Is Juicing Good for You?

So many things have been said about juicing. Some people say juicing has a lot of benefits for the body. However, there is also a group of people who say that juicing is not all that good, that it also has harmful effects to the body. So, which of the two groups is telling the truth? Well, both groups are correct in some aspects. Juicing can both be a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. The answer is a bit more complicated than most people think.

Juicing can give you a lot of health benefits. A lot of people are aware that medical experts highly recommend eating fresh fruits and vegetables. The fact is, not all fresh fruits and vegetables are palatable. Some just have a taste which is just too strong for some people. With juicing, you will be able to have a wide range of vegetables and fruits included in your diet. You can add ingredients like lemons, limes and cranberries to make them more palatable and more flavorful.

Fruits and vegetables contain high levels of ingredients which help fight disease. They also have high levels of antioxidants. They can help make you look younger and help flush out the toxins from your body. Vegetable fruit juices are especially helpful for people who are trying to lose weight. All these things should be enough to convince you buy juicer now.

However, when you juice, you lose fiber from the fruits and vegetables. Fiber is needed because it aids digestion. Fiber is a great help to your digestive health which you cannot get from any other source. Fruit juices tend to be high in calories so people trying to lose weight are better off drinking vegetable juices.  People who consume a lot of fruit juices will have a rapid rise in blood sugar.

Why Fresh Juice is Good for You

Many people prefer to make their own fresh fruit and vegetable juices.  They are free of preservatives and artificial ingredients, making them better for your body and overall health.  Here are a few other important benefits to juicing:

Higher Nutrient Absorption

Because using a juicer means that your juices are free from any interference and are just all natural, your body is able to absorb important nutrients from juices more quickly and in larger amounts. There are many different types of juicers on the market, such as the Breville Juice Fountain, that make juicing easy.  Proper nutrition is made simple with a good juicer.

Fight Illness

Fresh juice, such as that from a Breville Juice Extractor, which is of the highest quality, can help fight off illness.  It can help you if you’re already sick by filling your body with all of the nutrients from essential fruits and vegetables but can also help prevent illness in the first place because of the added nutrient absorption.

Wheatgrass has many great health benefits and is believed to improve your immune system, so having a wheatgrass juicer is always a good idea if you’re illness prone.  If you’re environmentally conscious, you can also get a manual wheatgrass juicer which does not require electricity.  Wheatgrass is a great detoxifier for your body as well.

Great Taste

If you’ve never tasted fresh juice before, the taste can be daunting at first.  Once you get used to it, though, you realize that it actually tastes better than store brought brands.  Artificial flavors and sweeteners sometimes mask the taste of an actual fruit or vegetable and a juicer allows you to truly take in the actual taste without any interference.

Increases Metabolism

Another notable benefit of juicing yourself is that the fruits and vegetables you use retain their enzymes this way, which increases your metabolism.  This is great for overall health and diet, not to mention weight control.

Juice Keeps You Young

There are many claims that drinking fresh juice has many anti-aging benefits.  If you want to reduce stress and wrinkles that can make you look older, a juicer is a wise investment.

Juicing can be a fun alternative to buying pre-made juice at the store, but more than anything it has many great health benefits.

Vegetable Recipes for Juicing and Their Health Benefits

Juicing has become an ever popular practice as a method for promoting health and well being. Vegetable juices in particular are touted as the healthiest kind of juices because they contain a lot less sugar than fruit juices. So here are a few vegetable juicing recipes you can make at home and a description of their health benefits.

Carrot and Celery Kicker
6 large carrots
4 stalks of celery
1/2 red pepper

Celery is a great diet vegetable because is called a ‘negative calorie food’. This means that it takes more calories to digest celery than it actually provides us!

Promoting heart health is another powerful health benefit of celery. Celery contains  plant compounds called phthalides that are one of the best natural agents for lowering blood pressure. Phthaldes have a strong relaxing effect upon the muscles of the artery wall. This lets the arteries dilate (expand) more which in turn allows more blood to pass through the arteries therefore releasing blood pressure.

Carrots also aid in heart health because they are a great source of the antioxidant beta-carotene that helps protect our arteries from inflammation caused by free radicals damage. One study found that elderly people who eat at least one serving of beta-carotene rich foods (carrot or squash in this case) per day are half as likely to suffer a heart attack than those who eat less than one portion per day.

Green Supreme
6 large carrots
1 handful of spinach
1 handful of kale
1 handful of cilantro

Spinach and kale are great for supporting eye health because they contain antioxidants called lutein and zeaxanthin. If you look at any supplements in the market that are aimed at eye health then it is 99% likely these two antioxidant will be key ingredients. This is not surprising because solid research has shown that lutein and zeaxanthin both concentrate in the retina (lens) of our eyes where they protect eye cells from oxidative damage. This helps to slow down the aging process of the eyes and protect against diseases like cataracts and age related macular degeneration. Juicing kale and spinach is a really great way to achieve an abundance of these antioxidants in your diet.

Cilantro is one of the best known chelators of toxic heavy metals, especially mercury. A chelator is a food or nutrient that is able to bind with toxic metals in our cells and remove them from the body. For this reason cilantro has become a central ingredient in most heavy metal detox programs.

For more recipes visit green juice recipes.