The Growing Popularity Of Green Juices

The Green Juice Craze Continues

The green juice market has clearly exploded! Green bottles seem to be everywhere, from supermarkets to malls and beyond. Whether it’s a green juice or a green smoothie, the evidence is clear that there currently exists a strong market for conveniently packaged bottles of raw and organic green produce.

A July 2012 article in Barron’s discussed just how quickly the green juice craze is becoming a big business. Huge companies like Campbell Soup, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are getting into the juice game, snatching up the juice brands Bolthouse Farms, Naked and Odwalla, respectively. Even Starbucks bought Evolution Fresh cold-pressed juices and opened up some Evolution Fresh stores on the west coast. This is all good news to me! Clearly, people want to embrace their health by recognizing the value of consuming fruits and veggies, as opposed to fast food burgers and french fries.

Although I prefer to make my own green juices with my Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, I do sometimes opt to take the easy way out with the ready-made stuff. My favorite bottled green juices come from the brands BluePrint and Organic Avenue. However, while shopping in Trader Joe’s yesterday, I spotted these…

Trader Joe’s Very Green 100% Juice Smoothie And Trader Joe’s Green Plant Juice

Although the fruits and vegetables in these Trader Joe’s green juice blends are not organic, they are made with a wide variety of healthy ingredients including spirulina. They are really delicious too and are definitely worth a try if you happen to be shopping in Trader Joe’s.

If you are interested in making your own green juices and/or smoothies at home, please consider my simple vegetable juice and blueberry banana kale smoothie recipes. Better yet, consider these 5 simple green juice recipes which were recently posted on the website of Equinox Fitness.

Joulebody’s Green Juice

1 cup leafy greens (ie. kale, Swiss chard, collard)

1 cup green grapes

1/2 cup apple juice

1 teaspoon maca

1 teaspoon chia seeds

1/2 cup water

*Put all ingredients in juicer; add maca and chia for protein and fiber.

Cooler Cleanse’s Essential Green Juice

Handful of spinach

2 medium stalks celery

Small handful parsley, long stems removed

3 medium stalks kale

2 Bartlett pears

1 lemon, cut and peeled

1 cucumber

*Process all the ingredients through the juicer. Run any wet pulp back through the juicer. Scrape off the foam and serve over ice. For variation, add dandelion greens or watercress.

One Lucky Duck’s Thai Green Tea

6 to 8 large leaves kale, collards, swiss chard, or a combination

1 small bunch cilantro

1/4 medium pineapple

2 limes, outer peel cut away and discarded

*Run all ingredients through a juicer.

Celeb Nutritionist Kimberly Snyder’s Glowing Green Juice

1 bunch kale

2-3 celery stalks

1 apple

Juice of 1 small lemon

*Run all ingredients through a juicer.