About a year ago I started my juicing journey, I purchased this dandy juicer from Breville (Breville BJE510XL) and made the habit of having freshly juiced organic produce be the first thing I put in my body every morning. I love the effects and the crisp, sustainable energy it provides throughout the day but it didn’t take me long to realize:

Juicing can be both expensive and time consuming!

WHICH METHOD OF JUICING IS BEST?

I’m all about saving $$$ and time (old habits) so thus began my quest to find the most efficient and cost effective juicing solution for my specific needs.

There are 2 primary ways to get fresh juice:

1) make it yourself at home using a juicer that separates the water components from the fibrous part of the fruits and vegetables
2) go to health food store and have them make it for you

You probably know that I’m a huge fan of organic, but for the sake of being redundant please note that all of my research focused heavily on organic options.

WHICH METHOD OF JUICING IS BEST TO SAVE TIME?

To get an accurate analysis I first tracked the exact amount of time and cost it took to create 5 separate 16oz juices that I could make at home throughout the week. I went to the farmer’s market and purchased tons of organic produce. From there I went home and cleaned everything at one time to cut down on the prep time later. Once all the produce was cleaned I split it into 5 separate bags that I could grab from the fridge when I was ready, quickly cut up and toss in the juicer. This initial prep time took 15 minutes.

Once the bags were prepared and I was ready to make a juice it took 15 minutes from first cutting the produce to washing the last piece of the juicer. (side note: I recommend keeping the fruit and veggies whole until right before you are ready to juice them. Cutting in advance kills the nutrients and all the good stuff inside). The financial cost for me to make 16 ounces of fresh organic juice was approximately $5.40, this will vary slightly depending on the amount and types of produce you elect to use.

The only viable alternative I found for juicing at home is going direct to a health food store that makes fresh juices

After calculating what it cost me to make 16 ounces of juice at home I went to 3 different stores to compare the cost. I also spoke with the staff at each store to confirm if the produce used was indeed organic.

1)     Whole Foods – $7 for a 16oz juice!! To soften that blow at least they did confirm all the ingredients were organic at that particular location. (***Not all Whole Foods locations are organic. The particular one I went to happened to be but every Whole Foods is different so I recommend speaking with a representative at the location first.)

2)     Mother’s Market – $4.75 for a 16 oz juice. The juice bar at Mother’s is a loss leader, meaning they purposely lose money on the juice to encourage people into the store to buy groceries. The juice tastes amazing and they have custom menu cards you can fill out to create an almost unlimited amount of unique juice blends. They were able to confirm they almost always use organic, very rarely they will run out of something and will have to use conventional, but mostly all the juices at Mother’s are made with all organic produce.

3)     Nektar – $4.75 for a 16 oz juice. NOT organic, no way hose A. 😉 I cannot confirm this but my impression was they used commercial apple juice as filler because the taste was WAY too sweet.

A lot of people ask me about the pre-juiced bottled alternatives at the store, bad news guys, but these are going to do more harm than good.

Sorry to say but NO juice that is commercially made is good for you.

All of it is processed, has tons of preservatives and most of the fruits and veggies that were originally used had all of the nutrients effectively killed as a result of the heat pasteurization. There is no nutritional offering, if anything it will just spike your insulin, make you gain weight and you’ll crash shortly thereafter because of the insulin response.

Naked Juice recently settled a massive class action lawsuit for misleadingly labeling their juices as “all natural” when in fact they contain enough GMOs to keep Vanna White busy for the rest of her career.

If you happened to drink a Naked Juice anytime between Sept. 2007 – August 2013 you may be entitled to $75 in deception damages, true story………..

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/08/29/naked-juice-refund

I myself submitted a claim because once upon a time before I knew better, I was duped into buying it on the go because of it's proclaimed nutritional offerings.

The following article blew my MIND when I read it the first time, it explains HOW juice from concentrate is made and WHY juice always tastes the same and the MANY reasons why it serves up nothing but a dose of DIABETES.

http://www.healthytimesblog.com/2011/08/the-secret-ingredient-in-orange-juice-is-not-orange/

I could provide countless more articles to back this up but I won’t overwhelm you. Suffice it to say bottled juices, vitamin waters or any other pasteurized / processed concoctions have NO place in the kitchen of a wellness warrior.

After all my research I actually made the decision to stop making juice at home every morning and start going to Mother’s more often. This is what works for me because my schedule is so hectic, I’m on the go a lot anyways and the time I invest in preparing the juice would be better spent researching new ideas for you guys and assisting my clients versus spending that time cleaning a juicer.

This is going to vary for everyone based on the proximity of a juice bar, personal schedules and also the amount of people you have to feed. If you’re making juice for 4 family members it undoubtedly makes sense to prepare the juice in bulk at home. At the end of the day the best juicing is the juicing that works for you! I took a lot of time to research this data and wanted to empower you with these tools so you can make that decision for yourself.

Juice it up Wellness Warriors!