The Complete Book of Raw Food (5 page)

A heavy-duty blender, such as the Vita-Mix®, is required to turn hard vegetables such as beets and potatoes into smooth soups
.

Heavy-duty blender
(Vita-Mix®). Any standard household blender can make a smoothie, but turning raw sweet potatoes into an airy mousse requires something a bit more powerful. The Vita-Mix heavy-duty blender boasts a two-plus horsepower motor (that’s about the size of a small boat motor). A good blender can tackle some of the same jobs that a heavy-duty model can, but serious raw fooders invest in a high-powered blender. Manufacturers are creating less expensive blenders with plenty of horse power; for example, an Osterizer® ten speed blender retails for about $40—that’s one tenth the cost of a Vita-Mix®.

Dehydrator
(Excalibur®). A dehydrator adds significantly to your ability to create a large repertoire of raw food recipes. With a dehydrator you can warm foods on a cold day, make your own raw cookies, crackers, and burgers, prepare seasoned nuts and seeds for snacks, and make dried fruit slices and fruit leathers. For raw fooders, a model with a thermostat is best, as it allows the user to control the temperature. For more about using dehydrators, see
Chapter 5
.

With a dehydrator you can warm food on a cold day, prepare your own dried fruit, or make your own seasoned nuts and seeds
.

Coffee grinder
. No, coffee is not raw, but a coffee mill or grinder comes in handy for grinding dried herbs and dry nuts and seeds such as flax. It can also grind hot dried peppers, but remember to clean the machine afterward by grinding some flax seed. We don’t recommend using the same grinder to process coffee and other foods, as the flavors will intermingle. However, coffee grinders are fairly inexpensive, so it may be worth buying an additional machine.

Stovetop board
. While a stovetop board is far from essential, it can be handy if you reach the point at which your range top is no longer used for cooking. A board gives you more counter space for food preparation and covers the burner pans, which prevents food from falling into them. Larger home improvement stores sell pine boards that they’ll cut to size for you or you can buy a cutting board of the right size.

Food processor
(Cuisinart®). Food processors are handy for preparing all sorts of raw recipes. Most models have an “S” blade that lies low in the drum and is sharp enough to grind nuts, carrots, and many other foods.

Most food processors have an “S”-shaped blade that can chop or grind food
.

R
aw food preparation requires that you learn some simple techniques. Read over the recipes in
Part II
of this book and you’ll notice that some terms appear again and again: juicing, sprouting, soaking, dehydrating, and so on. In the next three chapters, you’ll learn these easy steps, and gain the skills you need to create fabulous, mouthwatering raw meals from scratch.

For raw fooders, and many other healthy-minded individuals, juice is a delicious treat, and juicing is an essential part of their daily routine. Why? Juices—vegetable and fruit—taste good. And drinking juice is an easy way to absorb lots of nutrients quickly and easily (would you rather eat 6 large carrots or drink 8 ounces of carrot juice?).

Beyond Juicing
. A new trend initiated by raw chef Victoria Boutenko is green smoothies. While juicing gives you all the minerals, enzymes and vitamins of raw fruits and vegetables, it does not give you the fiber. A high-powered blender such as the Vita-Mix®, started out with a little water, can process almost any types of greens. Look for new green smoothie ideas in the
recipe section
.

On the face of it, juicing seems pretty self-explanatory—produce goes in, juice comes out—right? Although
juicing
is easy, shopping for a juicer can be a little more tricky. Most people don’t initially realize how many
types
of juicers are available, and can become overwhelmed by the number of choices.

The kind of juicer you should choose depends on what you’ll be juicing. To help you decide which type is best for you, here’s an overview of the features of a few different types of juicers, courtesy of John Kohler of The Living and Raw Foods Marketplace (
www.living-foods.com
):

Centrifugal Juicers
are among the oldest design types. The produce goes into the top of the machine, and is pressed through a chute, where it hits a spinning shredder disc. The shredded produce goes into the strainer basket, where the force from its high speed spinning pushes out the juice, similar to how the spin cycle in a washing machine removes excess water from clothes. Because the pulp stays in the machine, however, this type of juicer can make only one or two quarts of juice at a time before it needs to be stopped and cleaned.
Example:
Acme Juicer.

Centrifugal Ejection Juicers
operate in much the same way as the centrifugal juicer detailed above, with one important difference: the sides of the centrifugal ejection juicer strainer basket are slanted, allowing it to be “self cleaning.” Simply put, this type of juicer expels pulp as it juices, usually into a collection bin or basket that can be lined with a plastic bag for easy cleanup. Both types of centrifugal juicers are good for juicing most fruits and vegetables, and the small size and ease of operation of many centrifugal ejection juicers make them ideal for older individuals or those with limited physical capabilities.
Example:
L’Equip Juicer.

Masticating Juicers
combine three operations into one. They first grate the produce, then masticate or “chew” the pulp to further break it down, and then mechanically press or squeeze the pulp to extract the juice. Masticating juicers do more than just juice: by using a blank plate to block the juice spout, you can use the juicer’s homogenizing function to make, among other items, tomato sauces, raw applesauce, and nut butters. If you assemble your juicer without a blank or a juicer screen, you can use it to grate or to make shaved ice. This type of juicer juices most types of vegetables well, with the exception of leafy greens. Because it
takes a little strength to feed the machine, this type of juicer is not recommended for people with physical limitations.
Example:
Champion Juicer.

Using a juicer is rather simple; fruits or vegetables go in one end and the juice comes out another. Pulp is forced out a separate nozzle
.

Not all juicers can handle greens, such as wheat grass, well. Twin-gear press juicers such as the Green Star shown on this page are best for the job
.

Manual press
juicers use pressure to squeeze juice from fruits and vegetables. This is a two-step process: First the produce must be shredded, and then it is juiced. Some more expensive juicers perform both steps, but if you want to save money, you can shred or grate the produce in a Champion juicer, then put it through a manual press. Pressing causes the least oxidation of the juice methods, and, because the liquid is strained through cotton or linen bags that can be washed and reused, it produces pulp-free juice. This type of juicer juices fruits (especially soft ones) better than the other juicer types.
Example:
Norwalk.

Single Auger
juicers crush the produce into the walls or screen of the juicer, extracting the juice. Because this type runs at a low RPM, there is little oxidation. Though single auger machines juice vegetables about as well as twin-gear juicers (see below), they are not as effective at juicing carrots. Additionally, it is not the best machine for juicing fruits, and the juices produced tend to be quite pulpy (a condition quickly remedied by pouring the juice through a juice bag).
Example:
Samson.