I started making this in January, when the fridge was full of good intentions and the celery was the only thing that had survived them. Grapefruit and celery together sound like a punishment, and I only tried it because I had both and did not want to waste either. The first glass was better than it had any right to be. It is sharp, it is green, it is very cold, and on a morning when you cannot face anything sweet it does the job. It has been in the rotation ever since.
Why these ingredients work
Grapefruit does most of the work. Two pink ones give this juice its colour and nearly all of its flavour, and they bring about 70mg of vitamin C to a glass, comfortably past the 40mg a day adults are advised to get. Pink grapefruit also carries lycopene, the same pigment that makes tomatoes red.
Celery brings the volume without the sugar. Two hundred grams of stalks is barely 30 calories on its own, and the natural potassium and sodium in it are a big part of why a glass of this feels more refreshing than a glass of straight fruit juice. It keeps the sugar down as well. The whole recipe works out at roughly 14g of sugar a glass, which is about two thirds of what you would get from the same volume of orange juice.
Lemon sharpens the finish, and ginger stops the celery going savoury in the wrong direction. Fifteen grams is enough to notice and not enough to turn this into a ginger juice.
What it is not is a fat burner. Nothing you drink is. Ninety calories a glass and a bit of vitamin C is the honest version, and that is still a decent trade for something you actually want to drink.
FAQ
Does grapefruit celery juice help you lose weight?
Not by itself. There is nothing in grapefruit or celery that burns fat, and the studies that get quoted about grapefruit and weight loss tend to be small and mostly about people eating the fruit before meals rather than drinking it. What this juice does is replace something worse. A glass of it is around 90 calories with 14g of sugar, against roughly 110 calories and 21g of sugar in the same volume of orange juice, and it is far less sweet than squash or a shop-bought smoothie. If you are cutting back on sugary drinks, it is a good swap. If you are expecting it to do the work for you, it will not.
Can I drink this if I take medication?
Check first if grapefruit is on the list. Grapefruit blocks an enzyme in the gut that normally breaks down a lot of medicines, which means more of the drug ends up in your bloodstream than the dose intended. Statins, some blood pressure tablets, certain antidepressants, some antiarrhythmics and a handful of others are affected. The interaction lasts for hours, so it is not something you can dodge by timing your tablets around the glass. A pharmacist can tell you in two minutes whether any of your prescriptions clash with it, and it is a five minute job worth doing before you make this a habit.
Why did mine come out bitter or gritty?
Pith is the usual culprit. The white layer under the grapefruit skin is bitter, and so is the lemon pith, so take both off properly rather than just peeling the outer skin and hoping. If it is gritty rather than bitter, your sieve or nut milk bag is letting celery strings through, so strain it twice or blend for longer. Older celery is stringier than young, and the outer stalks are tougher than the ones in the middle. Drink it the day you make it if you can. It is still fine on day two, but it loses its edge.
More weight loss juices: see the full Weight Loss collection.
Grapefruit Celery Juice
Equipment
- 1 Juicer masticating or centrifugal
- 1 High-speed blender for the blender method
- 1 Nut milk bag or fine-mesh sieve to strain the blender version
- 2 Airtight glass bottles for storing
- 1 Budget cold press juicer a good value alternative
- 1 Budget blender a good value alternative
Ingredients
- 2 pink grapefruit about 400g, peeled and all the white pith removed
- 5 celery sticks about 200g, roughly chopped, leaves trimmed off
- 1 lemon peeled, white pith removed
- 15 g fresh ginger a thumb-sized piece, no need to peel
Instructions
Juicer method
- Peel the grapefruit properly. Get the skin and the white pith underneath it off, then pull the segments apart so they feed through the chute instead of sitting whole on top of the blades.
- Chop the celery into lengths that fit your juicer and peel the lemon. Leave the ginger as it is, because a lot of the heat sits right under the skin.
- Feed the ginger and lemon through first, then the celery, then the grapefruit. Grapefruit is the wettest thing here and it pushes the celery through rather than leaving it packed in the mesh.
- Stir it, pour it over ice and drink it straight away. It keeps for two days in a full airtight bottle in the fridge, though it separates as it sits, so give it a shake before you pour.
Blender method
- Peel and segment the grapefruit, peel the lemon, and chop the celery and ginger into rough chunks.
- Put the lot in the blender with 100ml of cold water and blend on high for a full minute, until there are no strings of celery left.
- Pour it through a nut milk bag or a fine sieve and squeeze the pulp properly, because that is where most of the juice still is. Work reasonably quickly, as grapefruit turns dull and flat the longer it sits about.
- Serve over ice, or bottle it and keep it cold for up to two days.