From Decorating to Juicing

This is a bit of a departure, but since it has to do with our home, I figured I'd just put it out there. Our Juicer arrived today! We got  the Champion Commercial and after one use, I love it. We settled on Champion for two reasons: first, they are American made by a family owned company and second, the motors are warranted for 10 years. We figured if they'd stand behind their workmanship for a decade, it had to be a pretty good product. We ordered it from Harvest Essentials. I should note that I am not in any way being compensated for this post by Champion, Harvest Essentials, or anyone else. Harvest Essentials simply had the juicer we wanted for the lowest price we could find. There are prettier juicers out there, but here it is:

Source: google.com via Justina on Pinterest

Not sure why, but the promo shots always look brown, even though it is definitely black!

A little background: my husband has a chronic condition that he sustained during military service. A large part of managing his condition is nutrition. He's a very private person, so I'll leave it at that. Let's just say that the old adage "you are what you eat" really applies in our household. Though we probably eat better than average, we were still really deficient in the fruits/veggies area. We thought long and hard before we made the purchase, but I'm so happy we did. For our first batch of juice, we used 3 oranges, 2 small apples, a lime, and a half pineapple. The resulting 4 cups of juice was thick and almost creamy. We thinned it down with water, half and half, to get the thickness more in line with what we know as "juice," essentially producing 4 servings. The taste was incredible and nowhere near the level of acid found in commercial juice. For me, the best part is that with one single glass of juice,  I'd successfully gotten my husband to consume almost a full days' worth of fresh produce. We plan to experiment with a different attachment tomorrow...we'll make smoothies as a meal replacer. Incidentally, our toddler loved the juice, too. I must say that I feel really good about offering her fresh, homemade juice instead of just poking a plastic straw into a juice box.

Our next purchase is going to be a food dehydrator. Our on-the-go type snacks could be better and we plan to start making banana chips and fruit leathers for the kids to munch in the car or on busy afternoons. I've also begun keeping a small notebook with with entries detailing our progress and the husband's condition. I was inspired to do this by Kristi and Matt of Deflate the Mate. Their story is truly inspiring and they also have recipe ideas, etc. Check them out! If you have any questions about our juicer, just drop me a comment and I'll be happy to answer :)