Juicing Dilemma

In trying to live our lives in a more traditional way; going back to the land, gardening, raising some of our own animals for eggs and meat, learning sustainable practices, using organic practices, and other such things. We have recently been watching quite a few documentaries. One in particular had really gotten me thinking during this last pregnancy. Having Gestational Diabetes and being older with a possibility of staying diabetic and having to deal with the cost of testing, testing supplies, trips to the doctors, daily insulin injections, etc. was/is very unappealing to me. 

So back to the documentary; one night we came across Fat, Sick, And Nearly Dead. It follows Joe Cross who is on a quest to reverse the toll that years of eating unhealthy, process laden, fast foods. Being nervous about the outcome of this pregnancy and being really careful of  foods that I ate so that my blood sugar numbers stayed in control, this film inspired me to look further. Matt and I began juicing and are continuing to juice along with adding lots more fresh healthy vegetables into our diet and backing off on the meats and unhealthy processed foods. In the last month this new diet change has really been beneficial. We are not exactly following Joe's extreme measures of drinking juice only for a month, we are eating meals and drinking juice to replace some, but anyway, I have been losing quite a bit of extra weight and feeling quite a bit better.

So what is the Juicing Dilemma you might ask? Well, what do you do with all the vegetable matter that is "wasted". That is one thing that I have always absolutely hated about juicing all the rest of the fruit and vegetables just get thrown out and some of that is very good.

Ideas for what's left:

1) Feed the Chickens-That way you know that you are still getting benefits from the left overs with great healthy eggs and chickens.

2) Compost- Feed the soil so it can feed our vegetables.

3) Eat it! - Eat it-wait didn't you just take it out of the juice to drink it why would you now want to eat it. Well at least turn it into something else so that is isn't completely wasted. Apples/pears: Apple/pear muffins, apple/pear cake, apple/pear butter, add it to oatmeal. Carrots: Carrot cake, Carrot muffins, add to soups, tomato sauce. 

That being said, I am making pear butter today, because I had to quickly juice and freeze pears that ripened too quickly. Not ideal, because the fresher the juice the more beneficial, but it had to be done. Now there is lots of pear leftovers. The chickens have already gotten lots of pieces and the cores, and I am relatively happy because I didn't waste the pear that was left.