I'm a little late to this juice revolution.
Everyone I know seems to be an evangelical NutriBullet convert, deliriously crushing and mushing up their five-a-day intake into one turbo-charged drink they can slurp down with gusto.
My social-media feeds seem full of images of these fruit and veg drinks, with one friend going so far as to lug her device on a recent campsite holiday to France. She figured it would help to counterbalance the ice cream and wine fest her holiday was likely to deliver.
Gym buddies all swear by their 'extractors', so I've joined the NutriBullet brigade. With an industrial charged motor, the nifty machine produces something between a juice and a smoothie. It's hardly revolutionary until you realise the device is, in essence, a nutrient extractor, breaking down everything from skins and rinds to stalks, nuts and seeds- you get to eat all the extra healthy stuff traditional juicers discard.
Experience has taught me that the manufacturer's recipe booklet is a safer bet than my own experimentation.
In the early days, I winged it, often producing green sludge that proved a chore to drink. Now I follow tried-and-tested recipes that deliver tasty, nutritious results.
Recently I picked up Green Drinks, a new book that's packed with 50 delicious ideas for healthy and refreshing drinks. A juicer and blender will work for all the recipes here, although I've had great success using my super-charged device.
Each recipe is packed with vitamins and minerals, including powdered superfoods like wheatgrass and chlorella, making it easy to get extra veg into your diet. The book is packed with nutrient-rich drinks to help tackle everything from fatigue and inflammation to weight loss and skin problems.
Recipes from 'Green Drinks' by Nicola Graimes, published by Ryland Peters & Small €14.50.NutriBullet, €119.00 from Argos, Brown Thomas and www.highstreettv.ie