.60 and they have the same sticker as the ones in Carrefour. My Indian shop sells it at S$2.80 and market at $2.50. Fruit shop sells $3.50. I don't know why there is such a wide range. Just thought I'd list the places that sell beetroot.

The Juicer
I bought the Philips juicer in 2006 during the warehouse sale. The one that you can pop the whole green apple in without cutting it up. We used this for a while, kids helping me juice, throwing this and that down the chute. This went on till I chanced upon a book on wheatgrass.

This was when I realised the difference between a centrifugal juicer and a masticating juicer.

For all it's worth (about S$200+ now), the Philips juicer can't juice wheatgrass.

I wanted to buy a masticating juice but balked at the price. Cheapest I came across was S$395. I went to buy a manual one at S$39.90 instead. After I bought this from Nature's Glory at Tan Boon Liat building, I realised that it was the same thing as those sold at juice counters and 10 cents cheaper. Oh well :-)

So we used the manual one. It juiced wheatgrass great! Wheatgrass doesn't taste great though but that may be 'cos I've not acquired the taste for it. It starts with a vege taste followed by sweetness (very!) and then by a taste that is like when you suck the suanmei (sour plum) for a long time. I read somewhere to start with a little then build up. Well, I bought a 100g pack of wheatgrass at S$2.50 and juiced half a packet to get about 20-30ml and that took me a few minutes to down it all. Like I said, acquired taste :-)

We tried beetroot on the juicer, and it was so squawky that we named the juicer Squeaky. Squeaky performed well though the plastic rotary handle was straining when it was beetroot. I tried it once for celery and it was straining too. That was when I reconsidered the electric masticating juicer.

With Christmas just round the corner, I bought myself a Samson GB-9001.

The Juices
These are what we tried

• beetroot + apple + pear (my kids drank this. Yup, Toby who doesn't drink barley and doesn't eat any fruit except apple, grape or banana, drank this and finished his cup faster than Tiffy)
• beetroot + apple + pear + jumbu (sweet!)
• beetroot + wheatgrass + apple + pear (sweet!)
• beetroot + grape + apple (sweet!)
  
• wheatgrass (acquired taste)
  
• cabbage + carrot (acquired taste - has this aftertaste that is... well, different. I added an apple today to downplay this taste. There's some talk about not mixing fruits and vege. I'll get to that when I get to that. )
  
• sprouts (acquired taste)
  

Cutting up the beetroot will give you what Toby calls beetroot hands due to the stain from the root which will also give the juice a rich Ribena colour. It won't wash off immediately but will fade. Mixing an apple and pear in will sweeten the beetroot juice. Occasionally I'd dilute with some water as the juices are very sweet.