As the toxins and the poor nutrient value in our food increases, juicing is one of the best ways to compensate for it.
Whipping fresh fruits and vegetables through a juicer and extracting a glassful of vitamin-packet nectar ensures that we get the recommended five to seven servings of these foods every day. Some people like juicing to get more carotenoids and flavonoids, which are healing compounds that can fight major diseases like cancer and heart disease.
Others see juicing as a way to get rid of the toxins in our body, boost immunity and help to treat a variety of diseases, like anemia, constipation and arthritis.
For people who don’t like to swallow pills or capsules, Juices are a multivitamin/mineral supplement.Our body can absorb the nutrients much better than from pills. Plants are filled with vitamins, minerals and other beneficial compounds, but these substances are bound to vibrous tissue and contained within cellulose walls. By grinding vegetables and fruits to make juice, you break down the cellulose walls and release these compounds, making them available for consumption.
You can get much more nutrients out of food from juice, than from just eating, unless you chew very, very well. In fact, juice is one of the most powerful whole foods that you can put in your body. It takes very little energy to digest it, so you maintain almost all of the energy and nutrients that it gives. Plus it takes a whole lot of vegetables to get the same
amount of nutrients found in one glass of juice.
A 6-ounce glass of carrot juice contains large amounts of beta-carotene, which, when it is converted to vitamin A in your body, represents 948% of the Daily Value. The same glass of juice also contains 16 mg vitamin C, 27% of the Daily Value, 0.4 mg of vitamin B6, or 20% of the Daily Value; 537 mg of potassium, or 15% of the DV, and 0.2 mg of thiamin, or 11% of the Daily Value.
Juicing can even help to control your weight.Drinking juices helps the body iron out its nutritional deficiencies, which leaves you more satisfied from a healthy diet and less likely to overeat.
In spite of their nutritional goodness, juices should be used to supplement fresh fruits, vegetables and grains in your diet, not to replace them. The contribution of fiber is not sufficient to get the 20 to 35 grams that adults need every day.
For example, eight carrots provide 17 grams of fiber, while a 6-ounce glass of juice contains a measly 2 grams.
Fresh juices gives you more than the necessary vitamins and minerals. They also contain a variety of phytonutrients.
Perhaps the best known of the phytonutrients is beta-carotene, a plant pigment that gives the orange color on sweet potatoes and carrots, and the red on tomatoes. Fruits and vegetables also contain flavonoids, compounds with strong antioxidant power and prevent
low-density lipoprotein, (LDL) cholesterol.
From a large study, involving more than 100,000 people, researchers found that when one serving of fruits and vegetables was added to the diet each day, the risk of ischemic stroke, a stroke in which the artery to the brain was blocked,was lowered by 6%.
The best protection came from citrus fruits, dark green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables, which include broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage.
Other studies have shown that antioxidants help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. In 2002, a study involving nearly 5,500 people, researchers found that those people who ate diets rich in the antioxidants vitamin C and E, decreased their risk of developing
Alzheimer’s disease. Drinking a large variety of vegetables and fruit juices is an exellent way to get therapeutic amounts of all of these healing compounds.
Drink your juices right away, otherwise it will lose their nutritional benefits as well as the flavor. So juices, like cabbage, become funky in a few hours. So it’s best to make only as much as you like to drink right away.
It’s best to consume vegetable juices, they are better nutritionally. Although a tall glass of fruit juice may look appealing to you, it’s better to concentrate on vegetable juices.Fruit juices are high in sugar and too acidic to drink in large quantities.
For maximum healing benefits, drink vegetable juices from a variety of vegetables.
The more variety you can put in your diet, the better.
