#RealJuice - Viva Collection Juicer

I've been taking part in the Philips campaign which promotes #RealJuice for the past week. They want to encourage people to add one juice a day to their diet which is much easier to stick to than one of those juice cleanses. I've had a little help with this challenge in the form of a Philips Viva Collection Juicer to play with and a 7 day juice plan to follow written by celebrity nutritionist Madeleine Shaw. Madeline has created recipes such as pre-workout, energy boosting and a hang over cure so there's a juice to help my body cope with any situation. 

I don't think I would have the time or be able to afford a juice detox, you need to drink the juice fresh so it doesn't lose any nutrients (I'm not going to take my juicer to work) and buying a large variety of fresh fruit and veg can be rather expensive. A one a day approach is perfect for someone like me who is new to juicing at home and who hasn't tried vegetable juices before. 

I've used my mini juicer for over a week now and I'm very pleased with it. I've been using a mini Viva design by Philips which is super compact and takes up hardly any room in my kitchen. 

The Philips juicer has QuickClean technology which means it takes less than a minute to clean, great for someone who is allergic to cleaning like me. With other juicers a lot of pulp fibres usually get stuck in the sieve, which makes it very difficult to clean. Thanks to the innovative QuickClean technology, all surfaces of the sieve of this model are smooth, which helps you wipe away the fibres with are a regular kitchen sponge. The round design and smooth surfaces without nooks and crannies also makes it easier to clean AND all removable parts can be safely cleaned in the dishwasher.

The juicer was very easy to use and the chute that you put your vegetables and fruit in is pretty big so I barely had to prep anything before juicing. The video below is a very useful to look at before you start juicing. Top tip, do not juice bananas and peel lemons and limes thoroughly before juicing because the white peel gets stuck in the juicer (I found this out the hard way and spent 20 mins fishing it out)

I couldn't wait to use my juicer but my fruit and veg delivery hadn't arrived yet so my first juice was made using whatever I had in the house. I opted for orange, carrot, lime and grape which was very tasty and just what I needed after a long day in work.

Keep an eye out for my post next week about the 7 day juice plan I followed, lots of lovely juice recipes and my thoughts on juicing. If you want to take a look at the juices I've been making check out the #RealJuice tag on instagram & twitter.

Are you a fan of juicing? Can you recommend any good flavour combinations?