I LOVE when fresh cranberries arrive at the grocery store. I purchase bags and bags of them to use in my juice machine. Fresh cranberry juice is amazing! Not on its own, really, cause cranberries are way too sour, but mixed with other stuff - other sweet stuff - they are amazing.

My current morning juice obsession is this Cranberry Kale Cooler. From what I am beginning to understand, it is better to juice vegetables than fruit. Fruit is high in sugar and juicing removes a lot of the fiber that would normally help the sugar break down more slowly in your system, so all fruit juices, even when they are fresh, are really high in sugar and spike blood/sugar, which we want to avoid whenever possible.

An apple or pear is okay to make green vegetables taste better, but a juice like orange pineapple can have as much sugar as a can of Coke, which in case you hadn’t heard… Coke is like so 80′s. Old news.

Luckily though, cranberries are super tart, not too high in sugar, and loaded with good stuff so they are perfect for juicing. I add one apple for sweetness, a hunk of fresh ginger to ward off any cold viruses, and half a bunch of kale, because kale is amazingly healthy and I try and eat some every day but I don’t like it as a salad leaf. Much better to juice, if you ask me.

And I know I just said all that stuff about sugar being bad but the caveat for fruit are berries. Berries are so dang good for your body, doesn’t matter how you get them; fresh, dried, frozen, freeze dried, baked, bring on the berries! So some mornings I’ll add a cup of frozen black cherries to the juice to send it over the top.

If you do not own a juicer (why not?) and are curious about purchasing one, I recommend the Jack LaLanne. It is affordable and easy to use. Look on ebay for Jack Lalanne Power Juicers, a ton will come up. If in a year or two you want to purchase a more expensive juice machine, give Jack away to your second cousin who is trying to get healthy after the new year. Win win!

Cranberry Kale Cooler

1 bag fresh cranberries

1 large organic apple, cut into quarters

1 1″ knob of fresh ginger

1/2 bunch (5-6 leaves) organic red or green kale

1 cup frozen black cherries (optional)

Place cranberries in the juice spout then cover with the piece that presses the vegetables down. Turn machine on and juice berries. (If you add cranberries to spout with machine on they fly all over the place. So annoying.) Now juice apple, ginger, and kale. Skim the foam off the top if you like and serve as is or place juice in blender with frozen berries and whiz until smooth.