Getting more from your daily fruit and vegetable intake is not always easy, especially when one considers that when these foods are cooked, the high temperature can reduce the amount of good stuff (vitamins) inside them. Therefore increasing the number of soups you cook, or vegetables you boil, might really not be the way forward.
We are here to write about Juicing your way into getting more good stuff from your daily foods without sacrificing anything.
Slow Cold Juicing
Slow Cold Juicing of Raw Fruit and Vegetables is great, with the latest slow cold juicing and masticating juicers you can get so much more vitamins from your fruit and vegetable.
Earlier juicers would spin very fast, extracting the juice in a similar way like your washing machine at home dries your clothes when in spin mode. It is now understood that this high speed extraction can cause damage to the phytonutrients and vitamins in the Raw Fruit and Vegetables, therefore the new slow moving masticating juicers aimed to resolve this problem.
As a base, if you use apples (alternating between red and green) and carrots as base ingredients, with ginger and other spices such as tumeric, you can then add one more ingredient each day to keep changing your juice. Some examples include;
Raw Purple Cabbage – for a bright purple juice
Raw beetroot – for a blood red sweet juice
Peaches – for that amazing sweetness
Plums – an amazing summer fruit for juices
Grapes – fresh and tasty grapes
Pineapple – for that tropical twist with bright yellow colour
Water melon – full of water and sweetness, for a refreshing summer juice
The new Juicers are great and fast and easy to clean, some great juicers include;
Panasonic Slow Juicer MJ-L501KXE
Philips HR1921/20 with QuickClean Technology
Panasonic Slow Juicer MJ-L700KXE
Health Benefits obtained from Raw Juicing
When was the last time you ate a raw beetroot, or 6 raw carrots with 2 applies and a good amount of ginger? The truth is most of us do not consume this amount of raw fruit and vegetables on a daily basis.
Incorporating raw juices in your daily lifestyle will not only help you lose weight (you can look at losing 1kg per week by taking up raw juicing), but will significantly increase your daily intake of raw fruit and vegetables, with all the vitamins these have. Juices should be drank within minutes from their production, to maximise your intake of their vitamins.
About Store Bought Juices
Many store bought juices are pasteurised, and alot of these may have on their label “contains real fruit juice”, making it difficult to understand whether these are really good for you or not. The downside of these store bought juices could include;
- may contain alot of sugar and water to increase the volume and sweetness of the juice
- most are produced using high speed centrifugal machines, causing heat and oxidation of the juice
- most are pasteurised to increase their shelf life, cooking the juice for 45 minutes at 100 degrees celsius, damaging most of the nutrients in the juice
- most are reduced to a concentrate, removing most of the water from the juice, making it easier to store and transport, to then add back water and other juices to bring it to its end product and desired taste.
All the above make most store bought Juices very unattractive for who is looking for a really healthy drink. If you have to buy a store bought juice, look at the label and look for these things;
- not pasteurised
- not from concentrate
- free from colourings and preservatives
- no added sugars
- organic
- fresh
- cold pressed juice
- short shelf life
Adding to your Juice
Juicing can help you improve your health in many ways. Apart from significantly increasing your daily intake of raw fruit and vegetables, one can add many superfoods in their daily juice. Superfoods include;
an algae with many antioxidants and nutrients
a healthy grain or cereal with many positive effects on your well being
Adding a scoop of protein powder in your fresh juice to increase your daily protein intake without eating alot of red meat and animal fats.
Conclusion
Juicing is absolutely great fun, you can make a different juice every day and you will see health and weight improvements after only a week or two. This can be truly life changing and is something you should really try.
The cost of a good juicer has went down alot over the years, and the quality of some juicers is really good, with very easy cleaning involved. With Juicing no peeling of the fruit and vegetable is required, just wash them and in some cases cut them in half (if too big), then they got straight into the Juicer and into your glass.
Enjoy Juicing you way to better health!