Got Omega VRT350 HD "Issues" ?

You don't need a juicer to juice this beauty.  Here is a sample of search terms that got folks to my site last week: omega vrt pulpy juice

omega vrt350 banana

omega vrt350hd issues

omega vrt350hd leak juice

problems with omega vrt350

vrt complaints All I can say is, "Scroll back in time and you will find over a dozen reviews of my dissatisfaction with the Omega VRT350HD juicer.  I finally returned the second one because the problems were the same with both.  Leaks. Overflow.  Too much plup.  Strings.  More unusual matter in the juice.  Daily dissatisfaction. To all you suffering Omega VRT 350 HD owners I say,  "If you cannot get a satisfactory juicer after paying the better part of US $400, please return it for a refund."  Don't let them bully you into keeping something that does not work well, does not produce a clean juice free of strings and excessive pulp, etc. You deserve to be happy when you make your juice and drink your juice.  You cannot accept problems for the price you paid.  You are investing your time and effort daily as you purchase the produce to juice, clean the produce, cut the produce, juice the produce, clean the juicer (You have to do it.  I know you don't like to, but you have to.) and reassemble the juicer when it is dry.  Yes, I know that was a sentence within a sentence, but I am feeling your frustration and rage.  If you have tried to remedy the situation, and problems persist, insist on a refund.  Contact the seller's local Better Business Bureau if you are getting a run around.  File a complaint if necessary.  Quit suffering in silence. I AM glad the VRT350 HD is out of my house. Ciao babe.  Adios.  Via con Dios.  Good riddance. You can't juice this, but it is perfect for smoothie. Or just eat it! Note to the banana guy, I have tried juicing unfrozen and frozen banana, but it was a big mess.  Not worth the yield and clean up.  Bananas don't juice well.  Just eat them when ripe or make smoothies with your bananas.  You can probably get a new Blender for under US $20.  I upgraded to an Oster that can crush ice cubes in smoothie quite nicely.  It cost less than US $50 at the big box store I lovingly call Costlo.  They will easily refund your money if you do not find the product acceptable for any reason.  Shouldn't an Omega VRT juicer come with the same courtesy? So banana man, let your bananas ripen, scroll down to my several posts with smoothie recipes, make a green smoothie (sounds bad, but is so good!) add 4 or 5 ice cubes if it is summer where you are, and stay cool. Unhappy VRT owners, be proactive!   Get your vrt350hd refund.  Be happy. I am considering reviewing some of the cheaper juicers on the market.  Let me know if this would be useful for you. Special sayonara  to you Southwest Desert Blogger readers in Japan.  Thanks for checking this blog. Happy trails to all, Your Southwest Desert Blogger C. (c)2012 P.S.  I do not have ads (with cookies that track you!) in this blog.  If you'd like to support this blog and save money, check the health foods and supplements, including raw and organic at www.iherb.com/info/benefits.  The iherb site also has super- foods, vitamins, green powders (Hawaiian Spirulina, and others), homeopathics, organics, raw food http://www.iherb.com/Search?kw=raw+organic and supplements such as raw organic chia seed, hemp seed, cacao, coconut oil, kelp noodles, healthy pet food, Dr. Bronners, organic soaps, shampoos and skin products, tea, loose herbs, sports supplements, essential oils, protein powders, all at discounts. Use the WAL660 code will get you $5 off  your first order and free shipping for US orders of $20 or $40 or more.  Just enter the code WAL660 in the shopping cart before final check-out.  Remember to add a "freebies" free product to your order. iherb ships to over 180 countries.  Thanks for your support.

More Raw

I have been high-raw, i.e., eating over 80 percent raw food, most days 100 percent raw vegan, (but who knows if the nuts are really raw?) for over 40 days.  I have not had coffee for 45 days.  It has been (prepare yourself for a cliche phrase) life changing.  I am surprised at how much I like it and how easy it is.  The greatest challenge, thus far, is social dining.  Despite this, the rewards are great.

My sleep has improved.  Cuts heal faster.  My mood is more upbeat.  I get going in the morning without the two-plus cups of coffee I used to require.  No coffee to grind.  No coffee maker to clean.  No coffee to buy.  I drink a quart of water in the morning (it is dry here in the Southwest Desert) and add juice of a half lemon or lime.  Then I juice a quart of vegetable juice.  I drink one or two pints, whatever I desire.  If I only drink one pint, I save the other in the fridge for later.  If I am still hungry I have some fruit or a salad.  Yes, a salad for breakfast -- or lunch.  And I mean a vegetable salad, although sometimes I add a bit of apple, peach, or nectarine. If the salad is not sufficient, I have some nuts or seeds afterwards.  Be careful not to go nuts with the nuts.  Unless you are breaking them out of their shells, they are too easy to eat.

I generally save my smoothie for lunch or afternoon.  I have been making my smoothies with frozen fruit and greens -- green smoothie.  I freeze fresh fruit, peeled if necessary and cut into pieces, when it is sweet and on sale.  The frozen fruit makes the smoothie almost like a sherbert and I eat it with a spoon.  It is cooling, tasty, thick, convenient, fast, easy, and healthy.  No added sugar.  No added fat. No animals, animal parts, or animal by-products in the blender. Trust me, I never wanted a green smoothie until I tried one during the 7 Day Raw Food Challenge.  Look for my previous posts Is Your Drink Green?, Got Greens?, and other posts from late July for my green smoothie recipes, thoughts, and observations during my raw genesis.  Also link to http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1383344 for a FREE easy juice and smoothie recipe e-Book, other easy raw recipes, videos, and info about the 7 Day Raw Food Challenge I completed.

Let me give you a secret ingredient I add to my banana spinach smoothie --- cinnamon.  It adds a new taste and the health giving properties of cinnamon.  I also add 4 to 6 ice cubes because my blender can grind them.  Note that I do not have one of those super-duper  $400 blenders.  Just something better than the old, bottom-of-the-line $15 model I used to have, for years, until the plastic handle broke off the (what is it called?) blender pitcher (?).  To recap:  the secret ingredients are cinnamon and ice cubes.  ;-)

I go to a naturopathic doctor.  After I stopped coffee for several weeks, a noon time slump in energy that would have been boosted by caffeine became pronounced.  The doctor found that my pineal gland was weak.  This has been corrected and my energy is quite sufficient to get through the day and evening.  Had it not been for quitting coffee, I would never have known that my pineal, a master gland, was weak.
I was advised it is OK for me to take vitamin B12.  The naturopath I go to has been a vegetarian since the 1960s!  He takes some B12.  He works long days, sometimes over 12 hours, and goes to the gym to work out during lunch.  We need more role models who practice what they preach and don't do too much preaching.  Also, it is good to have a practitioner you trust who can intelligently support you when you change your diet.  You want to be sure you are getting all your nutritional needs met.

In a previous post I promised to print some quotes from a book I read, Blatant Raw Foodist Propaganda! or Sell Your Stove to the Junkman and Feel Great!  Here it is:
    Most people live on an omnivorous diet -- that is, anything that is possible to chew up and swallow      and live long enough to tell about it, they will eat.  But, for one reason or another, many people decide to adopt some restrictions...The great value of the raw food diet is its transformative value. To a great extent, when you take up the raw food diet, you become a new and different and better person.  You don't just stay the same old person, only a little healthier.  You become, to a great extent, a new being, with new interests, a new philosophy and outlook on life, new goals and desires...Such transformations of course are impossible to imagine before you have experienced them.  The raw foods diet doesn't so much "improve you" as "replace you" with somebody better!  -- Joe Alexander c.1990

Wow.  Lofty words Joe.  I could stand to be replaced with somebody better.

I am new and improved, or replaced...,
Southwest Desert Blogger
C. (c)2011






 

 

Got Greens?

Did you ever crave greens so badly that you had to make a special trip to the store just to get them?  I have had craving for ice cream, chocolate, cookies, a glass of wine, bread, pizza, pasta, some very ripe, sweet fruit, but today, for the first time, I had a craving for greens.  I did not care whether it was a dark green romaine lettuce, chard, spinach . . . it just had to be green.  The cucumbers in the fridge would not satisfy the craving.  I had to make a trip to the store.

I bought 2 bunches of organic celery, one huge dark green head of organic romaine lettuce, and organic beet greens.  I had to go to two different stores to get the quality I wanted.  Wilted romaine or beet greens would not do.  I went home and juiced up the beet greens with some beet root, carrot, apple, and cucumber (all organic save the cucumber which was washed and peeled).  Ahhhhh, the craving was satisfied.

Three hours later I wanted more greens.  It was afternoon and a hot 97 degrees with monsoon humidity.  I mixed up a batch of the banana blueberry smoothie* (FREE smoothie recipe e-Book link at the end of this post) and added as much romaine as I could fit into the blender.  The bananas were cut into 1/4 inch slices and previously frozen.  I had to add extra water to get the whole thing to mix.  See the recipe in previous blog.  I also blended in a few ice cubes; crushed ice would be even better.  The result was a thick, cold product that resembled the $7 smoothies at the smoothie shop.  The smoothie shop will top their smoothies with granola.  I topped mine with hemp seeds which give it a nice texture and taste.  I have also topped smoothies with chia seeds which give a bit more crunch.  Both these seeds are said to have good essential fatty acids such as Omega 3, and protein.  The smoothie works with mango instead of, or in addition to blueberries, but the mango I bought was not organic and had a chemical taste.  There are inorganic mangoes that are better than the ones I had, I just did not want to go to a third store. 

I am not going to accept any of that chemical tasting food.  I put the offending mango in a plastic bag and into the refrigerator.  I will return it to the store.  While I am at the store, I will look for more greens.

Still 100% raw vegan,
Southwest Desert Blogger
*P.S. get easy, delicious, FREE juice and smoothie recipes e-Book, videos, and info on the life changing 7 Day Raw Food Challenge I completed, link here:  http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1383344  Have a healthy, happy day. C.
C. (c)2011

Is Your Drink Green?

Have you ever had a green drink?  No, not a green colored cocktail.  I mean one of those green health smoothies?  I used to do (i.e., drink) wheat grass juice.  It tastes like drinking the front lawn (if you have a front lawn).  I remember waiting on line at a health food store deli counter (do they call it a deli?) and someone ordered a "shot" of wheat grass  juice. The man standing behind me in line was not well versed in the wheat grass culture, so he asked the deli counter worker, "What is a shot of wheat grass?"  The worker explained that he would juice fresh wheat grass and each ounce is a shot (think bar culture).  The man on line said, "Isn't that what my dog eats and barfs up afterwards?"  Yes.  He got the idea.

Often, health foods are an acquired taste.  Sometimes they are downright difficult to stomach.  I asked the organic food co-op produce man why kale is so popular.  It seems like a good way to destroy a salad and why would one add it to a smoothie and risk ruining all the sweet fresh fruit used to disguise the kale?  The coop man said he thinks people just force themselves to eat kale.  He doesn't like it either.

A green drink seems like a good idea 2 days of the year:  St. Patrick's Day and Halloween.  But today I tried a green smoothie.  It is part of the raw food week.  The full recipe calls for 4 bananas.  I just happened to have 4 bananas at the peak of ripeness.  The recipe calls for blueberries.  I just happened to have organic blueberries that actually have some taste to them.  And the recipe calls for spinach.  I have over a pound of spinach and I like it much better than kale.  So all systems were a go.

The recipe I used is a big risk because it makes 4 cups of smoothie. You don't like it and you are stuck with a lot of green goo in a blender.  Bearing that in mind, I judiciously made half the recipe.  I wasn't sure if the amount of spinach in the recipe was loose packed or solid packed cups.  I just added spinach until the nice blue smoothie turned green.  It was a nice shade of green, but a bit ominous.

I poured it into a clear glass cup.  It was green.  It was thick.  I was hungry so I tasted it.  It was good!  I was amazed at how good it was.  It was easy to drink.  I had to slow myself down.  It was downright chugable.  Like Chinese food, about an hour and a half later I wanted more.  So, I made the other half of the recipe, but this time I packed the blender with as much spinach as would fit.

The blender needed help blending the additional quantity of spinach.  I kept turning it off, removing the lid, and mixing the blended fruit with a bit more water or a couple of ice cubes, folding in the spinach, and blending some more.  I did this several times until the blender could mix everything smoothly.  Now, to see whether I overdid the greens.  No.  The smoothie was still so good I finished it all even though I had intended to save a cup for later.

This morning I thought green smoothies were a repulsive concept.  Now I am thinking, "How can I tweak this recipe and make variations on the theme."  Luckily, the bananas in the house will probably not be ripe enough to suit my taste for at least 48 hours.  Otherwise, it would be banana blueberry spinach smoothie again tomorrow.  I think I will add a pinch of cayenne pepper to give it that Southwest zing.  The heat of the cayenne pepper powder will also slow down the consumption of the quart of smoothie.
Cayenne pepper powder is measured in HU (heat units).  I have HU 90.  It is HOT. I add it by the tiny pinch.  I believe there is hotter cayenne pepper powder available.  Be careful with it. This stuff should be R rated.  It is not for everyone.

The half recipe (makes about 2 cups smoothie) for the banana blueberry spinach smoothie is in this FREE smoothie e-Book http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1383344 .  Check the videos at the link to find a video of how to make this and other easy recipes as well as excellent information on health and happiness.  I think you will like it.  I added several ice cubes and less water to my smoothie because it was very nearly 100 degrees here before noon. 

Stay cool.  Stay raw.  Be happy.
(raw now) Southwest Desert Blogger
P.S.  I think the banana blueberry spinach smoothie would look good in a martini glass.  No olives.
C. (c) 2011