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101 Fantastic Juices and Smoothies
by Natalie Savona
Thunder Bay Press
ISBN 1-59223-547-6
Published March 2006 - Hard (fan) - 108 pages - $9.95

A fun book which is wipe-clean and spreads out like a fan.  Great for easy selection of juces, if not a little awkward to handle at first.  The contents include four sections: fruit juices, vegetable juices, smoothies, and quenchers.  A quencher, for anyone not familiar (as was I), is a "variation on a juice or smoothie that includes ingredients such as frozen fruit, ice, or sparkling water".  You can start off with a blender, as most kitchens have one, then you'll need a citrus press (about +$20) and a juice extractor which can be pricey - you want to get a good one though.  Some of the recipes that appealed to me are: Surprising Sweeties (grapefruit, melon, and peach); Gentle Raspberry (raspberries, pears, and cucumber); Thicker than Water (cherries, apples, and beet); Easy Morning (carrots, apple, orange, celery, and ginger root); Mango Blues (mangoes, blueberries, lime, and apple); Papaya Salad (papaya, pineapple, watermelon, banana, pineapple juice), and Mango Crush (mangoes, oranges, lime, and apple) - yum, yum.  Each recipes makes enough for two, unless otherwise indicated.  What a way to start the day!  Best of all, you're doing your body the world of good - apart from the goodness from the fruit and veg, you're building your immunity, aiding your digestion, helping your body detox itself, and your skin will benefit too.  How easy is that!  There are instructions on how to store your juices and smoothies, how to prepare them, and a nutritional chart which is extremely useful when choosing which concoction you'd like.  You also get a rating for its energy-boosting, detoxing, and immunity-boosting properties, and for its benefits to the digestive system and the skin.  What I did find confusing was that there were only the ingredients given but no method.  I would have preferred having each recipe say juice, blend, or squeeze rather than have to flip through all the pages to find out what to do.  Some are obvious but what do you do with a sweet potato?
Conclusion - A fabulously encouraging way to start the day healthily and to give your kids their vitamins and minerals in a fun way.