J U I C E C A B O O S E
Why Juice?
It allows more nutrients to be absorbed because your gut doesn’t need to digest all that fiber.
Don’t get me wrong fiber IS important because it also contains nutrients and helps digestion. But bear with me I’m talking in a practical sense here… how many of you realistically can eat two to three pounds of vegetables each day?
Juicing makes this possible because this process involves extracting juice and leaving off the pulp which takes digestion off the equation and introduces nutrients directly to the blood stream. And since you’re drinking rather than eating, you’re able to take in more vegetables thus absorbing more nutrients without stuffing yourself too much with a lot of fiber.
In short juicing allows you to consume more vegetables efficiently. The important point to remember here is that the majority of the ingredients have to be vegetables and fruit that has high fructose content (our body only needs 15 to 25 grams) has to be minimized. For people starting out, it can be tough because drinking vegetable juice isn’t palatable. Experts say to counter strong flavor of dark greens, mix in a fruit like a lemon that has low fructose content to mask the bitterness but if it it’s still too bitter then add an apple or two then slowly cut the amount of sweet fruit as you get used to the taste.
It allows you to consume a wider range of vegetables which allows your body to get more nutrients.
How many different types of vegetables do you cook in a week? In our home I’d say we cook around one or two types of vegetables per meal so it adds up to around 7 to 10. BUT we don’t cook for every meal because more often than not there are leftovers. And we usually eat out on weekends. So no matter how we try, we limit ourselves in terms of variety. Juicing helps us here because we can add a lot more variety in every juice we make. You have lots of options in terms of recipes and limited only by produce available in the grocery store. If you juice before every meal, you can use 5 to 6 different vegetables per day that may include dark leafy greens or cruciferous vegetables. You see where I’m getting at? This allows you to add more variety and with that more nutrients.
It feeds good bacteria to the gut.
Most of us don’t know this but a third of our immune system is located in our digestive track and countless research shows that the key to a health body is a healthy gut. Hippocrates in fact said 2000 years ago that “All disease begins in the gut”. What does juicing have to do with this? In a study done by Gemma Walton PhD, they found that eating food rich in prebiotics such as in leeks and bananas increased good bacteria in the gut by 133 million. Vegetables are one of the best sources of these prebiotics. To give you proof here’s a list of foods rich in prebiotics. Light green, dark green and yellow coloured vegetables are rich in carotene, Vitamin C and E and folate that help fight colon cancer. Ginger is another ingredient that aids digestion and heals upset stomach plus it has numerous other benefits. All this simply states that one of the ways of improving digestive health is adding the right amount fruit and vegetables to your diet through juicing.
It helps fight cancer.
Cancer treatment involves chemotherapy that takes a toll on your body and bank account. And a lot of people have turned to alternative medication which includes juicing to fight this dreaded disease. I’m not saying that juicing will cure cancer but it’ll help keep the body nourished during the process of chemotherapy. Though there is no concrete scientific evidence that say juicing is better than eating whole fruit and vegetables, it SHOULD NOT be disregarded because drinking vegetable or fruit juice makes it easier to swallow and absorb more nutrients. Remember that lot of cancer patients have trouble swallowing so eating large quantities is not practical. This also enables them to keep their bodies nourished during a physically draining procedure like chemotherapy that kills blood cells. Prevention is better than cure.
By eating more fruits and vegetables will nourish will help arm your body with anti-cancer nutrients that will help fight off cancer cells. Like what I’ve said in point number 2, juicing helps you consumer more because your digestive system will not have to work as hard as it needs to digest. Since the vegetables we eat now are less nutritious than it was 50 years ago because of a number of factors like over farming that depletes nutrients from the oil, we simply have to eat more to compensate for this. Dr. Brian Lowenta says that in order to reduce the risk of cancer we have to eat 2-3 cups of fruit and over 3 cups of vegetables everyday! I don’t know about you but if I wanted to I won’t be able to do it because I’d be stuffed full. This is where juicing comes in.
It helps lower high cholesterol.
Lowering your cholesterol involves more than just juicing. You’ll have to totally change your diet. In my case, my ALDL or bad cholesterol is over the border and the doctor advised me to remove fried food from my diet. Yes, no saturated fat, no beef or pork and replace that with more veggies, fruit, oats, seafood and chicken. Juicing helps me consume more vegetables that help lower cholesterol like capsicum, dark greens, cucumber, celery, ginger, bitter melon and lemon to name a few at higher doses because I can’t imagine myself eating a whole stack of those. So in essence to lower cholesterol, you need to radically change your diet (yes avoid fried and fatty food), exercise more and eat more greens and fruits.
It helps detoxify our bodies.
A few decades ago our lives are much simpler. The absence of the internet and mobile devices permitted us more time to cook our own meals. A slower paced lifestyle means less stress and a home cooked meal often times is healthier than fast food. Today it’s the opposite. Technology that’s supposed to make our life easier has made it fast paced. So fast paced that we hardly have time to cook our own meals and have to rely on fast food for our body’s nourishment. Add this to the stress that we get from our fast paced work takes a toll on our bodies over time, hence the need for a detox. Detoxing rids the body of toxins that accumulate over time because of poor diet choices, lack of exercise and a generally unhealthy lifestyle. Who needs to detox? Well most of us do. One great way to detox is through a juice fast. Remember that this is different from drinking a smoothie because smoothies still have the pulp that our gut needs to digest. The goal of a juice fast is to rest our digestive system, nourish it with nutrients found in fruits and vegetables then flush out toxins. The key to a successful juice fast is to know what to expect, how to prepare your body and how to break a fast.
It helps lower blood sugar levels.
Another sad reality of our fast food and soda culture is the rapid rise of people with diabetes and worst of all, a lot of young people in their 20s are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. According to cdc.gov around 26 million Americans have and an estimated 79 million have pre-diabetes! That number is staggering! Fortunately by changing your diet, that means eliminating fried food, pork, beef, sodas and anything sweet, you can lower down your blood sugar levels. Eating foods like ginger, broccoli, spinach, celery, and onion as well as acidic fruits like lemon, grapefruit, pomegranates and oranges will help lower bad cholesterol. How does juicing come into the picture? Juicing these vegetables help you consume more without overloading your digestive system. Remember to limit the amount of sweet fruits in the mixture to just the bare minimum – only use it as a sweetener. Fruits are best consumed whole with the fiber to slow down the absorbtion of fructose.
It helps us get better skin.
You have probably heard the term “you are what we eat” at some point in your life. This also applies to our skin. If we eat nothing but greasy junk food, our skin will most likely be oily and have a lot of breakouts.
I was like that during high school and college. My diet consists of burgers, fries and sodas and my skin reflected that diet. I usually had acne breakouts that literally covered my entire face. Yes you could say that hormones played a part but I could have at least minimized the break outs if had I minimized junk food. Juicing helps us getting better skin not only by allow our bodies to absorb more nutrients that our skin needs, it helps suppress our appetite for not so healthy meals like chips and fried chicken. I’m sure you’d agree with me that sipping a cup of fresh cucumber + beet + carrot juice is much better for your skin compare to drinking a cup of Frappuccino.
Improves Athletic Performance.
While green leafy vegetables can give your body a nutritional boost that other foods cannot, there is one particular vegetable (a root crop) that can improve athletic performance naturally without having to resort to performance enhancing drugs. What is this vegetable? It is beet. This velvet colored root crop can be eaten raw as part of a salad or if you want to get the benefits instantaneously, add it to your juice recipe. World class athletes from runners to cyclists swear by beet root juice. Studies have shown that drinking pure beet root can shave off minutes from your running time. Beet improves oxygen and blood circulation inside the muscle thus improving muscle endurance. There are studies that refute these claims but these studies were only done on low intensity exercises. New studies mention that while beet juice may not enhance blood flow, it can “de-stiffen” blood vessels – this eases the workload of the heart.
