Like an artist who stands prepared to welcome the muse of creativity with his or her empty canvas, array of paints and specific brushes at his or her fingertips, you too, want to endow your kitchen with the essential tools you’ll need for the delicious and ecologically friendly meals you’ll be preparing. If your budget doesn’t allow for a complete kitchen makeover all at once, start with the basics like a professional-grade juicer made by Breville and Green Star along with a high-powered blender like BlendTec, a blender that has enough RPMs to turn a hard nut into a creamy sauce or dressing, frozen fruit into sorbet, and cold vegetables into hot steaming soup. So go ahead, with the click of the button, you’ll be on your way to becoming a healthier, more ecologically balanced, happier you!

The Green Star is great for green leafy vegetables, sprouts, herbs and grasses such as wheatgrass. Its new and unique dual-stage juicing process achieves greater efficiency than most other single-auger juicers, which means that you get more juice from your produce. It works by filtering out juice during the initial crushing phase, before it can be reabsorbed into the pulp, and then squeezes the remaining pulp in the secondary pressing phase. This means that more juice goes in your cup and less stays behind in the pulp. Green Star’s low-speed auger gently crushes and squeezes your produce so it will not heat up your juice and destroy life-giving nutrients and enzymes. With its included accessories, the Green Star also converts into a flat pasta or round noodle maker, making it a very versatile piece of equipment. It is durable, heavy duty UL approved and will keep you equipped for juicing and raw food preparation for many years to come.

Most health advocates would also agree that the other most essential piece of equipment for a whole foods kitchen is a high-quality blender. My favorite is the Blendtec, also known as K-Tec. Most other blenders found in department stores just don’t have the RPM power to turn hard nuts into a cream sauce or cold vegetables into a warm steamy soup. This high performance blender has the power to make whole food juice, sprouted nut butters, fruit smoothies, sorbets, ice cream and baby food, but it is best known for producing the best, most consistent results in taste and texture. The Blendtec has predesigned cycle settings. When a cycle button is pushed, it automatically speeds up and slows down, then shuts off when the cycle is complete. The Blendtec Total Blender has so much power (1500 Watts) it turns ice to snow and actually comes with an ice-crushing 8-year factory warranty.

For Food dehydration is a great way to create your own healthy and flavorful snacks such as dried fruits and vegetables or seed and grain crackers. It is also a great way to preserve the essence of a raw apple, as well as other fruits and vegetables because it doesn’t subject foods to high temperatures associated with traditional food preservation methods like canning. Whenever a raw food is heated to an internal temperature of 118°F or higher, much of its nutritional value is lost, especially enzymes. Excalibur is the only dehydrator that has premium-quality features such as an adjustable thermostat, removable trays and door for easy loading, easy cleaning, pop-in, non-stick flex sheets, built-in on and off switch and drying performance that far exceeds all other models. While Excalibur makes a 5 or 9-tray model, the 9-tray is the one I most highly recommend, due to its vast range of dehydration.