LF Juice packs a health boost for Lake Forest

LAKE FOREST – Juicing your own fruits and veggies at home is all the rage for the health-conscious, but it can be time-consuming and expensive, and depending on the machine, you may not even be extracting as many vital nutrients as you think.

Laura Rukavina, co-owner of LF Juice in Lake Forest, knows this struggle first-hand. After suffering a workout-related injury, she discovered the benefits of yoga and home juicing, though finding the right juicer was an exercise in trial and error.

“I went through all kinds of juicers and juicing methods. I finally came across cold-pressed juicing and it was a life-changer for me,” she said.

Rukavina was so impressed with cold-pressed juice she opened LF Juice with her friend, Annemarie Ranallo, last June.

“We’re trying to introduce people to a healthier way of living,” Ranallo said.

Cold-press juice machines use high pressure to extract natural fruit sugars, vitamins, trace minerals and enzymes. One glass of fresh juice is more than a pound of produce. One glass of fresh juice each day delivers a person's minimum daily requirements, according to the LF Juice website.

“We use an industrial cold-press machine so we can yield a lot more of the nutrients than a home juicer,” Ranallo said.

Nothing like it

“There is no juice bar in the suburbs that [does] what we do with the cold-pressed juicing on an industrial-sized machine,” Rukavina said. “There’s really nothing like it around here.”

LF Juice offers a product that is organic, raw, unpasteurized, unheated and untreated, with no artificial additives or preservatives. Technically, the shelf-life of their cold-pressed juice is five to seven days, but they won’t sell it after day three.

“We press daily, so we can tell the difference,” Ranallo said.

Using ingredients such as kale, spinach, beets, sweet potato, apples, pears, peaches and strawberries, LF Juice juices 30 to 40 pounds of produce at a time, several times a day, for their signature cold-pressed juice bottles. Their juice is not blended, but extracted. Water-based produce are never the main ingredient.

“Our juice is so condensed. It’s so nutrient-dense. It literally flourishes through your body within 20 minutes,” Rukavina said.

LF Juice also makes smoothies, super shakes, acai bowls, protein drinks, specialty drinks and more.

The smoothies are made only with almond milk or coconut milk. “We don’t add anything but frozen fruits and vegetables to it. We don’t even use ice,” Ranallo said.

Much of their organic produce is shipped directly from California growers. It’s simply the best, Rukavina said.

“Getting organic products in the Midwest, we discovered, is very difficult. When [I would] juice at home, I’d go to the store and pick out my ‘organic’ produce. But after getting it from direct suppliers in California, I noticed a huge difference in the quality compared to what people can buy in any grocery market.”

Catering to the customer

Customers from all walks of life including athletes, vegans, cancer patients and those with special dietary needs, have discovered LF Juice, said the owners, who aim to please by constantly experimenting and changing up the menu.

“We do a lot of what our clients ask for. We love being able to make certain things for certain people,” Ranallo said. “We try everything. Someone wanted a pomegranate juice, so we started doing that. We made pumpkin juice last week.”

For customers who’ve never “juiced” before, Ranallo suggests they mix a bottle of their all-fruit juice with a bottle of their green, veggie-based juice, then slowly decrease the fruit juice until they are used to the taste.

“I used to juice at home and my kids would drink it, but they hated it,” she said. “They will drink the cold-pressed now. It tastes so much better.”

When asked if they hope to turn LF Juice into a franchise, the friends said their hands are full, but it’s something to consider in the future if the business proves a success.

“We need to get through our first year,” Ranallo laughed.

If you go:

LF Juice is located at 950 Western Ave., Lake Forest. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday. They are closed Sunday. Learn more at www.lfjuice.com or call 847-235-2090.

Open house:

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The store will host an open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 4, featuring juice samples, a raffle and lululemon athletica yoga gear and apparel for sale.