Cut Sodium with a Power Juicer

I love pitchmen. You know, the guys who stand up on a platform and demonstrate the wonders of slicers and dicers. They make it look so easy to slice those tomatoes, turn that potato into french fries, and saw right through those packages of frozen spinach.

The guy on the TV who sells the knives is really good. Even though I knew better I bought $45 dollars worth of knives. The pitch was great, the knives were . . . well, hardly worth the money. But there were a lot of them.

And then there is the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, which sells for about a hundred dollars on TV. Bought that too. And I like it! It really does work just like they show it on TV. It has a chute big enough to pop in a medium size tomato or an apple. It instantly turns celery, carrots, whatever you dump in, into juice and pulp. Drop in a couple of tomatoes, a stalk of celery, and a carrot and you have a great veggie drink. Now spice it up with a dash or two of your favorite hot sauce and you have a veggie drink that competes with that canned spicy V-8 I used to drink. The difference is that 5.5 ounces of V-8, has 290 mg of sodium. (50 mg of sodium/ounce). Your fresh Jack LaLanne Power Juicer drink, about 8 ounces has 100mg of sodium (12 mg of sodium/ounce).

Slight problem with the juicer, that Jack didn’t seem to know about, is that it is a bit awkward to clean. You have to take it apart and scoop out the pulp from several different parts. It’s going to take you at least 10 minutes of steady work to get the thing clean and dry. So far, seems worth it to me.

If you are shopping for a juicer, I’d recommend this one, if you can handle the somewhat tedious cleaning routine. Shouldn’t cost over a hundred dollars. If you have access to Costco, buy it there. ($99) If you don’t like it they will take it back no questions asked.