The Juice Generation

January 6, 2014
Whether or not Eric Helms's, the founder of the chain Juice Generation, claim that "for too long, a daily juicing habit has seemed out of reachâa complicated luxury that only devout yogis and the charmed elite manage to pull off" is true, this attractive collection of over 100 healthy libations aims to bring juicing to the masses. Juicing is a relatively simple concept: add a handful of healthy ingredients, hit "blend" and you're done, and that's the fundamental issue with the book. Virtually all of his recipes for over 100 juice blends and smoothies can be summed up in just a few sentences. Once the ingredients for the "Citrus Super C" (pineapple, grapefruit, oranges, and mint), "Collard Cooler" (collards, green apple, cucumber, celery, lemon and lime) or "Island Blue" (the water and meat of a coconut blended with an ounce of blue green algae) are relayed to the reader, there isn't all that much else to say. Helms and coauthor Greevan attempt to circumvent this with lots of photos, lengthy examinations of pressed versus cold-pressed juice, digressions on key ingredients like kale, hemp seeds, and Himalayan sea salt, and celebrity endorsements from the likes of Edward Norton and Katie Couric. It's a perfectly acceptable, but enthusiasts will likely find themselves skimming from combination to combination rather than reading it cover to cover. Color photos.