MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's Juice Wednesday. Say juice and most people think of kids and juice boxes. But there are two distinct grownup trends going on now. In the world of cocktails, mixologists are dreaming up exotic concoctions of alcohol extractions and purees. Then there's the health crowd who see fresh squeezed juice as nutrition in a glass or those who make it part of a juice fast. And we're not talking about just plain old apple or orange juice.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIToday's fresh juice aficionados juice veggie stew, spinach, wheat grass, beets, carrots and ginger. And while juice for the health conscious is not a new trend, it may be going main stream. Starbucks recently opened its first juice bar. Joining us to discuss whether there will soon be a juice bar coming to a neighborhood or a corner near you is Katherine Tallmadge, President of Personalized Nutrition and the author of "Diet Simple: 195 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits & Inspirations." She's also the President of the D.C. Metro Area Dietetic Association. Katherine Tallmadge, thank you for joining us.

MS. KATHERINE TALLMADGEThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIAlso in studio with us is Duane Sylvestre. He is the bartender at the Bourbon Steak restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. Duane, thank you for joining us.

MR. DUANE SYLVESTREThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIAlso with us is Amy Waldman, the owner of Puree Juice Bar in Bethesda, Md. Amy, good to have you aboard.

MS. AMY WALDMANThank you so much. It's an honor and a pleasure.

NNAMDIThe honor and pleasure are mine. If you'd like to join the conversation, call us at 800-433-8850. Do you drink fresh juices for health benefits, weight loss or anything else? Call us, share your experience, 800-433-8850. Obviously we're going to be talking about juicing during the course of the next hour and of course, we're not talking steroid use here. We're talking about a completely different kind of juicing, 800-433-8850.

NNAMDIYou can send email to kojo@wamu.org, send us a tweet @kojoshow or you can go to our website, kojoshow.org, join the conversation there. Would you like to see a juice bar open near you? Katherine, juicing for nutrition and health is not new. It's been popular since, at least, the 1960s in my own memory. And it seems to, like, come around again every decade or so. Why is it so popular now?

TALLMADGEWell, 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice pack an incredible nutrition punch And it's true that Americans don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. So this is an easy way to get them in.

NNAMDIAnd I've been getting in a lot during the course of the past five minutes or so. We'll discuss that later. Amy, one of the biggest trends right now is fresh juices as a meal replacement. And in juice fasts for dieters. How did you get interested in it?

WALDMANWell, I came to juicing about five years ago for health reasons. I just found myself without any energy, overweight, feeling a lot of pain and it just kept hitting me in books and movies and documentaries. So I went for it. I just went out and bought myself a juicer and loaded up with fruits and vegetables and I started myself, actually, with a juice fast. And found it incredibly easy, transformed my life, really delicious. I ended up losing a lot of weight and becoming very healthy, very quickly.

NNAMDIAnd that's how you got hooked?

WALDMANThat's exactly how I got hooked, yes.

NNAMDIDuane, you come at this from a slightly different perspective. The nutritional value in fruits and vegetables is great but it's the flavors, the textures of the juice that interest you. Tell us what you're looking for.

SYLVESTREWell, whenever we're trying to incorporate new flavors or textures into your drinking experience, juices give us a new approach. We are able to manipulate the fresh juice instead of using something that's been produced by someone else and their interpretation of the flavor. So often when you get something like even a beet flavored anything, it's a cooked beet. But the raw beet gives you a completely different texture, a completely different flavor. And we found that with many different juices.

NNAMDIIt's the flavor that Duane is looking for. I wonder if you might describe some of the flavors you play within your recipes. For example, you use beets in some of your recipes. Some people might wonder, what does beet juice taste like, exactly?

SYLVESTREWell, beet juice tastes exactly like beet juice but when describing beets to people, I try to liken it to the earth or mineral-ity . Some people I will tell, it even tastes like a sweetened soil or dirt which may not sound...

NNAMDIWait a minute, so you're saying to me that beet juice tastes like sweetened dirt?

SYLVESTREAbsolutely. It tastes like the earth. And the next time you taste beets, think about it and you'll say, wow, this really does take -- you can taste the minerals, you can taste almost the soil. And it's not offensive. It's delicious.

NNAMDISo it tastes like sweetened dirt in the best possible way?

SYLVESTREIn absolutely the best possible way.

NNAMDIYou compare it to wine in some respects.

SYLVESTRECertainly. If you ever go to a wine tasting, you'll hear the experts talk about, again, mineral-ity and earthiness. And some people, if you're not familiar with wine, won't know what you're talking about. And I will say, you know what, eat a plate of beets, then go back and look for the similar flavors. And now you found that earthiness, you found that mineral-ity.

NNAMDIAmy, as we mentioned, Starbucks opened its first juice bar this month. Clearly aiming to tap into the $50 billion healthy foods sector as well as the juice trend. But before you even knew about the Starbucks juice bar, you pitched your store idea to your landlord.

WALDMANI did. And I did call it the Starbucks of the future.

NNAMDIHow does that work? What did you say to your landlord?

WALDMANWell, I had to do a creative concept package because this is a very new concept for the Washington Metropolitan area. And I wanted it to be a place where people could gather and hang out whether they're on the computer or with work, the newspaper, whatever and to have their drink and I also believe people, including myself, have turned to juice, especially green juice, as a morning tonic rather than coffee. It has a lot more energy giving properties, it tastes really good, it's light, it's refreshing and most important it's alkalizing whereas coffee is extremely acidic to the body. So I...

NNAMDISpeaking of green juices, I'm holding...

WALDMANYeah.

NNAMDI...in my hand and I have already sipped from a cup that is labeled, grasshopper.

WALDMANYes.

NNAMDIWhat am I drinking here?

WALDMANThat is pineapple juice and wheat grass.

NNAMDIIt's very good.

WALDMANOh, thank you.

NNAMDIKatherine, you're not so sure that juice bars will take off as a mainstream trend, how come?

TALLMADGEWell, the key is that you use fruits and vegetables in whole otherwise they can be very high in calories if it's 100 percent fruit juice. I love my orange juice, every morning I'm addicted to it and sometimes it's carrot juice, but it's usually fresh squeezed orange juice. I could live on the stuff. But I do have to restrict it to eight ounces a day because while it packs a nutritional punch, it's also very caloric. And studies show that when people drink too many juices, they don't register in the brain the same way food does in terms of making you feel full. You don't compensate and you end up eating more overall calories and gaining weight.

NNAMDIWell, let's talk about what's going on in the real world as opposed to what can happen theoretically. What's been the response to your shop so far, Amy?

WALDMANYeah, we've actually found the exact opposite. I mean, we have a lot of regular customers that come in, especially one, we've been open three months. We have one customer who has done nothing else but add juice -- our juice as well as our shakes and purees to his diet and he lost seven pounds in the first month. And he swears all he did differently was add the juice. I myself lost, I mean, in a slightly embarrassing way to say, but also proud that I lost 90 pounds by incorporating an entire juice diet, very heavily juice diet.

WALDMANI agree you don't want to do all fruit. I mean, that's a lot of sugar. But we do a lot of vegetables. We do spinach, romaine, kale, cucumbers, celery. Especially, Kojo, the green goddess that you have, that's all that one is, is all of those greens. That's very low in calories, it's very refreshing, it's very satisfying. And...

NNAMDIIt's not sweet.

WALDMANIt's not sweet, but it's smooth. I would say it's like a wine, especially since we use a juice press.

NNAMDIIt is smooth.

WALDMANIt does come out more like a wine then a airy frothy juice. I also find, especially when people do the juice cleanses as well as myself, that you do -- the brain does register to be completely satisfied because of the nutrients. I feel like part of the problem with people overeating is not really eating whole foods. So if they're eating food that's not nutrient rich, their body isn't getting what they need. And then they want to eat more. We have a lot of customers who are incredibly surprised at how full they feel after the juice as either a meal replacement or as a part of their daily cleanse.

NNAMDIWell, your investment Amy Waldman is an indication that you think this is going to become a trend. Katherine, I don't know, 10 years or more ago I didn't think that anyone thought people would buy a $4.00 cup of coffee either. But that seems to become a trend. So you never know.

TALLMADGEYou never know. And I tell you, if it's mostly vegetable juices, I think the calorie factor is going to be less and it could be a great way for people to get those five cups of fruits and vegetables in their diets that the U.S. dietary guidelines are trying so hard. You have huge health benefits when you get those five cups every day.

NNAMDIWell, let me go to the telephones because three of our earlier telephone callers all want one question answered. It's a question that one could have predicted would come up. Let's start with E.W. E.W., you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

E.W.Yes, thank you very much. My question is, I've been juicing, you know, for a while, but not with a traditional juicer. I've been using my blender. And, of course, I would like to have a recommendation from you guys on the type of blender you would suggest. And the question also I have, is do I have anything to be concerned with because I tend to go overboard putting in everything, be it vegetables and fruits. Do I have anything to be concerned with as far as mixture?

NNAMDIWe'll answer the mixing question first because we have several other callers about the juicer and we want to get to those. Anyone care to deal with the mixing question.

TALLMADGEWell, nutritionally, there should be no problem. And what's interesting about juicing is if you're juicing the whole fruit or vegetable, that could be very valuable because, you know, you don't eat orange peel but if you're -- if you are blending it in your concoction, it could be very nutritious. A lot of the nutrients are concentrated in the seeds and the skin of the fruits and vegetables. And that's often what people don't eat. That's why red wine is 10 times more nutritious then white because it's made with the skin and the seeds.

NNAMDIOkay.

E.W.Yes, thank you.

NNAMDIThank you E.W., keep listening because I think Gina has a similar question to yours. Gina, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

GINAHi, Kojo and hello to all your guests. I definitely share the enthusiasm of juicing and I love it. In the morning, I've been doing apple and ginger. And I notice when I do that, I don't want coffee. Of course later in the day my body wants coffee but in the morning, the apple is really satisfying. And my husband grows wheat grass at home. So we use that a lot and we have a wheat grass press to get the juice out of that.

GINABut my question is, definitely. I have a Champion juicer. And the problem with that is, I have to cut the apple into so many small pieces to get it through the thing. And then I have to clean it before I'm done because it gets clogged with the pulp. And like, for example, this morning I did a bag of apples, I did a pineapple separately. And so I think I need a better juicer.

NNAMDIOkay. Gina, thank you very much for your call. Please keep listening. Here is Paul in Alexandria. Paul, your turn.

PAULYes, I guess, I have a similar issue. I like the juicing, like the juice, but my family and I get discouraged by just the clean up, you know, for this particular juicer that will remain nameless. I was hoping they could maybe recommend a juicer where, you know, cleanup's a little bit easier and more manageable.

NNAMDIPaul, we will start with Amy. Amy, let's talk about the mechanics of fresh squeezed juice. There are actually several ways to juice with some vegetables. What kinds of machines are there?

WALDMANWell, there are basically three different kinds of machines. There's the centrifugal juicer, which is the kind that spins really fast and uses as sort of a -- there's a basket, a blade sort of down at the bottom and netting on the sides. And it's the kind when you go to the juice bar and you see them put it in it goes --, you know, and it pushes a lot of air into the juice. Those are fast. They are relatively easy to clean, although you do end up having to scrub the basket quite a bit to keep that screen clean. And that is important because you don't want the bits and particles to start fermenting into your juicer. That would just really defeat the purpose.

WALDMANThe other downside of that juicer is it pumps a lot of air into the juice, which makes it oxidize very quickly. So you'll lose nutrients -- vital nutrients, color and taste. So that kind of juicer, it's recommended that you drink it right away. The other kind of juicer is a masticating juicer which is similar to the Champion I think one of the callers mentioned, which is more of a grinding. You know, those are slow. You know, look, they all are pretty hard to keep clean and keep as part of your daily life. I mean, that's one reason why I opened the juice bar because I feel like...

NNAMDIWhat kind of juicer do you use at your Bethesda Bar?

WALDMANWell, I'll get to that. We use the Norwalk, the Norwalk Juice Press which is really made for making larger batches of juice. It's a two-step process. It's not easy either. And there's a lot of prep involved. It triturates the juice first and then we put it into special cloths and it gets pressed. It's actually the most nutritious type of juice you can drink 'cause it gets most of the -- more nutrients out of the juice than any other juicer. And I don't think the cleanup is nearly as bad as the other juicers but it is more of a time consuming process.

WALDMANSo again, that's one reason why I wanted to open the juice bar. It's a place where people can come and get their juice and it's convenient and it's a place to be social and have your juice. And it's a fun environment to try different mixtures and whatnot.

NNAMDIMake your choice, masticating, centrifugal, triturating. Is that...

WALDMANYeah, the juice press has two parts. Those are excellent juicers. They're very expensive. I actually do think the press is the easiest to clean and take care of because it doesn't have any of the baskets or all those different parts that fit inside to one another. But it is expensive and there's a lot of prep involved.

NNAMDIDuane Sylvestre, what do you use to get your juices?

SYLVESTREWell, at work I do use the Champion Juicer, and you're right, you do have to do a lot of prep. You have to cut the small pieces. But what I like about the Champion is that the -- everything comes off the front, the piston, the torque. The screen is very small so it's a lot less surface area that you have to scrub and clean. You can take everything apart and change between juices rather quickly.

SYLVESTREAt home I have a centrifugal juicer and there is a good deal more clean-up at home, but it was a far more affordable piece of equipment. I picked mine up at Target or somewhere. And, you know, it's just -- it's a commitment. You want to do the juicing there's going to be some sort of sacrifice no matter what your application for the juice is, to drink whole juices or to use them in your ingredients or cooking.

NNAMDIBut it's my understanding that you have a Dream Machine.

SYLVESTREWell, it's true, but my Dream Machine doesn't really pertain to juicing, but more to flavor extraction, a vacuum distiller where that's a whole different conversation. But absolutely, yeah.

NNAMDIYou can do things like what, rosewater extraction.

SYLVESTREAbsolutely.

NNAMDIYou can do honeysuckle extraction. How does that work?

SYLVESTREMy dream is to -- well, what you do is you put your ingredients into water. And what the vacuum distiller does is it decreases -- by creating a vacuum, it decreases the pressure in the air above the liquid and it allows the volatile liquids or substances within the liquid to boil. So the same thing like you would do boiling a teapot. But instead of using the heat to increase the pressure in the liquid you use a vacuum to decrease the pressure in the air above the liquid and allowing you to distill.

NNAMDIKatherine, if all the calls we got are people who want to make their own juices at home what kind of juicer would you recommend?

TALLMADGEWell, I don't juice.

NNAMDISo you don't have a recommendation?

TALLMADGEMy goal is weight. My weight issue is very important to me. And the studies show and my clients find that when they eat whole fruits and vegetables they feel more full with fewer calories. And that's one of the most important concepts in weight management is eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, at least five cups a day, for weight control because they're so filling. But it's because of the bulk of the fruits and vegetables that you feel so full. And it takes a while to eat them. And it's a big mound of food which you don't get with juices.

NNAMDIWell, I eat an orange every day. You do orange juice in the mornings.

TALLMADGEYes. That's why I love my orange juice. It's so funny. I never get sick of it. Every morning I just love it just as much as I did the day before.

NNAMDIThat's me and my orange.

TALLMADGEBut I restrict it to eight ounces. The rest of the fruits and vegetables that I eat during the day are whole fruits and vegetables.

NNAMDIOne caller before I go to the phones. Here's Angela in -- before I go to a break, here's Angela in Upper Marlboro, Md. Angela, your turn.

ANGELAGreetings to all. When I moved to New York, I actually ended up working in a health food store and the guy hired me even though I didn't know much. And he said, well if you know how to put fruit and vegetables into a juice machine I'll hire you. I said, well I can do that. So for about a year that's all I did. And, as you know, when you juice sometimes there's a little smidgen of, you know, juice left. And I asked the owner, I said, well, what do you want me to do with this? He said, well, you can throw it away or if you like, you can drink it, since it's just a little bit. And within that year, I lost 60 pounds.

TALLMADGEYea.

ANGELAAnd I became converted. And that was ten years...

NNAMDIAnd you do...

ANGELAI'm sorry.

NNAMDI...and you did it without drinking up the profits of the place you were working in? You must've had a lot of leftovers.

ANGELABut it started the ball rolling for me. I mean, you know, people would order all different types of concoctions and, you know, I ended up getting my own juicer. And to answer one of your caller's questions about what to get, I would say get a Vitamix. Now it's a $400 investment and I know that sounds like a whole bunch of money. But when you think about what you pay in pills and insurance, if you have insurance, and all of that, if you think about how much you spend in health care and all of that, it's a drop in the bucket.

ANGELABut they get a Vitamix, you can chop your things beforehand, freeze them. You freeze greens, oranges, berries, bananas, anything. And when you need it you just flop it in a Vitamix, juice it up and it's good to go. All you have to do is rinse it a little bit. Needs a little apple cider vinegar to clean it out -- to rinse it out when you come back from work and then clean it out and it's good.

NNAMDIOkay. Angela, thank you very much for your call. We're now going to take a short break. If you have called stay on the line, we will get to your call. But we still do have some lines open so you can call us now at 800-433-8850. If you make juice at home what fruits or vegetables do you use? 800-433-8850. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our Food Wednesday, Juice Wednesday conversation. We're talking about juicing with Duane Sylvestre. He's a bartender at the Bourbon Steak Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. Amy Waldman is the owner of Puree Juice Bar in Bethesda, Md. And Katherine Tallmadge is the president of Personalized Nutrition and the author of "Diet Simple: 195 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits and Inspirations." She's also the president of the D.C. Metro Area Dietetic Association. Back to the telephones, here is Danny in Washington, D.C. Danny, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DANNYHi. Thanks for taking my call. I love your bar. It's beautiful. So my question is -- I'm a dedicated juicer and a Champion user for many, many years. So my question is when we see food we begin to digest it I understand. When we chew it we're initiating another digestive process. Do we really know anything about the uptake of nutrients, you know, when we have a vitamin versus actually chew a carrot versus drinking it in juice form?

NNAMDIKatherine.

TALLMADGEYes. It's ideal to eat the whole food rather than a supplement because the whole food contains nutrients, compounds that a supplement can't touch. One blueberry alone contains 150 different compounds, many different compounds that color it, that flavor it. Every flavor in a blue -- that's why vegetables and fruits are so wonderfully flavored. And why we go back to them time and time again to make things delicious is because each fruit or vegetable has so many compounds that flavor them, you just can't beat Mother Nature when it comes to that.

TALLMADGEAnd as far as nutrient uptake we do know that people who eat high levels of fruits and vegetables have higher levels of these nutrients, polyphenols, which are compounds that help your heart and help prevent cancer. Have higher levels of these compounds in their bloodstreams. And those people with higher level of those compounds in their bloodstreams and their livers are more likely to fight off cancer which forms in the body. They're more likely to fight off oxidation or aging.

TALLMADGEWe know that when people eat higher levels of fruits and vegetables they do enter the bloodstream, they get into our organs, into our brains, into our liver and we're able to detoxify carcinogens and toxins which come into the body.

NNAMDIWhy don't you go over some of the samples you gave me here again? Amy Waldman, so tell me exactly what this is. Green Goddess.

WALDMANThat is our all green juice, so that's kale, cucumber, spinach, romaine and celery.

NNAMDIOkay.

WALDMANAnd there's about two pounds worth of greens in one 16 ounce serving of the Green Goddess. So talk about getting your five cups in, Katherine.

TALLMADGEExcellent, excellent.

WALDMANThat's two cups of -- I mean, excuse me, two pounds of greens.

TALLMADGEAnd, you know, vegetables are so low cal. Vegetable juices are going to be much better if you want large quantities.

WALDMANAbsolutely. And then, with it being a liquid, it's so easily absorbed and, like what you were talking about with the detoxification, that's so the body can use it so easily in liquid form.

NNAMDII just sipped Easy Green. What's that?

WALDMANThat is kale, cucumber, apple and lemon. So that's like a nice introductory green juice. If you're not used to drinking your kale the apple helps it go down very nicely.

NNAMDII just sipped Cocoa Fill.

WALDMANThat is our raw young Thai coconut water, which is also extremely nutritious. And then that is mixed with greens of spinach, romaine, kale, cucumber and celery.

NNAMDIDuane Sylvestre, you have talked about the chemistry of making a cocktail. So what is a tincture.

SYLVESTREWell, a tincture, you can think of a tincture as an extract where you will steep herbs or whatever flavor compound into a high spirited alcohol, alcohol being a preservative. Oils are soluble in alcohol and you can extract those flavors for use later at a drop at a time.

NNAMDIA tincture. What unusual juice flavors have you tried? Call us at 800-433-8850. Katherine, Starbucks new store also sells the bottled juices many of us are familiar with. They've got names like Green Machine and Citrus Sea Monster. They've got citrus and they've got -- yeah, it is Citrus Sea Monster. But those bottled juice warn on the label that they're not a low-calorie food. They can contain a lot of calories and sugars. What should someone be looking for if you're buying it packaged?

TALLMADGEWell, all ingredients in any food you buy should be disclosed, I believe. And what you eat -- because what you eat has a profound effect on your health and wellbeing. So what restaurants need to do is disclose what those juices are made of. And I propose that they should be made of 100 percent vegetable or fruit juice, 100 percent food, no extra sugar. And they're going to be more nutritious, they're going to be lower in calories. But also to keep the serving sizes more reasonable. It could be a disaster if people start going to Starbucks every afternoon and getting a pint of juice. It's equivalent to a Big Gulp, several hundred calories every afternoon.

NNAMDIWell, Amy, you're aware of the sugar issue when it comes to juices, but that's not a worry with fresh vegetable juices. And I guess people are surprised, as I was, about how good they are.

WALDMANYeah, I mean, I personally am not concerned with the sugar content in our juice because we use everything as 100 percent organic. It's all fresh. We don't even have any sugar in the juice bar. I mean, there's nothing added. So it is extremely nutritious. And I come from the perspective that I think it's more important to look at the -- holistically what you're eating rather than the calories. I mean, I lost, you know, 90 pounds and have kept it off without counting one calorie. And I tried everything before that.

WALDMANBecause, let's face it, like a 200 calorie almond milk or house-made almond milk that's only sweetened with a little bit of dates, which is also very high in iron and fiber and everything else, your body's not going to handle that the same way as like a 200 calorie bagel. It's just different. I don't believe all calories are created equally.

NNAMDIOnto Max in Ellicott City, Md. Max, your turn.

MAXHi, Kojo, how are you?

NNAMDII'm well.

MAXGreat show today. I was hoping your guests might comment on -- my wife has been juicing for about two or three months. I think she has a Champion juicer. And when I was watching her prepare her juice one of the things I noticed is in order to make a 12 ounce or 14 ounce, you know, apple, strawberry, kiwi, banana juice she has to put in like three pounds of ingredients, or somewhere about there. And it seems like in order for her to drink one juice meal, that's like a $14 meal.

MAXAnd, you know, $14 -- which is great, I support it, but I just kinda started looking at the math and said, wow $14. That's like 300 chicken nuggets for me and the kids. Do your guests have any advice on how to get a lower ratio or do other machines extract, you know, extremely more juice than the Champion? Anything like that that could help?

NNAMDIWell, let me have Katherine advise you on the 300 chicken nuggets that you're proposing.

TALLMADGEI was going to say, consider nutrient density when you make a decision about what you feed your children. And so those $14 for fruits and vegetables are a much better investment for the nutritional health of your children.

NNAMDIIn terms of the specific question that he has been raising, Amy, care to respond to that?

WALDMANYeah, the different juicers are going to have a different yield. Again, we use the Norwalk Juice Press. It's an excellent juicer. It's very expensive for home use. It's about $2500. It's a big investment, but it's a workhorse. It'll last forever. And that does extract a lot more juice from the produce. There's also a new juicer on the market called the Horum Slow Juicer, which I think is excellent. It doesn't pump a lot of air in and it's almost a combination of a masticating and a press in one step. I mean, it's not quite as good as the Norwalk but I do believe you get a better yield on that then something like the Champion.

WALDMANYou could also take the pulp that once the pulp comes through, especially in a centrifugal juicer, you can put it through again. Like even when we juice...

NNAMDIWell, allow me to read this email we got from April. "I recently bought a juicer and love it. However I have been bothered by the large amount of waste generated and all of the pulp that has to be discarded. I assume this is mostly fiber, but am not sure. I often try to mix some of it back in. I'm wondering if it's primarily just the fiber loss. And also I've been cautioned not to mix apple pulp back in due to harmful chemicals in the apple seeds. Is that recommended?" I guess this demands a response from both you, Amy, and you, Katherine.

WALDMANYeah, well, when we juice apples at the juice bar we trim them and core them and take out the seeds. We do not juice the seeds. There's some controversy. I don't think it's scientifically concrete one way or another but we're not taking any chances. So we actually do not juice the seeds. But in terms of the pulp from other -- you know, everything else that you put in whole whether it be the pith of the lemon or citrus seeds, the skin of the cucumber, I think all of that is fine to put through again.

WALDMANI mean, you could also try a cheese cloth and squeeze more out of it if you're really frustrated. Some people use the pulp in other recipes if they want to make like a zucchini bread or into a -- I mean, I personally don't use it like that, but I know people do recycle the pulp that way. All of our pulp at the Juice Bar, we work very hard to get back to compost. So it does feel wasteful, but there are ways to use it.

NNAMDIKatherine, harmful chemicals in apple seeds?

TALLMADGEI'm so sorry I'm not familiar with that.

NNAMDIAnd we got a question for Amy. "Do you include any grains, seeds, or nuts, in some of your juices to ensure maximum inclusion of nutrients in your juice products, for example, chia, peanuts, or peanut butter, et cetera?"

WALDMANWell, we actually use almonds at the Juice Bar. We have a house-made almond milk that's absolutely fabulous. That's also used in a lot of our shakes and purees to add some creaminess without the calories.

NNAMDII'm having some almond milk, even as you speak.

WALDMANOh, excellent. Without adding calories of ice cream or yogurt, and we also do some chia seed puddings that are really delicious and have lots of fiber and omegas and all of that. The chef, Steve Mekoski is absolutely brilliant and very creative, and he comes with -- we have a carrot cake chia seed pudding. It just tastes like carrot cake, but it's a chia seed pudding, you've got to try it. Nuts are also used in the chef's line of snacks that's called (word?) , and we do a lot of natural snacks with the nuts and stuff, but the drinks it's only the almond milk.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, when I go to a bar, anything called a bar, I'm expecting a certain type of social environment. We'll talk about that when we come back. 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org. Do you worry about the calories and the sugar in juices? 800-433-8850. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe interrupt our drinking to bring you juicing on Food Wednesday with Katherine Tallmadge, president of Personalized Nutrition and the author of "Diet Simple: 195 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits, and Inspirations." She's also the president of the D.C. Metro Area Dietetic Association. Amy Waldman is owner of Puree Juice Bar in Bethesda, Md., and Duane Sylvestre is the bartender at Bourbon Steak Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown.

NNAMDIWe're inviting your calls at 800-433-8850. If you have already called, stay on the line. We will get to your call. Amy, part of your goal with the Juice Bar was not just to provide healthy juices, but also to create a social atmosphere like a bar or a café, but with healthy food. How's that working out?

WALDMANIt's gone really well. The way it's set up, we actually have seating around the bar like any other alcohol bar where you can talk to the bartenders or watch your drink being made, or whether it's a juice being, you know, shaken in a cocktail shaker or whatever, and it's really great. We've had everything from -- well, the latest has been some young sort of teenagers coming in sitting around the bar and taking shots of wheatgrass. That's been huge. They love it.

NNAMDIKnocking back shots of wheatgrass.

WALDMANExactly. And they dare each other and they cheer, and it's really a hoot. that's just really fun. We've even had a few dates come out of the Juice Bar which I'm very excited about, people meeting each other talking about healthy foods and juice, or, oh, did you try this, or I did that one with bee pollen, and that was really good, and then the next thing we know there's a date out of it. So it's been fun.

NNAMDIDuane, speaking of social atmospheres, at the bar where you work, you experiment with new flavors and combinations. Where do you get your ideas?

SYLVESTREForums like this. Honestly, reading magazines, hang out a lot on our pastry line or in the kitchen to see what the chefs are doing. Taking a walk through -- we have a garden along the C&O canal just behind the hotel, and walking through there with the chef, without the chef, just picking something, smelling it, biting it, tasting it, how can I incorporate this, what does this inspire, what does this make me think of. Any time I go out to dinner with my wife or my wife cooks a meal, or a visit a friend and you taste something new or forget what you're eating, what does this remind you of and how can you bring that back and what would you like to capture, and inspirations drawn from everywhere, a trip to the grocery store.

NNAMDIWhat are some of the things you've tried that have worked well?

SYLVESTREAs far as juices, celery and ginger work really well together. Carrot and ginger is a standby.

NNAMDII just had a carrot ginger from Amy. It's frankly delicious as is the carrot juice itself, but yeah.

SYLVESTRECucumber works well -- cucumber tequila surprised us.

NNAMDIWell, I have a challenge for you. Here is Jim in Alexandria, Va. This may be a challenge for all of you. Jim, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JIMThanks, Kojo. I appreciate you taking my call. I have a couple questions. A couple of my favorite ingredients, one would be avocados, and another would be dark chocolate. I'm wondering how would you put those into a juice. And actually as I was waiting, actually I had another question...

NNAMDIWell, let's deal with the first one first, avocado and dark chocolate together. How would you put that in a juice, Amy?

WALDMANWell, the avocado would have to go in a vitamix which would make it more of a blended drink, but it's really fabulous. It works wonderful in the Vitamix, and the avocado adds creaminess without, again, having to use dairy or ice cream or yogurt. So I say put that a vitamix with anything else you feel like. And in fact, there are several recipes out there for a chocolate pudding that's made with avocado and using a raw cacao powder, which gives you the chocolate taste, and you can put that in a vitamix. I can't recall what else goes in there, but if you Google it, you'll find something.

WALDMANAnd we use cacao in a lot of drinks. In our vitamix drinks you can add cacao powder into different things for that chocolate flavor, and we even do a chocolate almond milk that we call our choco maca milk. So it works very well. Full of antioxidants.

NNAMDIYou got anything for Jim?

SYLVESTREJim, go with the avocado. It's rich, it's buttery, and you can support so many other flavors, and what it really does is the textures -- the avocado helps carry different flavors on your palate, so you can make your chocolate milkshake, like she said with no cream, using your water. You're gonna have to find a sweetener if you're using a bitter chocolate, but absolutely play with it and play with them together. I also like with both chocolate and avocado work very well with spicy components. So in my milkshake or my smoothie in my head, I've already got cocoa powder, avocado, some sort of cayenne, maybe an agave sweetener. We're not opposed to using sugars in our bar.

TALLMADGEYou are Bourbon Steak after all.

SYLVESTREBut run wild with it, and if you get anything good, give me a call.

NNAMDIJim, how does that work for you? What's your second question?

JIMOh, I wondering if you're panel could make a comment on Kombucha. I've been drinking a lot of Kombucha lately, and I'm just wondering if they had any comments good or bad about Kombucha, how they would fold that into juicing.

NNAMDIAmy?

WALDMANYeah. Well, Kombucha is a fermented tea. You know, a lot of people do that that juice also. For a while we were looking at the Juice Bar, apparently you can get Kombucha on tap, and that's what we wanted, kegs of Kombucha on tape, but just for space and other reasons, we couldn't work it out. I think it's, you know, I think there are certainly health qualities to it, but my understanding is if it sits on the shelf too long, that it loses a lot of the good qualities that the fermentation has.

WALDMANIt also has to be made with sugar. That's what starts the fermenting process, so if you're worried about sugar in your diet at all, or if you're sensitive to sugar, it might not be a good option for you.

NNAMDIWell, a couple of questions along that line, and Jim, thank you very much for your call. We got an email from Donna in Bethesda who says, "I love fresh juice, but also aim to minimize the time and cleanup. What do the guests say about doing a volume of juice in advance and keeping it in the refrigerator as opposed to juicing one glass at a time? The conventional wisdom seems to be that you should juice a glass at a time and drink right away, but do you lose anything by storing it for a few days in the refrigerator?" Amy?

WALDMANYeah. You absolutely do depending on the type of juice, or again, the centrifugal juicer is going to pump a lot of air into the juice. The air begins the oxidation process, so you will lose flavor, color, and nutrients. We use the Norwalk Juice Press, which is a zero-oxidation process, so we make the juice in larger batches, and you can do this at home if you want to invest in a Norwalk, and bottle it. We put it in glass bottles, seal it immediately, keep it cold, and studies have shown the nutrients last up to 96 hours.

WALDMANWell, they do last four days. We have a three-day sell-by date on our juice just to be safe, but that's one option. I believe the masticating juicer is going to have a longer shelf life than centrifugal, but still not quite as much as a press.

NNAMDIKatherine, as we were talking about healthy juices have been around for awhile, what about a regular old V8 which claims two servings of vegetables in every eight-ounce bottle. How does that stack up?

TALLMADGEWell, V8 is an excellent juice. I love it myself, especially the spicy with a little vodka at times.

NNAMDICan we repeat that, with a little vodka at times.

TALLMADGEBut ...

NNAMDIYes.

TALLMADGE...I love the idea of using fresh fruits and vegetables and juicing yourself, but I do love a V8 too, and for a lot of people that's what they have access to. Not everyone has access to Amy's wonderful juice bar.

NNAMDIOr their own juicer.

TALLMADGEOr their own juicer. So you do have vegetable juices in the stores that can be excellent.

NNAMDIWell, a lot of the bottled juices we see in stores with healthy names like Super Food and Berry Veggie are often made more palatable by including sweet tropical fruits like banana, mango. Is there a danger with trying to make a health food appealing to a wide range of people?

TALLMADGEYes. I think the key is looking at the label. Looking at the nutrient facts that tells you the calories, but most importantly, looking at the ingredient list. I find a lot of those juices, even if they call it mango juice, the first ingredient is apple juice. So that means it's not predominantly mango juice. So the key is looking in the ingredients and see if there are ingredients you don't want. If you don't want just mostly apple juice, or if you don't want added sugar, if you don't want other things in your juice, if you want it to be pure fruits and vegetables, it takes educating yourself by looking at the ingredient list, and this what I'd like restaurants to do as well, to let people know what's in -- especially like a restaurant like Starbucks which is serving so many people They need to label what they're selling so people know what they're putting in their bodies.

NNAMDIHere's Artie in Herndon, Va. Artie, your turn.

ARTIEHi, Kojo. I mean, this is like an answer to the question you asked earlier, like that kind of fruits and vegetables you juice at home.

NNAMDIYes.

ARTIESo about a year and a half ago, I was diagnosed with high levels of thyroid, so at that point I was in India and usually I go to holistic approaches. So my doctor recommended that I have, in addition to other things like, you know, certain yoga postures and going in the sun, she also said that I have carrot juice every day with some honey. So I've been doing that regularly, and my thyroid levels have come down and they are in the acceptable range now. So I don't juice carrots, but it's like more like a blended thing, you know, like everything is there, the fiber, everything, the skin and everything like that. So I have it with honey and that seems to have helped.

NNAMDIIndeed, Katherine, juices can have powerful properties, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory. What are some of the health benefits of the ingredients we've been talking about here today.

TALLMADGEOh, the health benefits are immense. You could consider a fruit or a vegetable a little factory of plant chemicals, you know, which have antioxidant affects, antibacterial affects, help prevent cancer, heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and inflammatory processes are a part of many diseases, and as you eat these foods, these beneficial compounds enter your blood stream, they get into your liver where toxins are detoxified. It's just the nutritional properties are huge, but you do have to eat your five cups a day. I tell people that...

WALDMANOr drink.

TALLMADGEI tell people that in order not to torture them, but that's what the science says and that's what the U.S. dietary guidelines recommend for a reason. People with those high level of intake have superior health.

NNAMDIWell, we all want the nutrition and we all want the health that we get from juices, but we also are interested, Duane, in flavor. You use different ingredients for different things, flavors, sometimes color, sometimes texture. What are some of your favorites?

SYLVESTREFor color, nothing stains better than beets. And recently, you know, as a sweetener as well in a cocktail if you like that nice mineral-ity, earthy quality. We use ginger. We use almonds as well. We make our own almond milk to make a sweetener...

WALDMANOh, good.

SYLVESTRE...called (word?) carrot, celery, cucumber, corn, we've even experimented with. I say experimented because we didn't quite get the flavor that we were looking for. The corn flavor that was there was a bit starchy in the mouth. Jicama we're playing with for this menu change coming up here. So all of the citrus juices, we love them, and more than just the juices, we use the peels to extract all the flavors. So when you think of lemon flavor or orange flavoring, that flavor really comes from the skin, you know.

SYLVESTREWhen you have an orange soft drink, you're getting orange oil from the skin and not necessarily the orange juice or a lemon sorbet. Those flavors are coming from the oils in the skin as opposed to the juice. There's often a combination, but we love all -- I mean, I've got some wonderful ideas from some of the products that we're tasting here today as well.

NNAMDII'm afraid we're just about out of time, but we did get an email from David who says, "When I make juice, centrifugal juicer, I scrape the basket and eat a lot of the pulp to get the fiber and help myself feel full and get my fiber." Katherine Tallmadge, president of Personalized Nutrition and the author of "Diet Simple: 195 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits, and Inspirations." Amy Waldman is owner of Puree Juice Bar in Bethesda, Md. Duane Sylvestre is the bartender at Bourbon Steak Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel, and Katherine is also president of the D.C. Metro Area Dietetic Association. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDI"The Kojo Nnamdi Show" is produced by Brendan Sweeney, Michael Martinez, Ingalisa Schrobsdorff and Tayla Burney, with help from Kathy Goldgeier and Elizabeth Weinstein. The managing producer is Diane Vogel. The engineers are Andrew Chadwick, Timmy Olmstead, and Kellan Quigley. A.C. Valdez is on the phones. Podcasts of all shows, audio archives, CDs and free transcripts are available at our website, kojoshow.org. To share questions or comments with us, email kojo@wamu.org, join us on Facebook, or send a tweet to @kojoshow. Thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.