Part 1 of the Experiments in Weird Juicing Series
Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh
Published: January 18th 2017
I rarely cook with beets, and when I do, I wonder why I don’t use them more frequently. They are aromatic, tender, and nutty— and are delicious when roasted. Nothing special is needed to make them taste good— they do well as a dish on their own. If available, and in good quality, I’ll buy purple and golden beets. The color combination makes creates an appealing contrast, and they have complimentary, but slightly different tastes and textures. I prefer golden beets because they are sweeter, and they are easier to handle and prep are since they do not stain, but they are infrequently available. Recently, however, I was very lucky, and found bunches of very large roots of golden beets at my normal grocery store.
Since I always cook with them, I thought it would be interesting to experiment, and juice them instead. This was an excellent opportunity to make a change, and introduce some variety. Since I also had carrots, an old purple beet, and some ginger, slowly rotting in the refrigerator, I took the opportunity to use them all.
Purple beets produce a large quantity of juice, that is thick in consistency, like a shake, and slightly sweet. I expected the golden beets to have the same yield and consistency, only sweeter. Roots tend to be a good option for lazy juicing, and their density and weight indicates they contain more liquid. Every vegetable in this experiment is very good for quickly creating a large glass of fluid, even with no additional water, which is an option if you find the result to strong, or you need to extend what you have. I quickly learned which types yeild more liquid with less effort. Roots seem to be the most efficient for juicing, and are extremely nutritious, and the water content accounts for their density and weight. Golden beets should be an excellent option in terms of juice yeild, for the effort put in.
##Goals It is fun to simply cram vegetables through the juicer, and drink the result. But in general, simple experiences can be generative. Why learn less in the same period of time. We will do the following, quickly and easily:
This might seem like a lot, but really, all will be done by executing the mostly the same preparation steps.
That’s all. Only a little more complexity than apple or orange juice.
The purple beet is not so fresh. But perhaps that will improve the taste.
Normally I would include stalks, but they can add unanticipated flavors. For this occasion, I want to have a better chance of discriminating the taste of golden beets, so I know how to combine flavors in the future.
Part of the beauty of juicing, is you can extract and consume the best parts of the entire plant. In this case, I did not consume the entire beet including the stalks, so that I could descriminate the taste of the beets for the first time. Later I will consume the entire plant. And while much will become refuse, it should be understood that the produce has not been wasted. One simply predigests the material externally instead of internally. This is similar to the processing done with any plant like Corn (if one grew corn at home, one would not consume the plant in its entirety). The same is true with animal. While most of an animal can be made edible, people only choose to eat the choice portions and discard the rest. While othe rparts of the plant are worth eating at times, the fiber and other materials do not offer much in comparison to what is included in the juice.
Ingredient | Weight in grams |
---|---|
carrot | 151 |
golden beet | 559 |
purple beet | 129 |
ginger | 30 |
ingredients combined | 869 |
juice yeild | 453 |
refuse | 416 |
The total amount of refuse constituted 47.87% of the processed ingredients.
Juicer used: https://www.amazon.com/BLACK-DECKER-JE2200B-Vegetable-Extractor/dp/B003ZDNKSS/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1479082880&sr=1-1&keywords=juicer&refinements=p_89%3ABLACK%2BDECKER
Digital scale used:
Juicing calorie calculator, for estimating post-juicing nutrition: http://www.juicingcollection.com/juicing-calculator/
nutritiondata.self.com: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/3866373/2
usda nutrient data laboratory: https://fnic.nal.usda.gov/food-composition/usda-nutrient-data-laboratory
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