Not that long ago, juicers and professional blenders used to be for the “granola” crowd. With so many people juicing or making smoothies and protein shakes today, it’s hard to imagine that a generation or two ago juicing was still a novelty.
In the mid-1980’s, I was a consultant to the Acme Juicer Manufacturing Company, a subsidiary of Waring. My job, as a nutritionist and Registered Dietitian, was to “open up” the mainstream markets to the product and show that it was not just for the alternative (“post-hippie”) health food market.
A very talented home economist (Marjorie) and I developed an assortment of healthy recipes that made use of the fruit or vegetable pulp (rich in fiber and other nutrients) that was commonly discarded. The dishes had to be delicious, so in addition to our own recipe taste-testing, our families were our informal taste panels. My husband ate so many foods with carrot pulp that his skin turned orange! (This is a benign condition known as Carotenemia, usually caused from excessive intake of carrots or other vegetables that contain large amounts of the pigment carotene, which happens to also be a precursor of Vitamin A.) This went away after a few days “off” the recipes.
Marjorie and I met personally, “one-on-one,” with food, health and nutrition editors of national magazines and major newspapers and demonstrated the Juicerator by making some of the recipes for them. It was a big hit. Many major publications featured the juicer and recipes and quoted some of the nutritional information that I provided as a Registered Dietitian.
One of the media placements, in the Los Angeles Times, “Mechanical Helpers for Getting the Juicy Best of Fruits and Vegetables,” is still on the Internet.
Click here and it will take you back to the juicing age of 1986!
P.S. I still use my Acme Juicerator to make juices and also love my Vitamix for smoothies….both great ways to eat raw foods, get a wide variety of digestive enzymes and hearty dose of health promoting phytonutrients.
