While other students sip on corn syrup-filled sodas, chug energy drinks or feed their coffee addiction, psychology sophomore Anthony Vasquez is in his kitchen, pouring a glass of produce.
A vegetarian for four years, Vasquez drinks raw vegetables and fruits to provide energy-boosting nutrients that the body stores and utilizes throughout the day.
Kinesiology and dance Chair Bill Richardson said sodas contain simple sugars called sucrose that "make you get up, then crash."
Fruits and vegetables, along with grains and legumes, contain complex carbohydrates that "give a more sustained energy release," Richardson said Nov. 18.
Vasquez has made juicing a part of his daily routine. "I'll walk back home from school and juice, and then I'll eat lunch, and if I'm at work, and I get a break, I'll come over here and juice or go to Whole Foods and buy it," he said.
This can amount to more than 16 ounces of fresh juice a day, seven times the daily requirement for Vitamin A, he said.
"I try to do it every day, but every now and then I'll miss a day, and that's OK," he said.
Vasquez shopped for produce at the farmers market at Pearl Stable, 200 E. Grayson St., on Nov. 7, a first-time visit since living downtown.
"It was good, but I wasn't too happy about the prices," he said, adding that he tries to spend no more than $8 for a typical juice, which makes about 24 ounces.
The Champion-brand juicer Vasquez purchased for about $300 six months ago makes the juicing process easier and is more efficient than other appliances. Although it's more expensive, it extracts more juice, he said.
After rinsing the produce, Vasquez chops it up to fit inside the juicer chute, plunging the produce into an auger which grinds pulp out one end while a pitcher gathers juice from underneath a screen.
"It's the cleaning part that's bad," said his neighbor Erin Jackson about centrifugal juicers, which rapidly grind produce with a blade and throw the pulp against a screen.
Vasquez said his auger juicer is easy to clean by rinsing and drying.
Carrots, kale and collard greens, radishes and a rainbow of bell peppers are among the vegetables Vasquez drinks. Some mornings, he will juice citrus fruits that "can really make you feel full."
"It's really spicy," Vasquez said after adding purple radishes to his juice Nov. 9 at his residence on Ashby Place.
The brighter orange, yellow and red vegetables are sweetest, he said.
Vasquez said darker, greener vegetables such as spinach and kale can be bitter, but contain a higher concentration of nutrients, including chlorophyll.
"It's all about the chlorophyll," he said, referring to the substance in plants, especially green vegetables that "oxygenates the blood and strengthens cells."
"My body craves that stuff now."
Since becoming a vegetarian four years ago, Vasquez said doctors bombard him with questions about where he gets necessary protein.
"I was shocked. I started naming off lentils, vegetables and grains," he said.
A complete protein contains all nine essential amino acids that the body must obtain from various foods, said kinesiology Professor Andreia Brown.
Like all people, vegetarians "need to eat a wide variety of foods, including whole grains," Brown said, adding that some vegetarians with celiac disease who cannot digest gluten may be lacto-vegan, with complete protein in the diet received mostly from milk; ovo-vegan, from eggs; pesco-vegan, from fish; and even poulo-vegan, in which no red meats and only fish and poultry are consumed.
Vasquez said he never felt fatigued during a six-month period when he juiced and ate only raw foods.
"There are essential nutrients which human beings need," Richardson said. "Juicing can provide that."
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