Juicing isn’t new at all a new phenomenon, but health professionals are now taking this simple process to a whole new level. As the nutritional value of food has dwindled over the years, we have turned to supplements to ensure that our body gets what it needs. But we can’t live on handfuls of pills alone. Starting each day with a delicious cellular boosting juice may well revolutionize your diet – and your world.
What are the benefits of juicing?
Many of us have spent years eating nutritionally deficient food, and clinical nutritionist Nicola Bentley, from Johannesburg, states: “Juicing is really about getting live nutrients into the body. It is a beautiful way of getting all you need in one drink.”
Beryn Daniel, raw food chef, author and founder of Rawlicious, adds: “Juicing provides a simple and effective way to get maximum goodness into the body. Alkalizing leafy greens can help to rebalance our body, but we can’t really eat enough greens without having to graze on grass all day long. By extracting the juice from the fibre, juicing pre-digests the fruits and vegetables for you, making the nutrients easy to absorb.”
If you combine vegetables and fruit with leafy greens, you can gain the most benefit from juicing. Bentley explains: “The more alkaline your body, the more optimal the environment for cellular activity. Eating lots of processed foods and animal products makes us very acidic and prone to disease. By having a green juice every day, it reverses the acidity. The chlorophyll in the leaves is so close to the haemoglobin in the blood; therefore it helps to feed and build the blood. It also restores the electrical charge between cells. Chlorophyll is also a known antioxidant that helps prevent DNA destruction. The concentrated food nutrients of green juice are more bioavailable (easier for the body to recognize and use) than many nutritional supplements.”
Here are ten reasons for juicing:
1. Cleansing and alkalizing.
Green leafy vegetables and grasses are cleansing and alkalizing to the body. By juicing them, you help to balance your pH level and keep your body in optimum health. They may also lower heart failure risk. Click here to find out more about this.
2. Enzymes.
Freshly extracted juices are the best source of live enzymes, which are essential for the assimilation of nutrients.
3. Nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
Vegetable juices provide your body with a high concentration of absorbable chlorophyll, amino acids, minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients.
4. Easier to digest and absorb.
Juicing takes the strain off the digestive system. By extracting the juice from the fibre and opening the cellulose capsule, the nutrients are more readily available for easy absorption.
5. Easier to consume.
Alkalizing green foods help to rebalance the body after years of eating nutritionally deficient food. Juicing provides a simple and effective way to get maximum alkalizing goodness into the body.
6. True hydration.
The planet is over 70% water, and so is our body. Our blood consists of around 94% water. Foods in their natural and raw state have a high water content. By drinking these mineral and water-rich juices, we can ensure proper hydration.
7. Antioxidants.
Green juice provides the body with huge amounts of antioxidants. Antioxidants fortify our immune system and stop our body from rusting from the inside out.
8. Delivers oxygen to your cells.
When the body is acidic, the red blood cells clump together and oxygen cannot get to all of the cells. Juicing alkalizes the blood so that the red blood cells can flow freely again, and deliver oxygen to each and every cell in your body. When your body is charged with oxygen, your mind is clear and sharp, and you feel energized.
9. Disease prevention.
It is no coincidence that strong therapeutic green vegetable, sprout and grass juices form the cornerstone of many successful disease-prevention centers and clinics around the world (eg the Hippocrates Institute, Boston).
10. Calming.
The magnesium and chlorophyll in green juices soothe and calm the nervous system, and minimize stress in the body.
In recent research, chlorophyll was found to be an interceptor molecule that reduces absorption of ingested carcinogens in the gut, as shown in a 2006 paper published in the journal Nutrition Research. Chlorophyll also protects the human lymphocyte DNA and enhances its ability to resist oxidative damage, according to a 2005 paper published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.
