Some people have seen the commercials on television advertising the benefits of juicing. One can buy a blender or food processor and fill it with fruits and vegetables and with the press of a button have their daily recommended intake of fruits and vegetables conveniently in a smoothie-type concoction. Juicing can be an excellent way to get one’s daily vitamins.
Make sure you drink your juice as soon as you make it, or at least as soon as you can. Fresh-squeezed juice will start to lose some of its nutritional value as soon as you make it. The best way to get all the nutrients from your juice is to drink it immediately, rather than saving it for a later meal.
If you are drinking juice primarily to improve your health, then make sure the main ingredient of your juice is a green vegetable. Ideally, your juice should be somewhere around 50 to 75% chard, kale, spinach, or another dark green vegetable. Just pick other yummy fruits for the rest of the juice.
Do not forget to remove hard pits from fruits like peaches and cherries before sending them down the juicer. These pits can destroy your juicers blades turning your happy purchase into a giant paperweight. Don’t get into such a flow in your juicing that you forget to make the fruits safe for juicing.
Research the nutrients you need to be taking in to choose which vegetables, fruit, and plants you should be consuming. You don’t have to have every single one every single day, instead spread your nutrient consumption out over a week. For example, if you need beta carotene you can have carrots every other day.
Making healthy juice from vegetables is wonderful, however, do not go overboard with variety. Stick to using 2-3 vegetables in your juice blends and incorporate apple into the mix. You will minimize the amount of flavors you are trying to combine and the apple will add the right amount of sweet to the mix for extra enjoyment.
When juicing and learning how to do it, do not start with dark green vegetables from the get go. Gradually introduce vegetables such as kale, mustard greens, swiss chard, wheat grass and dandelion greens. Only use 1/4 cup of any of these dark green vegetables at one time, as they are extremely powerful and have a cleansing effect on the body.
Try adding chopped ice to your juice to make it a cool treat in the summer! It’s like drinking a smoothie while actually knowing what ingredients are in it and where they came from (and how clean they were when they went into the juicer!) What a tasty way to chill out.
When it comes to juicing, one thing that you want to keep in mind is that you need to inform yourself about the signs of aging for all of the ingredients that you will be using. This is important so that you do not cause a health risk to you or anybody consuming your juice.
An important part of your juicing routine should be proper dental care. Fruit acid and sugar can soften or possibly erode your tooth enamel. Try to incorporate juice into your dental schedule by drinking the juice a few minutes before your morning brushing. This will also give you a healthy kick start to your day.
When it comes to juicing, one thing to remember is the only way for the body to process wheat grass is by juicing it. This is important, because you are creating a way to introduce important ingredients into your body that you could not have done otherwise.
One tip in order to keep the nutrients in the juice preserved even when storing it is to use air tight containers. Another tip with regards to preservation is to add a few drops of lemon to it and keeping the juice refrigerated. The longer the juice is stored, the less nutritious it becomes.
Some people claim that mixing fruit and vegetables in your juice leads to indigestion as the enzymes required to break down fruit are very different than those to break down vegetables. I, personally, have never had a problem, but if you find you have any tummy upset after drinking a mixed juice then you should probably stick to one or the other.
When concocting juices intended for children, it is a good idea to keep in mind that children will more eagerly consume the juice if it is in the form of a smoothie. They will also generally enjoy juices that taste sweeter. One fantastic mixture that many children will love is a strawberry and apple smoothie.
One amazing side effect of juicing is that you’ll find that your bodily fluids smell a lot better, and that includes your breath. If you suffer from halitosis, make sure to include citrus, fennel, parsley, and spinach in your daily juices to keep your breath smelling fresh and your teeth healthy, too!
Add sweet and sour fruits like citrus and apple or grapes to cover up less desirable flavors such as broccoli, wheatgrass and other greens. Juicing works so well to get vegetables into your diet, because the fruit flavors are more dominant than the vegetable flavors that you don’t enjoy as much.
If you want to juice leafy green vegetables, roll them together in a ball before placing them in the juicer chute. Follow with vegetables that are more firm. You should alternate between the leafy and firm vegetables if you are making a large quantity.
Adding the pulp back to your juice is very beneficial. Fruit pulp contains a large amount of fiber, which has proven health benefits. Whether you add no pulp, a little pulp, or a lot of pulp is a matter of taste, but do think about the fiber when making your choice.
Juicing may not be for everyone but it is not a difficult hobby to become a part of. With one simple purchase of a blender or a food processor, anyone can become a juicing expert. The health benefits and the convenience of being able to juice any foods you want don’t require anything except the willingness to push a button on a food processor.