Once considered the drink of drop-outs and hippies, confined to earthy-smelling health food shops and co-ops, the juice revolution has swept the nation. Now available at such trendy places as Jamba Juice and even sold in pedestrian grocery stores, the fresh vegetable and fruit juice movement is now a common part of American life. Read on for tips to learn how to be a part of this healthy revolution.
Drink your juice at room temperature in order to receive maximum health benefits. Chilling your juice will make it harder for your body to digest it, and therefore reduce the amount of nutrients you absorb. Also, chilling the juice requires it to sit in a fridge or freezer, and fresh juice is best immediately after you make it.
Before juicing, find out what items you need to peel and what you can leave whole. Citrus fruits generally need to have the peel removed before juicing. Be careful however when peeling, the white area immediately underneath the peel is fine to juice and it is where MOST of the nutrients are.
Try vegetables mixed with your favorite fruits in your juicer. Many vegetables are easy to juice. They can add important vitamins and minerals to your juice as well. In addition, using vegetables can cut down on the calorie count of your juice, which in turn, makes it a better diet option.
Ask your friends and family if they’d like to go in on purchases in bulk at local farms with you so you can buy more and get larger discounts. Apple farms, for example, will sell you bushel after bushel for decreasing costs per pound. Take a few cars up, load the back with apples, and share with everyone! They don’t have to be juicers to enjoy fresh produce.
Carrots don’t need to be peeled before you juice them, but you can’t eat their leaf greens as they’re toxic to humans. Rhubarb is also an excellent item to juice, but its greens are also bad for you. Make sure to read about what greens are okay or even healthy to eat, which could make you sick, BEFORE experimenting!
If you have an ulcer, try cabbage juice! It’s been shown to help heal an ulcer while you’re treating it with traditional medicine, speeding up your treatment. Many fruits and vegetables can help heal a variety of ailments, so do a little research to find what will help you with your problems!
When it comes to juicing, one thing that you want to keep in mind is that you want to make sure that your refrigerator will be able to hold all of your fruits and vegetables that you need. This is important because you will need a lot of space, keeping your ingredients in room temperature may cause them to spoil quicker.
It’s best to avoid mixing fruits and vegetables in the same juice. Your body uses different enzymes to break them down, and so mixing them together makes your body have to work harder to get the nutrients it needs. Apples are an exception that can be mixed with almost anything, so you can toss an apple in with whatever you are juicing.
They can lend a bitter flavor to juice, so use them in conjunction with sweeter fruits or veggies, such as carrots, berries, or citrus. A favorite of many is a combination of cherries, strawberries, cranberries and blueberries. Mix them to your own liking.
Don’t throw away the pulp that is left after juicing! You can make excellent dehydrated crackers out of it which will contain all the fiber that doesn’t make it to your juice. It can also be used in pie crust, if you so desire. Never waste anything that is still good for you!
When using juice to curb your appetite before meals, DON’T include coriander or basil! They’re both appetite stimulants, so while they’re great for people who are receiving treatment for cancer and aren’t ever hungry, they’re not good for anyone who is trying to reduce their solid food intake. Stick to parsley or mint instead.
A great juicing tip that can help you save time is to start eyeballing the amount of foods you’ll need to make the amount of juice you want. A pound of raw produce for instance, will typically make at least one whole cup of juice. Knowing these tricks can help you save time.
The juicing movement is on the rise but it hasn’t come far enough. The undeniable benefits of the raw juice of fruit and vegetables are essential to improving the overall health of the American public. With the increase of home juicers and the information coming out from National Cancer Institute’s about the benefits to long-term health from fruit and vegetables we will start to see more people join the juicing movement.
Why You Should Give Juicing A Try was originally published on Spring