Juicing is an excellent conduit through which you can get many nutrients and enzymes that will improve your health. If you already juice or want to start, here’s some tips that can help you get more from your juicing efforts.
Try to use locally-grown fruits and vegetables in your juicing. The best option is to use produce that you’ve grown yourself. Every mile that a piece of fruit needs to be transported to get to you increases the carbon footprint of your glass of juice. It also increases the chance of your produce becoming contaminated with bacteria or chemicals.
Don’t leave out vegetables from your regular diet just because you’re getting them in your juice. Even fresh juice doesn’t provide all of the same benefits as eating whole vegetables, especially when it comes to fiber. Juicing should be used to add to your daily vegetable consumption, not to replace it.
If you’re going to start a juicing diet, it may be helpful to start with a few days of eating primarily fruits and vegetables before going over to all-juice. This helps reduce dependence on sugar, flour, and other common diet staples that can make a juice diet difficult to swallow.
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.
When you begin to juice, begin with vegetables that you already find palatable. Do not start with only sweet fruits because to get the ultimate benefits of juicing you must include vegetables. Starting with simple vegetables that you enjoy will help you gradually become more familiar with the taste of vegetables in a juice.
You don’t have to buy a fancy juicer to start juicing, you can use a blender or food processor just to get the hang of it. In fact, a food processor can do just as good a job as a juicer! I also picked up an inexpensive citrus juicer, though, as I found doing it manually hurt my hands.
Pay close attention to which vegetables and fruits your juicer recommends. There are some fruits and vegetables that do not lend themselves well to juicing. Bananas are a great example of this, as they tend to thicken a mixture when added, which is why they are used in smoothies regularly. Blend these types of produce, as opposed to juicing, for best results.
Some items just aren’t made for the juicer, especially if they’re soft and mushy. For example, you’ll never be able to make a juice that is mostly banana, but you CAN put a half of a banana in a juice made with other firmer produce. Peaches tend to give the same result.
While you can keep the skin on fruit like apples or pears when you juice, some fruit actually have toxic skin. For example, citrus zest is fine for you, but the white part is bitter for a reason! Mango and papaya also have skin which is toxic to humans, so don’t include that in your juice.
Using wheat-grass in your juice is an excellent way to add a ton of tasty nutrients to the final product. Start with a little bit and increase how much you push through the machine until it’s all fed into the juicer. Follow with a hard fruit or vegetable to clean out the machine.
When it comes to juicing, one thing that you want to keep in mind is the fact that juice may lose it potency not long after it has been extracted from the fruit. This is important when you consider the shelf live of your product in comparison to your expected consumption rate.
If you don’t like the taste of certain vegetables that you should be eating for their nutritional benefit, try mixing them with fruit or vegetables you do like! Use only one disliked vegetable in a recipe and the flavors of the others that you do enjoy will overwhelm your taste buds so you don’t even notice it!
If receiving nutrition in an easy way is a reason for trying out juicing, it is a good idea for you to learn what vitamins and minerals are in the fruit or vegetables that you would be using. This way, you will be able to pick the right produce for the nutrition that you want to receive.
When you are making your own juice, the best vegetables to use are organic vegetables. By using organic vegetables, you are maximizing the benefits of juicing. When non-organic vegetables are used, you are adding unhealthy pesticides and chemicals into an otherwise healthy drink, which depletes the benefits of creating your own juice.
Studies have shown that the optimal intake of fruit and vegetables in a day is 8 or 9 servings per day. Most people are lucky to even get 2 to 3, but by juicing you can meet your minimums easily and tastily! Make sure that the bulk of the servings, preferably 5 to 6, are vegetables.
In fact, juicing is very simple and unmatched in its ability to nourish your body. When you follow the juicing tips presented here, you will become very skilled at juicing, and you’ll be ready to create your own juice delights right away.
