If life gives you fruits, make fresh fruit juice

Fruit juices, however, are not exclusive to mornings. You can enjoy them at every hour of your day, in every meal, and at every age. But not without an added bonus: besides eating your “five a day”, you can make a difference in reducing food waste at home.

In fact, if you struggle with eating your five daily portions, or have it hard in convincing the kids to eat them, you can opt for turning your fruit and veggies into nutritious fruit juices. They’re more fun for children and more practical for those with a busy schedule.

Fruit juices practically make themselves. Some fruits are naturally juicy, like oranges, and other are creamier, like bananas. There are sweeter fruits and sour fruits. It’s like they’re asking to be turned into a delicious natural juice, don’t you think?

Check out some ideas to master the art of making delicious juices:

• Use fruit peels.

  Before peeling your fruits, wash them thoroughly in the sink, under running water. Once peeled, save the peels of your apples, pears, carrots, peaches – or other edible peels – to be used in juices.

• Use up your overripe fruits.

  To avoid letting your fruits rot or spoil, add the overripe fruit to your fruit juices. Both fruits and vegetables go – everything to avoid food waste.

• Combine sweet and sour fruits.

  This way you can avoid using sugar or sweeteners. If you still need some extra sweetness, opt for healthier ones, like honey.

• Use herbs.

  Herbs – the ones in your herb garden – are not only good to use in lunches and dinners. Try and make fruit juices with herbs such as mint, basil or fennel.

• Choose in-season fruits.

  This way you can ensure you are supporting local farmers and using fresh, local produce. Other option is to use frozen fruit and vegetables.

• Be creative.

  Have you ever thought of using cucumber, lettuce, squash, chia seeds, ginger, beets or flax seeds in a fresh fruit juice? Dare to! It will surely be delicious.

And because not only fruits have a spot in your natural juices, open your fridge and check which vegetables you can use in your healthy juice. The following fruit juice recipes are very easy to prepare; all you need is to gather the ingredients and blend them in your liquidiser or cooking robot.

Steps:

1. Peel the carrot and the squash, and chop both in small cubes.
2. Transfer the chopped carrot and squash to the liquidiser cup and add the thinly chopped ginger root.
3. Cut out the fennel leaves and the fibrous stems and slice the remainder of the bulb. Add the fennel slices to the carrot, squash and ginger.
4. Add your orange juice, three or four mint leaves, the flax seeds and the cold water, and blend everything.
5. Pour this juice in a glass and serve promptly.

Steps:

1. Peel the apple and remove the core. Cut it in thin wedges and put it in a bowl, drizzle it with the lemon juice.
2. Peel the carrot, slice it thinly and add it to the apple.
3. In a small pot, bring the water to a boil together with the mint bunch – keep some for decoration.
4. Once the water is boiling, pour it over the apple and carrot, and let it cool completely.
5. Peel the mango, chop it into small cubes, and place it in the liquidiser cup. Add the apple and carrot mix – infused water included – and blend until smooth.
6. Pour into glasses, add ice, decorate with some mint leaves and some orange slices and serve.

Steps:

1. Wash your carrots thoroughly (or peel them) and slice them into the liquidiser cup.
2. Peel the oranges, remove the seeds, and cut out all the pith.
3. Add the fennel seeds, the peeled ginger root, salt, pepper and the oranges to the carrots.
4. Blend everything until smooth. If needed, add a bit of water and blend again.

Steps:

1. Cut the beetroot in small cubes and put them into the liquidiser cup.
2. Peel the tomato, clean out the seeds and chop it.
3. Wash and slice the celery stalk, thinly chop the ginger root.
4. Add the tomato, the celery, the ginger, the raspberries and the water to the beetroot in the liquidiser, and blend well.
5. Pour into a nice glass and serve immediately.