The Benefits of Juicing

There are literally dozens of good reasons why a person might decide to start making their own juice.  Aside from the obvious benefit of having your own, delicious-tasting juice around, there are many health-related reasons that one might decide to juice.

As we all know, a diet rich in fresh vegetables and fruit is one of the best lifestyle choices you can make. Since time is an issue for so many of us, juicing your own vegetables and fruit can be a great way to ramp up your daily fruit and veggie intake without wasting valuable time.

It takes far less time to make up a jugful of vegetable juice every morning than to spend hours before each meal prepping veggies and fruit for breakfast, lunch and supper!

If you’ve got picky eaters in the family, making a vegetable juice with just a touch of fruit can be a great way to get them eating their veggies–without the usual complaints and hassle!

Raw Produce Is Better Than Processed

Eating fruits and veggies is great, but unlike many people believe, just how you eat your fruit and vegetables can make a big difference in how your body responds to them.

Cooking vegetables much past a very gentle steam can drain most of the vitamins and minerals right out of them. This is because too much heat can kill the enzymes found in fresh produce.

While some veggies, like carrots, can benefit from a very small amount of heat (not past the point when they turn from crunchy to tender), most produce is better eaten in its natural, fresh state.

Canned, pre-co0ked or frozen veggies, while better than nothing, have lost of lot of their nutritional value by the time the reach your dinner table. Canned fruits or vegetables are very poor nutritionally, as in addition to being over-cooked, they are always packed and canned in huge amounts of salt, sugar and preservatives.

Juicing with fresh (particularly organic) produce removes all these obstacles. With juicing, you will be sure of getting every last bit of the vitamins and minerals your produce contains–nothing is cooked or salted or processed out of them!

In addition, if you buy a high-quality, professional-level juicing (like a Breville juicer), the motor will be powerful enough to juice all parts of your produce (some exceptions here that must be prepared or peeled ahead of time)–skin, core, and seeds–which we normally do not eat but can contain valuable nutrients.

Juicing Increases Your Fiber Intake

Increasing your fiber intake is another great reason to juice. Fiber is a very important part of any diet. Among other things, fiber keeps us full longer (a great thing to keep in mind if you’re trying to lose weight).

Drinking a glass of fresh-made vegetable juice two or three times a day will give you most, if not all, of the fiber you should be getting every day.

Fiber also helps rid our system of unwanted toxins or other, less healthy foods faster, helps prevent constipation, increases energy, and helps maintain blood glucose levels and prevents blood sugar from spiking, so your energy levels remains constant throughout the day without that energy-rush-than-crash feeling.

As mentioned previously, with a powerful juicer, you’ll not only get all the fiber from the flesh of your produce, but some that is often contained in the parts  n0rmally we discard–the skin, core and seeds.

There’s a lot of fiber in vegetables that is more easily released and digested by the body in a pureed form that in, for example, a salad.

When eaten whole, dark leafy greens like kale, swiss chard, dandilion greens and spinach can often pass through our digestive tracts relatively unprocessed.

This can mean that a lot of the fiber and vitamins in the roughage are simply passing through our system without being absorbed. Juicing these greens will allow for all the fiber and nutrients to be released and absorbed by the body.

What’s Really In Your Store-Bought Vegetable Juice

Now you may be thinking, ‘Yes, I see the benefits of drinking vegetable juice, but why not just buy it in bottles?”  That’s a great question!

There are many reasons that making your own fresh juice is better than buying it pre-made. The most obvious one is the issue of ingredients–what’s really in that ‘juice’.

While there are some brands that do sell what is 100%-vegetable juice and nothing else, many so-called ‘juices’ are nothing but a lot of sugar and preservatives with a little veggie or fruit concentrate added.

For example, if you check the label on most brands of ‘vegetable’ or ‘tomato’ juice, you will find that the first ingredient is not tomato or vegetable concentrate or puree, but in fact, glucous fructose (ie, sugar, usually corn syrup)!  Then the second,  or even third ingredient will be the actual vegetable concentrate.

The same thing applies to fruit juice. You often have to spend upwards of $6 to get even a small bottle 100% fruit juice. Many other brands will masquerade as authentic fruit juice, but are actually ‘juice beverage’ or ‘juice cocktail’–these words mean that there may be a bit of actual fruit somewhere in there, but it’s not likely to be high on the list of ingredients.  Again, in most cases, the primary ingredient will be glucous.

Now as I said, if you’re willing to shell out $6 to $8 per bottle, you can get real fruit or vegetable juice.

But aside from the expense (which is considerable), there’s just no question that freshly-made juice is more nutritionally dense than juice that has been sitting on a shelf for a month or two.  As with any other food, a long shelf life can kill a lot of the essential nutrients.

In addition to this, even 100% vegetable juice that you buy often has components that have been cooked or processed before they become juice.

This is because cooking will help prolong the shelf-life of the juice. Think about it: try making a pitcher of fresh veggie juice and letting it sit around in your fridge or on your counter for a week–it won’t stay fresh very long!

And even juice that is 100% fruits or veggies (even organic juices) will usually have preservatives (and lots of sodium, in the case of vegetable juice especially) to help it last even longer–another thing you don’t really want in your body.

Reasons to Juice

Juicing is one of the best decisions you can make for your body and your overall health and well-being.  Here’s a summary of some of the main benefits you may experience if you start making freshly-made vegetable juice a big part of your diet.

• Helps you get the recommended daily intake of vegetables and fruit
• Saves time! Much faster than prepping and cooking produce for each meal
• Increases your fiber intake
• Helps you get the necessary vitamins and minerals you need
• Keeps you full longer without adding unwanted calories, so you’ll eat less
• Increases your energy level and overall feeling of wellness
• Can help eleviate mood disorders like depression, anxiety, and ‘the blues’
• Relieves constipation, keeps your digestive tract running smoothly and efficiently
• Many studies link higher intakes of fresh produce to lower rates of cancer and other fatal or chronic diseases
• Can help lower blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular diseases
• Can help you lose weight and keep it off
• Get more nutritional value out of your fruits and veggies, so more bang for your buck
• Much cheaper than buying pre-made juice
• You can control what goes into your juice, great for both taste and health reasons