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Juices are a multivitamin/mineral supplement for people who dont want to take pills and capsules. Your body absorbs the nutrients much better than it does from pills. Although plants are full of vitamins, minerals, and other healing compounds, these substances are bound to vibrous tissue and contained within cellulose walls. When you grind up vegetables or fruits to make juice, you break down the cellulose, releasing these compounds and making them available for absorption.
Unless you chew very, very well, you wont get all the nutrients from food that you get from juice. In fact, juice is one of the most powerful whole foods that you can put in your body. It takes very little energy to digest it, so you maintain almost all of the energy and nutrients that it gives. Plus, it takes a whole lot of vegetables to get the same amount of nutrients found in one glass of juice.
A 6-ounce glass of carrot juice contains large amounts of beta-carotene, which, when its converted to vitamin A in the body, 948% of the Daily Value. The same glass of juice also contains 16 milligrams of vitamin C, 27% of the Daily Value. 0.4 milligram of vitamin B6, or 20% of the Daily Value; 537 milligram of potassium, or 15% of the DV, and 0.2 milligram of thiamin, or 11%of the Daily Value.
Juicing can even help to control your weight. Drinking juices helps the body iron out its nutritional deficiencies, which leaves you more satisfied from a healthy diet and less likely to overeat.
Despite their nutritional goodness, juices should be used to supplement fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains in your diet, not to replace them. Juices dont contribute much toward the 20 to 35 grams of fiber that adults need each day. For example, eight carrots provide 17 grams of fiber, while a 6-ounce glass of juice contains a measly 2 grams.
Fresh juices supply more than the necessary vitamins and minerals. They also contain a variety of phytonutrients. If you have read my article: Phytochemicals, compounds to cut cancer and heart disease, you would know it already. Perhaps the best-known of the phytonutrients is beta-carotene, a plant pigment that gives the orange color on sweet potatoes and carrots and the red on tomatoes.
Fruit and vegetables also contain flavonoids, compounds that have strong antioxidant power and prevent low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. You can read all about flavonoids in my article:Flavonoids, Powerful Antioxidants to prevent Cancer and Heart Disease. Also:Healthy for Life with Digestive Enzymes.
In a large study of more than 100,000 people, researchers found that adding one serving of fruits and vegetables to the diet each day lowered the risk of ischemic stroke, a stroke in which the artery to the brain is blocked. By 6 percent. The best protection came from citrus fruits, dark green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables, which include broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage.
Other studies have shown that antioxidants help prevent Alzheimers disease. In 2002, researchers studied nearly 5,500 people and found that those who ate diets rich in the antioxidant vitamins C and E, lowered their risk of developing Alzheimers disease. Drinking a large variety of vegetable and fruit juices is a wonderful way to get therapeutic amounts of all of these healing compounds.
Drink your juices right away, otherwise it will lose their nutritional benefits and the flavor is also fleeting. Some juices, like cabbage, become funky in a few hours. So its best to make only as much as you plan to drink right away.
Focus on vegetables. While a tall glass of fruit juice may appeal to you, its better to concentrate on vegetable juices. Fruit juices are high in sugar and too acidic to drink in large quantities. Vegetable juices are better nutritionally. For maximum healing benefits, drink vegetable juices from a variety of vegetables. The more variety you can put into your diet, the better.
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