VEGETABLE JUICE
JUICING VEGETABLES
The following tables provides links to information about various vegetables.
Below this table is an introduction
to juicing vegetables which explains some of the basics do's and don'ts,
amongst other things...
Introduction:
Fresh
vegetable juice helps supply your body with readily available nutrition. Fresh
vegetable juice not only tastes great, but it helps you eat, or in this case,
drink more vegetables in a day than you normally would.
It's a well known fact that your body needs optimal nutrition to be healthy.
Nutrition is fuel for the body. Every action of your body requires nutrition.
Your body requires nutrition in order for your organs, glands, bones and every
other component of your body to be healthy.
Drinking fresh vegetable juice is not a cure all. Fresh vegetable
juice is simply part of a healthy lifestyle.
Many people have obtained health benefits as a result of drinking fresh
vegetable juice on a regular basis. This however, in my humble opinion, should
not be your primary reason for drinking fresh vegetable juice.
Your primary reason should be because you enjoy fresh vegetable juice. The
benefits you obtain from drinking fresh vegetable juice are just that...
benefits.
Your best results will come from simplicity. With simplicity comes
consistency. With consistency comes results. But if you focus solely on the
results, then you will only experience disappoint.
By enjoying fresh vegetable juice, you help to ensure the consistency needed
to obtain the long term benefits.
Juice because you love drinking fresh juice and let the rest take care of
itself.
This page contains basic information about the do's and don'ts of juicing
vegetables. To obtain specific dietary and health advice for yourself, please
consult your medical doctor or naturopathic doctor.
Diabetes, Hypoglycemia, Candida, etc:
If
you suffer from a sugar related health problem such as diabetes, hypoglycemia,
candida (yeast problems), gout and so on, you should consult your health
care professional before juicing vegetables that are higher in natural sugars.
For your benefit, I have added a nutritional analysis of each vegetable
listed. This nutritional analysis is gathered from the US Department of
Agriculture. The analysis shows how much sugar (in the analysis, the sugar
content is mentioned as energy) there is per 100 grams of the vegetable.
If you suffer from a sugar related problem, consult your medical
doctor or naturopathic doctor before juicing fruits and vegetables.
Kidney Stones and Other Kidney Related Problems:
If you suffer from kidney stones, then you will definitely want to avoid juices made
from vegetables such as spinach, beets, collard greens and some other vegetables. These vegetables are higher in oxalic acid.
If you do suffer from kidney stones or other kidney related problems, then
consult your medical doctor or naturopathic doctor before juicing.
Children and Pregnant Women:
If
you are currently pregnant, preparing to get pregnant or are nursing, you should
consult your doctor before juicing.
Certain vegetables or fruits can contain nutrients and minerals that are
possibly not safe for a pregnant or nursing mother.
If you are planning on providing fresh vegetable or fruit juice to your
child, then you should also consult your doctor or health care professional
before providing fresh juice to your child.
Fresh juice is concentrated nutrition and therefore, it's advisable to get
professional advice before you begin. Naturopathic doctors have good knowledge
of juicing and therefore can make an excellent choice to get professional advice
from.
Green Juices:
You need to be more careful when using green juices such as broccoli,
lettuce, cabbage, dandelion, spinach, kale and all other greens.
These juices tend to be more powerful and so you will want to start off slow
and gradually increase. Ultimately, you never want more than ¼ of your juice
to be green juice.
I never drink my green juices alone. Not only are they powerful in that they
can cause loose bowel movements, but their taste is rather strong. Green juices
are usually mixed with apple, celery, cucumber or carrots.
Remember To Chew:
Most people, when drinking fresh juice, will just drink it like a glass of
water. But what you want to do is chew your vegetable juice. This does a few
things including warming the juice to body temperature. In addition, the
vegetable juice then mixes with your saliva which further helps your body absorb
the nutrients in the juice faster.
Ideally, I prefer to leave my vegetables on the table for about an hour or so
before I begin to juice. This helps bring the vegetables to room temperature. I
do this because cold food shuts down digestive enzymes. This is why many feel
awful after eating cold foods like ice cream. So when the food is warm, the
digestive enzymes work more efficiently.
Start Slow:
If
you are new to juicing, then start slow and gradually introduce vegetable juice
to your body.
Fresh vegetable juice is more concentrated than the vegetables you eat. In
addition, the nutrition and benefits of the vegetables are released and
available to the body much faster than if your body were digesting a whole
vegetable.
If you are new to juicing, then you will want to begin with more basic
vegetables such as carrots, celery, parsnips, cucumber, etc. Then with time,
gradually introduce the green vegetables such as dandelion leaves, parsley, beet
greens, etc. Purslane and wheat grass are more powerful juices and should be
introduce after juicing for a while.
Apples:
Apples are the one fruit you can combine with your vegetable juice.
For the most part, vegetables require different enzymes for digestion than
fruits. Therefore, we don't combine fruits and vegetables. But apples are the
one fruit you can combine with your vegetables.
Apples add a very nice sweetness and flavor to your vegetable juices.
You Still Need To Eat:
Fresh vegetable juice is great, but you are still going to need to eat your
veggies too!
Your body is a natural juicer. As an example, when you eat a carrot your body
begins to digest it. Essentially, your body extracts the juice from the carrot
and then gathers the nutrition from the juice for its bodily functions. Then,
the fiber passes through the colon and helps keep you regular.
The benefit of juicing is that you help your body by removing the step
required to extract the juice from the vegetable. But in doing so, you also
loose the all important fiber.
So continue eating your veggies to get the fiber you need to help maintain
regularity.
Variety Variety Variety:
I know you probably have your favorite vegetables that you like to juice. But
variety is the spice of life and variety is important when juicing.
By constantly changing the vegetables you juice, you get a broad spectrum of
nutrition. This means that while one vegetable may be low in a certain vitamin
or mineral, another vegetable may not. By having variety, you smooth out the
bumps so to speak.
Variety is also important because it is said that if you have the same food
every day for more than 4 days in a row, then your body will create an allergic
reaction to the food.
Why Organic?
When
possible it is best to use organically grown vegetables.
If you are not using organically vegetables, then you will always want to
remove the peel of the vegetables. Unfortunately, a lot of the nutrients in
vegetables are found within the peel or rind.
Organic vegetables are also important because juicing brings out the juice of
the vegetable and unfortunately, when using non-organic ingredients, you are
also getting some possible pesticide or other chemical residue in higher
concentrations.
Buy Regional Produce:
When possible buy produce that is locally grown or produce that is regional
to your area. This helps to ensure you get the most nutritional bang for your
buck.
When possible try growing your own vegetables.
Good Combining:
Avoid combining fruit juices with vegetable juices. The only fruit
that I combine with vegetable juices is apple.
When juicing tomatoes, it is best to not mix the tomato juice with
other vegetables juices. Tomatoes are a special breed of vegetables because they
are actually fruits. Tomatoes do best by themselves.
More Flavor:
Two things that I do every now and then to add more flavor to my juices are
to add some pure vanilla extract or stevia.
I find pure vanilla extract really helps to smooth the flavor of my juice and
truth by known, I love vanilla! I use pure vanilla extract which is more
expensive, but I don't want to use artificially flavored extract. You can get
pure vanilla extract from your local health food store.
Of course, you can add any other extract that you like. My suggestion is to
simply use pure extracts rather than artificial ones.
I also use stevia every now and then. Stevia is a natural sweetener that
contains no sugar and does not affect insulin. With stevia, less is more. I
usually add just 1 drop but sometimes 2 drops of stevia to my juice. Stevia is a
nice replacement for apple juice and helps remove the bitterness of some the
dark green vegetables.
You can get stevia from your local health food store.
Soft, Hard, Soft, Hard...
When juicing vegetables, it helps to alternate between soft vegetables then
hard vegetables.
The benefit of juicing vegetables in this way is that the soft vegetables may
not always release juice as fast or as easily. Therefore, by juicing a harder
vegetable after a soft vegetable, you help to flush the juice of the soft
vegetable out of your juicer and into your glass.
Wrap Small Leaves:
When juicing vegetables that have small leaves, like parsley, you can do one
of two things.
You can either rap the leaves inside a bigger leaf vegetable such as kale, or
you can roll the smaller leaves into a ball.
This helps your juicer get the most out of the smaller leaf vegetables.
Additional Thoughts:
Many people, including myself, tend to juice fruits less often than
vegetables.
The reason why is simply because fruits taste better than vegetables in most
situations. As such, most people including myself, find it easier to eat
fruits whole than to eat vegetables whole.
So when I juice, I primarily juice vegetables and have fruit juice less
often.
I also juice fruits less often because it is harder to find organically grown
fruits than organically grown vegetables.
I also juice fruits less often because of the higher sugar content.
I also prefer to juice vegetables more than fruits because vegetables are
harder to digest than fruits. Therefore, juicing helps me get more nutrition
from my vegetables.
I have easy access to organic apples which is good because I do like to add
some apples to my vegetable juice every now and then.
