All that juice

You know you’re on the wrong side of (ahem) forty when you can not get through a meal with friends without discussing health issues. Suddenly food isn’t just something you eat, but a vessel of possible medical complications. Lechon occasions a comparison of cholesterol levels, while shellfish inspires hyperbolic accounts of joint pain that would shame Dante. The diabetics furtively reach for the pasta until reminded that carbohydrates convert to sugar, and everyone gets to lift one’s shirt at least once to show progress (or the lack thereof) in the fight against flab.

There is no protocol against this. Somehow it’s okay to talk about your medical woes over lunch or dinner — sometimes with strangers, even. Once at some party, a fellow guest recounted how the doctor botched her C-section; I don’t recall the details, but what caught my ear was another guest’s tale about how that same doctor performed the same operation on someone who didn’t turn out to be pregnant after all. Chilling? Try it over food, why don’t you. I have never seen such stories diminish anyone’s taste for dinuguan (mention of uric acid usually does the job).

Today Ma pipes in with her own. She had gone for a blood panel and urged my father to get tested as well, long as he was there. “Then I came back for the results and they wanted to admit him! What was your cholesterol level again, dear?”

“600,” Pa says.

“Whoa!” goes the table. “And I thought I was a goner at 330,” one friend says.

Levels, stages, dosages… Lots of numbers get bandied around. I do not even know what the normal cholesterol level is (less than 200, I learn later). Eventually the talk turns to constipation, a topic more up my alley. Or down, if you think about it.

“Have you tried juicing?” I say. “It really works.”

Now I’m a great fan of juicing. It makes up for my lukewarm attitude towards fruits and vegetables, and actually tastes good. The best thing, however, is that it does wonders for my bowels; less than ten minutes after a meal and I’m rarin’ to go, like when you were a kid and the teacher told you to come early for the Christmas party, and you woke up at five in the morning even when the party wasn’t ’til the afternoon — that’s how excited your bowels are. Beats Dulcolax every time.

“But how can you stand it?” my friend asks — about the juice, not what comes out of my bowels. “My sister-in-law forces the stuff on her kids and it’s not a happy scene. Ugh. Just the sight of all that froth grosses me out.”

As it turns out, the sister-in-law would shove every manner of fruit and veggie into the juicer until she got a full glass, then serve that to the kids. “That is gross,” I concede. Remember the woman who ate nothing but raw pechay? The word for it, I believe, is monomania — you run with a good idea and take it to the level of absurdity. So you’ve crammed all that goodness into a glass, but what’s the point if nobody wants to drink it in the first place? It’s supposed to be a regular part of a healthy lifestyle. Last I heard, trauma wasn’t part of the regimen.

“Wait here.”

A few minutes later I emerge from the kitchen with two glasses: one a milky green mix of cucumber, singkamas (jicama), and kalamansi; the other, deep orange, of carrot, apple, and lemon.

“Shit,” she says. “They actually look refreshing.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I say. About the shit part, I mean. It is, to put it frankly, a fascinating spectacle: the damn thing would slide out like it has a will of its own in what feels like a seemingly endless coil. This, my pal Gilleth once told me (over dinner, of course — or was it lunch?), is the gold standard for poo. Well, it sure feels good. Plus it gives me numbers of my own to bandy about. By the Bristol Scale, see, my post-juicing poo’s either a Type 3 (corn on the cob) or 4 (sausage).

Gross? Try working that into your next party conversation. You’ll be amazed what’s considered acceptable at those venues.

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A few tips to make people not just “stand” juicing, but actually embrace it:

Play with colors. The ingredients are colorful enough to start with. Pick one and build a drink around that.

Play with flavors. Complement sweetness with some acidity, or even a bit of heat. There are thousands of flavor combinations out there. A single glass doesn’t have to have everything in it.

Strain, if you must. Not everyone likes froth. (I don’t.)

Add water. All juices benefit from a bit of dilution. Even Pepsi tastes better watered down (tastes like Coke, actually).

Lastly, a little sugar doesn’t constitute treason. I use half a sachet of stevia (if I have it) for every glass, but just as often a scant teaspoon of white sugar does the job.

Cucumber + Jicama

• small cucumber, unpeeled
• small jicama, peeled
• 6 kalamansi, halved
• knob of ginger, peeled (optional)
• sugar or sugar substitute (optional)

1. Cut cucumber and jicama (and ginger, if using) into pieces small enough to fit into your juicer’s feed chute.
2. Press slices into juicer, then pour extracted juice into a glass. Use a strainer, if desired.
3. Squeeze kalamansi into the mixture (use a strainer so as not to include the seeds).
4. Add water until liquid is about an inch from the rim of the glass. Stir.
5. Sweeten with sugar/sugar substitute (optional). Top with ice and serve immediately.

Carrot + Apple

• large carrot, peeled
• apple, quartered and cored
• 2 lemons, halved
• thin slice of pineapple (optional)
• sugar or sugar substitute (optional)

1. Cut carrot and apple (and pineapple, if using) into pieces small enough to fit into your juicer’s feed chute.
2. Press slices into juicer, then pour extracted juice into a glass. Use a strainer, if desired.
3. Squeeze lemon juice into the mixture.
4. Add water until liquid is about an inch from the rim of the glass. Stir.
5. Sweeten with sugar/sugar substitute (optional). Top with ice and serve immediately.