Natural Health Buzz

Juicing For Optimum Health

Products

Juicing is the best way to get healthy nutrients into your body as quick as possible. It's especially good, if you are not feeling too good or have an illness since the juice is free from fiber which means that your body doesn't have to do very much work to absorb nutrients.

Juicing has many health benefits including helping with weight loss, boosting your immune system, hydrating your body and help them to ward off serious diseases like cancer. You know how they say it's good to drink a lot of water, right? Well the water in juice is a natural source of water that will help to hydrate you as well as give you essential fatty acids, minerals, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates. In addition to this, fresh juice will also provide you with enzymes which are vital to your metabolic process and are key elements in giving your body energy. Oh, and did I forget to mention the other healthy elements in juice like flavonoids, carotenes and chlorophyll?

Now if you think you've got to rush out to the store and buy a bunch of bottled juices think again. These just will not do the trick. Oh sure, they might have a lot of vitamins and minerals but the problem is that these juices have been pasteurized and the heat in the pasteurization process kills the enzyme's. So, you have to get a juicer and do your own juicing of fresh fruits and vegetables and try to stick to organic ones if you can get them because these will be free of pesticides and other toxins.

The type of juicier you use is important too. You want to get a good-quality juicer and in order to keep up with your new healthy habit of juicing, you want to get one that's easy to clean as well. Let's face it, if you have to spend a half hour scrubbing and picking fiber out of your juicer you probably wont want to do it too often. I've tried quite a few juicers myself and I find that the Jack Lalanne Power Juicer is by far the best to use and the easiest to clean. I've had mine for several years now and it's never broken once and still works as good as the day I bought it. Plus you've got to figure that Jack Lalanne is doing something right with the shape that he's in and the incredible health he has so how can using his juicer be a bad thing?

Why is juicing so good?

Fresh juice allows you to deliver the raw food goodness of fruits and vegetables writing to your system almost like an intravenous shot of health. You see, cooking destroys not only the enzymes but also over 90% of the water soluble vitamins like vitamin A, D, E, and K. Now on not saying that cooked foods are bad although some do advocate a raw food diet, I'm just saying that juices can be more nutritious and easier for your body to digest.

Since you are delivering a powerhouse of nutrients to your body with each glass of juice it can actually be more satisfying to your body and can cause you to eat less thus helping in weight loss.

How Often Should You Juice?

Many people go on juice fasts that last anywhere from 1 day to 30 days. Myself, I've only been able to make it through one day but I can tell you that the next day I felt so fantastically fabulous that it was well worth that first day. Once you do it more often, you get more used to it and it becomes easier.

One thing that you should remember, however, is that juicing will have the best effect if you do it on empty stomach. That's because your body will be able to absorb the juice quicker if there is nothing else in your digestive tract to get in the way. That's why, it's a good idea to have a fresh glass of juice when you first get up in the morning. Sometimes I'll drink only juices until around noon and then proceed eating a well-balanced diet the rest of the day. Try it, it's not that hard and you won't believe how great you feel!

The only drawback, is that the fresh juices don't last long enough to drink them right away so you can't really juice up a batch in the morning and then store it for the whole day. You have to pick a day when you could be at home with you juicer to do a day of juicing.

What Can You Juice?

You could use any combination of fruits and vegetables your heart desires. Sometimes even the oddest, nations and tasting great. Here a couple of my favorite juicing recipes that you can try.

Pineapple & Celery
This juice has a wonderful exotic sweet and salty taste. Be sure to keep the fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator and then when you juice them to juice will be cold.

1/2 Pineapple
2 Stalks Celery

Alternate running pieces of pineapple and celery through the juicer - mix and enjoy!

Carrot & Apple
This juice is very healthy and the carrot taste blends with the apple perfectly. You can experiment with the ratio of carrots to apples but this is what I like.

3 Apples
2 Carrots

Alternate running the carrots and apples through the juicer - mix and enjoy!

Citrus Sweetie
This juice has a sweet tropical taste but sometimes it could be too sweeping you might want to water it down a bit. The blueberries at a healthy twist and a little bit of a surprise. Be sure to have the oranges and pineapple cold when you make the juice

1/2 Pineapple
2 Oranges
1 Handful Blueberries