Benefits of Vegetable Juice

All the current nutritional advice suggests that we eat anywhere from 5 to 8 servings of vegetable each day. This can be a challenge considering we are so busy dealing with traffic, jobs, families, animals, exercise, and cooking meals the kids will eat! Luckily vegetable juice is something that can increase our vegetable intake in an easy and digestible way.

The practice of juicing requires you to wash and chop about four vegetables of choice, and one fruit, and put them through the juicer. You should then dilute the juice 50% with water, because vegetable juice is very concentrated with the fibre removed. Once this is done you can drink your juice slowly, chewing each mouthful to optimise digestion and absorption.

Some vegetables that make a good base for a juice are celery, cucumber, fennel and cabbage. Using dark leafy greens like kale and spinach will ensure you get lots of magnesium. You can also use herbs like coriander, basil and mint, and ginger root can give your juice a real zing! You should not use more than one type of fruit per juice because the sugar content of fruit skyrockets when the fibre is removed. The best choices are apples, lemons, limes or oranges. If you are Banting you can make your juice with no fruit at all.

Juicing allows you to consume a wide variety of vegetables, which you might not be inclined to do if you had to cook and chomp your way through them each day.

Vegetable juices are extremely detoxifying, so make sure to drink extra water when you first begin juicing. This detoxifying effect may help to clear up chronic health problems and speed up weight loss. There are many benefits to juicing and it is often miraculous for people. Keep an eye on your body and listen to it. If you begin experiencing any stomach aches or churning then you can take this as a sign to slow down on the juicing or perhaps change your recipe to vegetables that agree with you.

There are many vegetable juicing machines available nowadays and some are quite inexpensive. Depending on your budget, you can opt for the top of the line masticating juicer, or an affordable centrifugal juicer.

Be sure to drink your juice immediately after making it to avoid oxidation and degradation of the nutrients. If you want to save some for later, store it in an air tight jar in the fridge or freezer.

One should note that vegetable juices are used as a healthy adjunct to a good diet, and should not be used to replace meals.

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