Preparing Fruit for Juicing

Preparing your fruits and vegetables correctly before juicing is very important. If you don’t, you can not only end up with unpleasant bits of rind, skin, pit or pulp in your juice but in the worst case scenario, you could damage your juicer as well.

That’s why it’s important to take the time to do just a few simple things to make sure you are preparing your fruits and vegetable correctly before putting them through your juicer.

Now of course something to remember is that some of this depends on what sort of juicer you have. If you have a less powerful juicer, you will probably need to do much more preparation ahead of time.

These directions are based on using a Breville juicer, which is what I have experience with. It’s quite fast and simple to prepare your fruits and vegetables if you have a Breville, because they are such powerful juicers, and also because they all have an extra-wide juicer mouth that allows for entire fruits and vegetables (depending on size, of course) to be put in whole.

 3 Basic Rules for Preparing Fruits and Vegetables

  • If it won’t fit in your juicer mouth easily, cut it in smaller pieces–don’t try to force it
  • Remove prior to juicing anything that you would not consider eating (exceptions are apple cores and seeds of any fruit, which your juicer will extract), including peel, rind, green tops of vegetables, etc.
  • Wash your fruits and vegetables carefully before juicing. If you are not using organic, I recommend using a simple produce wash that helps remove wax and traces of pesticides–particularly important if you are doing a juice fast or detoxification

Preparing Fruit

Citrus Fruit, Melon, Pineapple, Dragon Fruit, Papaya, Mango or Any Fruit with a Hard Rind

Now of course for an fruit that has a thick skin, peel, rind or whatever you want to call it, you must remove this prior to juicing. Peel your lemons, orange, grapefruits and lime, and remove the rind from pineapples, cantaloupe, and all kinds of melons.

Berries

Remove green tops of strawberries, anything else is fine the way it is

Cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, mangoes, papaya, pineapple and any other fruit with a pit or stone

Any fruit that has a pit or stone at its centre must be pitted before using your juicer. The only exception is cherries,the pits of  which are small enough that they may not harm your juicer (only if you have a powerful, high-quality juicer–still, proceed with caution and test out your juicing first by putting in a single cherry initially).

So cut your fruit in half, remove the stone or pit (with mangoes and pineapple, slice off edible flesh) and then proceed

Apples and Bananas

The two most common fruits that Westerners tend to have in their fridges need separate notes of explanation.

Bananas, frankly do not lend themselves well to juicing. They are too fleshy and contain too much starch and have a much lower water content than most other fruits. If you choose to juice them you will not get much out of them, as most of the fruit will probably end up getting filtered into your pulp basket as it will be too thick to go through the juice processor.

Apples are a juicers best friend. They have a high water content and are very sweet but do not have a lot of flavour of their own. Thus they lend themselves well to almost any recipes where you need a touch of sweetness and a little extra liquid.

The other great thing about apples is that beyond washing, they require little to no preparation. If your juicer has a wide mouth you may be able to put your apples in whole, if they are on the small side, and you do not have to peel or core apples.  You can simply wash them, cut them in half if they are too large, and pop them into your juicer.

I recommend that you keep quite a large supply of apples on hand initially when you begin juicing.