A Variation on My Favorite Green Juice

Several months ago, I was at my local farmer’s market and saw some Swiss chard starts for sale from a local garden plant vendor. I have never grown chard before, so I thought it would be fun to give it a try. Well, now Rick and I have LOTS of chard growing in our garden and have the opportunity to use it in different recipes. Yesterday, I had a couple of
chard leaves in my morning smoothie and today I thought I would try it in a green juice.

My favorite green juice recipe contains celery, cucumber, the juice of one lemon, and some type of leafy green. For the green, I like to use either kale or dandelion greens, but since I have fresh chard from the garden I used 3 leaves of it in my juice.

Here are the ingredients of the juice: four stalks of celery, one large cucumber, one peeled lemon, and 3 leaves of Swiss chard. I used our twin gear juicer to make the juice and it was really good! I really love the tart lemon taste. One can add apple or some other fruit for a sweet taste, or leave out the lemon for a “green” taste.

A nutrition note: Raw Swiss chard is NOT a rich source of calcium, due to its high oxalic acid content. I do not rely on it as a source of calcium, nor do I make juice out of it often. Swiss chard is in the goosefoot plant family, the same family as spinach and other foods that are high in oxalic acid.

Leafy greens that are lower in oxalic acid include cabbage family plants such as kale and bok choy. There are plenty of plant food sources of calcium that we cover in our course the Science of Raw Food Nutrition Level I and will cover in future blog posts.

Some non-cabbage family leafy vegetables that I enjoy in salads include dandelion greens, endive, escarole, frisée greens (curly endive), and lettuce, of course. We’ll leave my salad contents for a future post. 🙂