The Juicing Summit and juicy Giveaway

Last week, the city was absolute gridlock as President Obama was in town to address the UN. A little further west another meeting took place, a “summit” according to the invitation, to be more specific it was a Juicing Summit. Before we dismiss green juice as trivial compared to ISIS, I’ll point out that a conversation, sorry “summit”, about juicing does include discussion of climate change, organic farming, health and health care.

Edible Manhattan and Breville (have I told you lately that I love my Breville juicer?) organized panels on various juicing topics. In between each panel City Bakery provided juices. Here were some highlights:

• On the first panel the business of juicing was covered. Has juice peaked? Martin Bates (formerly at Pret now heading Organic Avenue) explained that OA is branching out becoming  a “food business that also sells juice”. Maury Rubin from City Bakery cautioned against companies who tried to stick to juice calling them “one note businesses” (remember Crumbs cupcakes?).
• Price is an issue that came up but it takes a lot of produce to make juice and produce prices have skyrocketed. We joked in the break that nobody is complaining that we spend $10 for another type of “evening” drink.
• Have you thought about which process your juice is made with? The gold (or “green”) standard is cold pressed, organic juice. Juices with a longer shelf life (Blueprint, Suja) use a process called HPP, which stands for high pressure processing. Some find HPP inferior others felt for travel or a necessity in order for juice to reach parts of the country without juice shops.
• There was some disagreement over shops selling bottled juices versus making a juice on the spot. I love the taste of freshly made juices. Maury from City Bakery put it well saying people “enjoy the theatre” of seeing their produce become juice in front of their eyes.  I couldn’t agree more.
• The trend also seems to be away from juice cleanses (can I get an amen?) toward the daily ritual of having a juice. Marcus Antebi (JuicePress) hates the word cleanse. He joked for a crack-head a cleanse is no crack. Crack cleanse the next juice cleanse?
• Max Goldberg (from Living Maxwell) and Latham Thomas (Mama Glow) discussed trends juice. These include probiotics in juices, juices geared toward men’s health (we love our dude food at Foodtrainers), juices as alcoholic mixers, juices for kids and also for fertility.
• If you’re not on the juicing bandwagon, Joe Cross ( of FatSick and Nearly Dead a great food docu with a sequel coming out this fall) explained that with our health there are those who dive in to a change and those who walk in. I loved that; I think it’s important to realize what style of change works best for you. I am more of a “walker” but some of my greatest discoveries have come from diving into change full force.
• Many brought up that juicing is inconvenient. I don’t buy the “it’s so hard to clean the juicer” after all so many of us clean a coffee pot without complaining. There are services like Farmivore geared toward encouraging people to juice at home. Farmivore makes juicing bundles and they’re worth checking out.
• And finally Max reminded us the USDA just approved more GMO crops. As we juice and hopefully think about our health we have to focus on bigger picture.

Inspiring information and juicing- this was a pretty terrific day.

And speaking of juicing, my RD colleague Danielle Omar recently wrote a book called Skinny Juices; we’re giving away a copy. To be eligible please

Comment below and tweet out a link to this post saying “Foodtrainers has a juicy #giveaway”

Enter by Friday; we’ll announce the winner next Monday.

Do you juice? How often? Do you make it at home or purchase it? How is your juice made?