My younger brother had a major medical scare and was in the hospital for about two weeks — about eight days of which was spent in the ICU fighting for his life. He’s out of the hospital now and is following the doctor’s orders in the hopes that his heart can get back to 100% health.
While I have lost some weight and have been exercising at least semi-regularly in the past year, the fact that he’s two years younger, has significantly less body fat, doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink alcohol has made me think I need to do a little more with regard to keeping my heart healthy.
One of the things I’ve decided to do is start juicing again — not steroids, but making and drinking vegetable and fruit juices. I had done this in at times in the past, but it had always been too much of a hassle to maintain. I had one of those Jack Lalanne’s Power Juicers based off of the centrifugal style and while it got the job done, it was a bitch to clean, was super noisy and seemed to waste a lot of vegetables when juiced.
Since this is something I’m hoping to stick to for more than a few days, I figured I’d do some research to see if there was a better way. What I found is that there are these newer “slow” masticating juicers that handle juicing greens a lot better, are significantly less noisy and are much easier to clean. As these were my main issues with my current juicer, I was over-joyed to learn this and decided to figure out a good slow juicer to pick up.
After reading several top 10 lists, I opted to go with the Omega VRT350 because it was well-reviewed, didn’t come with a $1,000+ price tag and its vertical style meant it wouldn’t take up too much counter space. It came in today and after trying a few different juice combos, I must say that I’m absolutely in love with it. The clean up was super easy, there was almost no noise, and I was able to get about five times more juice out of the vegetables and fruits that I used in comparison to what I had been getting from the centrifugal juice. It was every bit as advertised and more.
At $379.99, it’s quite a bit more expensive than the juicer I will be throwing out tomorrow, but the extra price looks like it’ll be well worth it — particularly as I will be able to spend a lot less on the leafy greens like spinach, kale and swiss chard to get the same amount of juice. Plus, while I obviously can’t verify it, the masticating method is supposed to deliver more of the important enzymes and nutrients since there’s less heat in the process, so I’ll be drinking a much healthier juice.
The only negative I’ve found so far is that since the hole is smaller on this unit, you have to cut up the fruits and vegetables that you user more than in my other juicer. I’m also currently unsure if it handles the skins that well and there are warnings about seeds, which I didn’t have to worry about before. Nevertheless, I’m extremely happy about my purchase and would recommend the Omega VRT350 to anyone looking for a high-quality juicer.
There was a time when I could drink alcohol every night and never get a hangover. I could lift weights like crazy and would only get the normal soreness. But now that I’m approaching 40, things are changing. After drinking for three straight days, I tend to start getting hearth burn and will get hungover. And now when I lift heavy, my joints ache like Hell. It sucks.
