Well, sometimes it’s only V5 or V6 or V7, but it works for me.
Many people as they age find they have fewer and fewer teeth. Many end up, as I did, quite dentally challenged. I was even more dentally challenged when I lost my denture and spent some weeks without it while a new one was being made. Chewing was difficult and slow; salads were about impossible. Something needed to be done; I was not getting the recommended quota of fruits and vegetables.
I liked V8 but thought it rather expensive. Why not make my own? Studying the “real thing” I noted V8 contains tomato juice (from concentrate), and vegetable juice blend (from concentrated juices of carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress, and spinach). Vitamin C and citric acid added. A number of those things are always in my refrigerator: carrots, celery, onion, and cabbage. And I have quantities of frozen tomatoes in the freezer as a result of my summer garden.
The procedure is simple. Cut up one carrot, peel off a cabbage leaf, cut off a half-inch from the tops of the celery stalks, cut a slice of onion, and toss into the blender. Add a half-dozen frozen plum tomatoes. So far, we have a V5. I like to add a dark leafy veggie, perhaps parsley from the garden, sometimes a spinach leaf or a broccoli floret. Or a piece of bell pepper, if that’s available. Just for good measure I’ll add a couple of “Greens Plus” tablets (mine come from Our Health Coop, a site recommended by daughter Terry). Greens Plus boasts powders of alfalfa grass, barley grass, beet, broccoli, chlorella, spirulina, spinach, watercress, wheat grass, and betaine HCl (whatever that is). (Well, now I know what it is. Bloggers are not supposed to display public ignorance. Betaine HCl is a source of hydrochloric acid which aids digestion.)
OK. Put the veggies in the blender and I add a cup of water from the tap. I use hot water to help defrost the frozen rock-hard tomatoes. Blend for 30-60 seconds and the result is two 8-10 oz cups of my very own variety of V5, 7, or whatever. It’s fresher and cheaper than the store-bought variety, and has also contains minute amounts of the many wonderful things in the Greens Plus tablets! I drink a cup each day, usually between meals, for two days.
The third day I switch to kefir smoothies, made with a variety of fruits. And thus it goes, veggies for two days alternating with fruits for two days, drinkable and healthy, even though I’m no longer dentally challenged and can handle an occasional fresh salad or a piece fruit unblended. Perhaps I’ll talk about the kefir smoothies (you could use yogurt, if you had to) another day.
As an aside: A Korean friend informs me that tofu is great for oldsters because it provides good protein available without chewing.
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Daniel said to the steward….Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s rich food be observed by you and according to what you see deal with your servants. — Daniel 1:11-13
I don’t have teeth problems, but I have had some jaw dysfunction for the past 4 years…so this post spoke my language. What you put in the blender is so much better for you in my opinion than the V8 because it is raw and not cooked. I’m going to try your recipe. I’m impressed! Thank you for sharing.